Read and Download eBook Full
Author: Jason T. Eberl
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2006-09-27
Total Pages: 169
ISBN-13: 1135986185
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAlongside a revival of interest in Thomas Aquinas' thought (Thomism) in philosophy, this book reveals its contemporary relevance when addressing certain complex, morally difficult, issues in bioethics.
Author: Jason T. Eberl
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2006-09-27
Total Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 1135986177
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAlongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas’s views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life – questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media such as: When does a human person’s life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person’s death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? Thomistic Principles and Bioethics presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern.
Author: Jason T. Eberl
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Published: 2020-06-25
Total Pages: 545
ISBN-13: 0268107750
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIs there a shared nature common to all human beings? What essential qualities might define this nature? These questions are among the most widely discussed topics in the history of philosophy and remain subjects of perennial interest and controversy. The Nature of Human Persons offers a metaphysical investigation of the composition of the human essence. For a human being to exist, does it require an immaterial mind, a physical body, a functioning brain, a soul? Jason Eberl also considers the criterion of identity for a developing human being—that is, what is required for a human being to continue existing as a person despite undergoing physical and psychological changes over time? Eberl's investigation presents and defends a theoretical perspective from the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Advancing beyond descriptive historical analysis, this book places Aquinas’s account of human nature into direct comparison with several prominent contemporary theories: substance dualism, emergentism, animalism, constitutionalism, four-dimensionalism, and embodied mind theory. These theories inform various conclusions regarding when human beings first come into existence—at conception, during gestation, or after birth—and how we ought to define death for human beings. Finally, each of these viewpoints offers a distinctive rationale as to whether, and if so how, human beings may survive death. Ultimately, Eberl argues that the Thomistic account of human nature addresses the matters of human nature and survival in a much more holistic and desirable way than the other theories and offers a cohesive portrait of one’s continued existence from conception through life to death and beyond.
Author: Jean Porter
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 440
ISBN-13: 9780802849069
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis noteworthy book develops a new theory of the natural law that takes its orientation from the account of the natural law developed by Thomas Aquinas, as interpreted and supplemented in the context of scholastic theology in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Though this history might seem irrelevant to twenty-first-century life, Jean Porter shows that the scholastic approach to the natural law still has much to contribute to the contemporary discussion of Christian ethics. Aquinas and his interlocutors provide a way of thinking about the natural law that is distinctively theological while at the same time remaining open to other intellectual perspectives, including those of science. In the course of her work, Porter examines the scholastics' assumptions and beliefs about nature, Aquinas's account of happiness, and the overarching claim that reason can generate moral norms. Ultimately, Porter argues that a Thomistic theory of the natural law is well suited to provide a starting point for developing a more nuanced account of the relationship between specific beliefs and practices. While Aquinas's approach to the natural law may not provide a system of ethical norms that is both universally compelling and detailed enough to be practical, it does offer something that is arguably more valuable -- namely, a way of reflecting theologically on the phenomenon of human morality.
Author: Richard Berquist
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Published: 2019-10-11
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13: 0813232422
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom Human Dignity to Natural Law shows how the whole of the natural law, as understood in the Aristotelian Thomistic tradition, is contained implicitly in human dignity. Human dignity means existing for one’s own good (the common good as well as one’s individual good), and not as a mere means to an alien good. But what is the true human good? This question is answered with a careful analysis of Aristotle’s definition of happiness. The natural law can then be understood as the precepts that guide us in achieving happiness. To show that human dignity is a reality in the nature of things and not a mere human invention, it is necessary to show that human beings exist by nature for the achievement of the properly human good in which happiness is found. This implies finality in nature. Since contemporary natural science does not recognize final causality, the book explains why living things, as least, must exist for a purpose and why the scientific method, as currently understood, is not able to deal with this question. These reflections will also enable us to respond to a common criticism of natural law theory: that it attempts to derive statements of what ought to be from statements about what is. After defining the natural law and relating it to human or positive law, Richard Berquist considers Aquinas’s formulation of the first principle of the natural law. It then discusses the love commandments to love God above all things and to love one’s neighbor as oneself as the first precepts of the natural law. Subsequent chapters are devoted to clarifying and defending natural law precepts concerned with the life issues, with sexual morality and marriage, and with fundamental natural rights. From Human Dignity to Natural Law concludes with a discussion of alternatives to the natural law.
