Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology ed. by Scott MacDonald (review)

150 BOOK REVIEWS Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology. Edited by SCOTT MACDONALD. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. 328. $43.95 cloth, $14.95 paper. The quality of these (mostly) new essays and the modest price make Being and Goodness recommendable, almost as two anthologies in one. This ambitious collection has a split personality: careful interpretations of medieval texts (in part I) are yoked to intriguing contributions to contemporary discussions in metaethics and philosophical theology (in part II). Four essays by Eleonore Stump, Norman Kretzman, or both, appear to he the heart and inspiration of this anthology. Their contributions are about 40% of the length of the volume; and their collaborative essay, "Being and Goodness" (the only reprinted essay included), pro· vides both the collection's title and its theme, which is to enrich con· temporary debate in philosophical theology and virtue ethics by :mining the resources of the ancient and medieval tradition that " the terms ' being ' and 'goodness ' are the same in reference, differing only in sense" 99). Other contributors (Scott MacDonald, Jan A. Aertsen, Ralph Mc· Inerny, Mark D. Jordan, and Jorge J. E. Gracia analyze medieval texts in the tradition from Augustine to Suarez; William E. Mann and Thomas V. Morris contribute essays in philosophical theology) do not integrate historical analysis and original speculation. The editor frames this collection with a fine introductory survey of the being/goodness tradition from Plato through the Middle Ages, a considerable (13 page) bibliography, and a new translation of Boethi.us's De hebdomadibus, which was an influential text in the tradition. There are two distinct ways of conceiving the necessary connection between being and goodness. The " participation approach," which sees being as metaphysically and causally dependent upon goodness, tends to a theological and relational account of goodness: creatures are good only because they are created by God, who is goodness in itself. The "nature approach," on the other hand, derives from Aristotle and tends to neither a theological nor a relational account of goodness. It identifies the good with the end, or telos of a being: an existing thing is good when it fully actualizes its intrinsic nature. The tension he0 tween these approaches can lead to confusion or to fruitful synthesis. For example, Albert the Great took up contradictory accounts of goodness in part hecause he failed to distinguish the two senses of " end " {as intention and as nature) characteristic of the pm:ticipation and BOOK REVIEWS 151 nature approaches, according to MacDonald's "The Metaphysics of Goodness and the Doctrine of the Transcendentals." On the other hand, Aquinas successfully combined approaches in his exploration of the tension between the views that ' good ' is a common name applicable to all beings (Aristotelian) and that only God is 'good' (Platonic), argues Jan A. Aer·tsen in "Good as Transcendental and the Transcendence of the Good." Stump and Kretzmann begin " Being and Goodness " with a lucid summary and defense of Aquinas's metaethics as a worthy contender for " the metaethical foundation that recent virtue-centered morality has been criticized for lacking" (p. 98). Aquinas's view that goodness is a property which supervenes upon a natural property, the actualiza· tion of the individual's " substantial form," follows the nature approach. Their derivation of Aquinas's normative ethical rules from this metae· thics responds to critics who claim virtue-theoretical approaches do not illumine the role of deontological rules in morality. They explore implications for theories of religious ethics (the divine-command theory is avoided) and certain solutions to the problem of evil; these explorations are relatively undeveloped, but intriguing. Stump builds on this collaborative essay in her "Aquinas on Faith and Goodness" when she argues that Aquinas's being/goodness meta· ethics explains why God would want humans to accept propositions about God on faith rather than knowledge, why having faith is meri· torious, and why epistemological weighing of evidence plays only a minor part in adult religious conversions. Stump's conclusions are based on her thesis that when one assents to the proposition " God exists" on faith, one is "metaphysically justified" in this belief because one hungers for perfect goodness, perfect...