Was Aquinas an Egoist?

The Thomist 71 (2007): 577-608 WAS AQUINAS AN EGOIST? CHRISTOPHER TONER United States Air Force Academy, Colorado WHILE ARISTOTLE HAS BEEN the primary historical source in the recent revival of virtue ethics, Aquinas has played an important role in his own right, especially with such philosophers as Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Alasdair Macintyre.1 Virtue ethicists have drawn on and developed many aspects of the ethical thought of Aristotle and Aquinas. One point to which they have not paid sufficient attention is whether the classical and medieval conception of the moral life as the pursuit of happiness (eudaimonia, beatitudo) amounts to a (perhaps very subtle) form of egoism. Yet there are philosophers who have argued that eudaimonistic approaches like those of Aristotle and Aquinas are indeed egoistic. Strangely, it is often sympathetic commentators who make these arguments. They then go on to maintain that the theory in question is only "formally egoistic" or some such, and to suggest that this is not objectionable. Scott MacDonald and John Langan,2 whose views I shall consider below, take largely this approach to interpreting Aquinas. I find this problematic because it seems to 1 See Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), and Alasdair Macintyre, Dependent Rational Animals (Chicago: Open Court, 1999). 2 Scott MacDonald, "Egoistic Rationalism: Aquinas's Basis for Christian Morality," in Michael Beaty, ed., Christian Theism andthe Problems ofPhilosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 327-54, at 332; John Langan, S.J., "Egoism and Morality in the Theological Teleology ofThomasAquinas,"Journal ofPhilosophicalResearch 16 (1991): 41126 . Langan, I think, finds the egoism objectionable, but thinks we can salvage a substantial part of Aquinas's theory despite it. 577 578 CHRISTOPHER TONER me that "egoism" is "said together with the bad." Instead, I advocate an interpretation according to which Aquinas is no sort of egoist at all, but rather a perfectionist. After defining some key terms, I shall sketch a preliminary case for taking Aquinas to be an egoist, and then outline my own interpretation of him as a perfectionist who sees well-being as part of human perfection properly understood, and as choiceworthy precisely as perfective. Following this I shall set out arguments drawn from MacDonald and Langan, together with other arguments based on passages drawn from Aquinas's writings, that seek to show that, despite the reasons adduced for my interpretation, Aquinas was an egoist (or perhaps that he waffled between perfectionism and egoism). I shall respond to each of these arguments in turn, endeavoring to show how each prima facie plausible case for egoism collapses under the weight of closer scrutiny of the textual evidence. I accept the principle that inconsistency should be attributed to a great philosopher only when absolutely necessary; here is where I shall show that the attribution is not necessary even for the most "egoistic-sounding" passages of Aquinas. I. DEFINITIONS AND PRELIMINARY CLARIFICATIONS I use perfectionism in a nonconsequentialist way, such that a theory is perfectionist if it recommends to each agent that he or she pursue, as a primary and overriding goal, his or her own perfection.3 For human beings perfection consists, essentially, in virtuous activity; it is about being the best person one can be, acting well and "being good." Egoism, on the other hand, is about "well-being." It is the doctrine that each agent takes as his primary, overriding goal the achievement of his own welfare. This might initially seem to be a distinction without a difference: Is it not the case that in both doctrines the agent takes as his primary goal what is good for him? There is, however, a 3 The term "perfectionism" is often associated with Thomas Hurka'a agent-neutral version of the theory; not so here (the view I attribute to Aquinas is closer to what Hurka calls agentrelative perfectionism). WAS AQUINAS AN EGOIST? 579 crucial difference of emphasis. The perfectionist takes as his primary overriding goal what is good for him-the "for him" is necessary because what it is to be good varies across persons (e.g., a man who has children cannot be good...