The Root of Friendship: Self-Love and Self-Governance in Aquinas

6. Aquinas in Dialogue with Contemporary Accounts

6 Aquina s in Di a l o gue with Conte mpor a ry Accoun ts Schneewind gives the following synopsis of his motive for writing The Invention of Autonomy: I planned from the beginning to make Kant the focal point of this study because I thought, as I still do, that his conception of morality as autonomy provides a better place to start working out a contemporary philosophical understanding than anything we can get from other past philosophers.1 Given Kant’s robust influence on debates concerning the nature of autonomy in the last two centuries, Schneewind is clearly not alone in his admiration of Kant’s thought. However, due to various deficiencies perceived in the Kantian understanding of self-governance and autonomy, thinkers have developed new, and predominately nonhistorically based, approaches to the issue. In Personal Autonomy : New Essays on Personal Autonomy and Its Role in Contemporary Moral Philosophy, James Taylor writes: 1. Schneewind, Invention of Autonomy, xiv. 114 g Dialogue with Contemporary Accounts 115 In recent years, the concept of autonomy has become ubiquitous in moral philosophy. Discussions of the nature of autonomy, its value, and how one should respect it are now commonplace in philosophical debates, ranging from the metaphysics of moral responsibility to the varied concerns of applied philosophy.... The concept of autonomy has, of course, been important for moral philosophy for some time, being central to the ethical theories of both Immanuel Kant and such contemporary Kantians as Thomas Hill and Christine Korsgaard. However, recent interest in personal autonomy does not focus on the Kantian conception of autonomy on which a person is autonomous if her will is entirely devoid of all personal interests. Instead, it focuses on a more individualistic conception of this notion, whereby a person is autonomous with respect to her desires, actions , or character to the extent that they originate in some way from her motivational set, broadly construed.2 These new approaches have broken the Kantian grip over discussions involving self-governance—a development I consider positive particularly as it opens the door for other historical accounts to be seriously considered. That being said, I think the new, mostly nonhistorical approaches , while worthwhile, miss out on rich and insightful conceptual resources found in historical approaches, specifically those of the eudaimonist self-governance tradition and Aquinas in particular. This chapter addresses some of the insights Aquinas’s account can provide to current discussions on self-governance. I focus on how his account treats issues pertaining to personal integration and the social dimension of self-governance, predominantly as framed by hierarchical approaches to self-governance and direct responses to such accounts. I take this approach for two reasons: first, hierarchical accounts and responses to them form the basis of most contemporary discussion; second, Aquinas’s account shares some of the key structural points with the hierarchical approach. While a full exploration of these issues lies beyond the scope of this book, I show some fundamental ways we can fruitfully apply Aquinas’s account to current debates. 2. James Stacey Taylor, ed., Personal Autonomy: New Essays on Personal Autonomy and Its Role in Contemporary Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1. 116 Dialogue with Contemporary Accounts Hier a rchica l Account s a nd R e s pons e s Kant’s view of moral autonomy suggests an internal divide within each person; a person possesses both a rational will that legislates the moral law, with its associated obligation to follow that law, and various subrational desires, which are not based in the will. This internal constitution consisting of differing aspects gives rise to the question of what one should do about any internal struggle between moral obligations and lower desires. Kant, at times, indicates that obeying the moral law in spite of this very struggle is the mark of moral praiseworthiness .3 However, some contemporary thinkers object that this struggle is indicative of a lack of personal integration; a person is split down the middle, which makes for an undesirable life.4 In response to this problem, Frankfurt proposes an alternative to the Kantian approach. He offers an account of autonomy based on a hierarchy of desires, contending that a person should seek to avoid the above lack of personal integration and instead strive for “wholeheartedness” in what he does. Dworkin addresses the issue in terms of “authenticity,” or the identification with one’s desires.5 Taylor offers...