Author: Pamela M. Hall
Publisher:
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 176
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWith Narrative and the Natural Law Pamela Hall brings Thomistic ethics into conversation with ongoing debates in contemporary moral philosophy, especially virtue theory and moral psychology, and with current trends in narrative theory and the philosophy of history. Pamela M. Hall's study offers a solid, challenging alternative to rigid, legalistic interpretations of the substantial discussion of law in Aquinas's Summa theologiae and defends Aquinas's ethics from charges of excessive legalism. Hall argues that Aquinas's characterization of the content and relationship of natural, human and divine law indicates that his understanding of the quest for the human good is practical, communal, and historical. Hall maintains that natural law, the ongoing inquiry into what is the human good, is narrative both in terms of its internal structure and its being informed by the specific story of Scripture. According to Aquinas the discovery of natural law is enacted historically and progressively within communities and by individuals through a process of practical reasoning. Hall then goes on to show how natural law requires articulation by human law, and how both are connected to divine law (salvation history) as Aquinas understands it. Aquinas represents inquiry into the human good as a kind of historical narrative or story with stages or "chapters"; thus knowledge of natural law requires time and experience, as well as sustained reflection by individuals and by whole communities. Such learning of natural law implies the operation of prudence and the assistance of the moral virtues.
Author: Kevin L. Flannery
Publisher: CUA Press
Published: 2001
Total Pages: 356
ISBN-13: 9780813209883
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Although most natural law ethical theories recognize moral absolutes, there is not much agreement even among natural law theorists about how to identify them. The author argues that in order to understand and determine the morality (or immorality) of a human action, it must be considered in relation to the organized system of human practices within which it is performed. Such an approach, he argues, is to be found in the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas, especially once it is recognized that the logical structure of Aquinas's ethical theory is basically that of an Aristotelian science." "The book will be useful to students and scholars interested in ethics, especially from an Aristotelian and/or Thomistic perspective. One appendix reproduces the Leonine text of the De malo (question 6), with facing English translation. Another appendix provides facing Latin text and English translation of the Summa Theologiae I-II (question 94, article 2)."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Stephen Brock
Publisher: CUA Press
Published: 2021-05-07
Total Pages: 298
ISBN-13: 0813234255
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Both Thomistic scholars and analytic philosophers interested in theories of human action and accountability will find this book a welcome addition to their libraries. Truly a substantive addition to both Thomistic scholarship and the ongoing analytic investigation into human action and responsible agency."—American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly "A first-rate book...Brock's lucid and illuminating analysis offers much of value to both intellectual historians and theologians, as well as philosophers."—Theological Studies"Brock's treatment of Aquinas's account of action exhibits a rare combination of rigor and learning. It is, no doubt, the best we have."—The Thomist
Author: Craig Payne
Publisher:
Published: 2016-07-20
Total Pages: 232
ISBN-13: 9781530951727
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMedieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas accepted the definition of "person" offered by Boethius: that a person is "an individual substance of rational nature." By focusing on the human person's "rational nature" rather than on functional abilities, we are able to see today's bioethical issues more clearly and deal with them more compassionately. These essays also deal with human free will, the non-corporeal soul, natural law and modern science, the human beatific end, and many other topics.
Author: Willem Jacobus Eijk
Publisher: Connor Court Publishing Pty Limited
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 720
ISBN-13: 9781925138160
DOWNLOAD EBOOKModern medical technology and therapeutic options are in constant development and are far from having reached their limits. Many healthcare workers, biomedical scientists, pastoral caregivers and also patients wonder what are the moral consequences are what are the constraints. From their expertise in the fields of medicine and ethics and from the perspective of the practice of healthcare, the authors offer a helping hand in answering these questions. Taking into account the most recent developments many actual questions are discussed. They are presented according to the phases of life where medical-ethical questions may arise. Well-argued answers to these questions and dilemmas are given, based on the teachings of the Catholic Church. May these provide for the needs of Catholic healthcare workers, and all people of good will, who are searching for sources of inspiration to assist in the formation of their views on healthcare and spirituality.
