St. Thomas Aquinas 'Nicomachean Ethics'

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Each one of the philosophers that we have studied in this course , all have their perception of what the definition of virtue is , and how is impacts political economy. Aristotle talks a lot about how virtue relates to political economy as well as happiness in his piece “Nicomachean Ethics”.From my research, the overall concept that I can come with about how Aristotle felt about virtue could be summed up as “everything in moderation”, and also which I will expand on. St.Thomas Aquinas believes that in order to attain virtue, man must use the four laws of law in their lives and understand how to find the exceptions for those rules. Madeville believes that society should measure its virtue off of the level of production and capitalism. Each…show more content…
He points out in “Summa Theologica that there are exceptions to these laws, and I agree with that point. There is so much about the Bible and natural law that can be left up to each persons interpretations. Aquinas includes one of these types of exceptions within a response to a question about “whether it is lawful to steal though stress of need?” he basically responded saying that there are times in life, like this were a man has to make a judgment. In his response to the question, he states “if the need be so manifest and urgent , that it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means be at hand, then it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another`s property”. This is a clear objection of what he would call human law. However knowing that, he understands that there are exceptions like these within life that allow man to make exceptions about how to follow the laws. If man only follows these laws blindly, its not really a relationship that they re having with God, or their “eternal” figure, its more of just blind submission which isn't truly allowing man to use the clinical learning and reasoning skills that God gave to

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