Kant and Aquinas: Ethical Theory

KANT AND AQUINAS : ETHICAL THEORY WORKS purporting to report carefully and fairly the content of the ethical teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas often display serious deficiencies: want of precision in the grasp of meanings, want of correctness in the interpretation of statements, want of wit in the tracing of arguments , and want of comprehension and sympathy in the judgment of the system. These deficiencies astonish the careful student of St. Thomas and disturb those who have found his teaching helpful in the pursuit of the special end of practical knowledge. But the students of other attempts in this field and the disciples of other men working in this field have equally often had just cause for astonishment and dismay. Too often the interests of polemic have been given a higher place than the interests of reason in finding truth and rectifying action. The careful examination of issues is often unimpressive . The methodical working out of positions is often unexciting. The impartial weighing of evidence is often inconclusive . Yet lazy devices of logic and commonplaces of dialectic and rhetoric, even when joined with stylistic brilliance and poetic luxuriance, are not suitable replacements for them. To what must we look for the answering of philosophic questions and the resolution of dialectical oppositions? If we can be satisfied with a philosophic structure based on arbitrary inclination or pre-existing contingent interest, then we may look to lazy devices of logic, commonplaces of dialectic and rhetoric, stylistic brilliance and poetic luxuriance. But if our philosophic structure is to be based on the rational but objective necessity of the thing itself, then we must examine issues carefully, work out the positions ploddingly and weigh the evidence impartially. On this basis we can see the reason for the use of historical analysis in the field of philosophy. It is true that we can learn 44 KANT AND AQUINAS: ETHICAL THEORY 45 from our predecessors in what they have said well and benefit from their guidance where they proceeded rightly. We can also learn from them in what they spoke badly and benefit from them by learning not to follow their erring path, for in them we can see the end to which their path will lead. But these values can be gained only by assuming the point of view of a neutral observer whose judgment waits on the evidence, and these values will certainly be lost if we immediately assume the attitude of a party to the dispute to be judged. Comparison of the results of philosophic work must therefore be done in as impartial a manner as evidence ought to be weighed in a court of law. Neither the conditions of the inquiry nor the predispositions of the judge should determine right independently of the prior determination by the evidence presented. Our work in this article is limited in scope. We wish to examine the issues between the ethical theories of Kant and Aquinas and to work out their positions. But the work is limited by the shortness of this article and by the limitation of our own investigation. We offer here a group of notes suggestive of a study to be made rather than the finished work itself. I There have been three perennial philosophic reductions. One of them reduces the problem of the Qrganization of action and inclination according to what ought to be, and the problem of the organization of operations and materials according to what is to be through them, to the unique problem of the organization of facts according to formal relationships. A second perennial philosophic reduction reduces the enterprise of ordering materials through systematic procedures to predetermined results, and the enterprise of ordering investigation according to clues found in the thing itself to unexpected discoveries, to the unique enterprise of ordering actions and men to the relief of tensions endlessly created by endless attempts to relieve tensions . A third perennial philosophic reduction reduces the 46 GERMAIN G. GRISEZ elaboration of scientific structure out of data collected, and the elaboration of human life in society out of human capacity and human need to the unique elaboration of the real from the self. If we want labels we might call these...