Thomas Says: It’s Wrong to Kill Yourself
After discussing questions about killing plants, animals, and sinners by private citizens, public officials, and clerics, Thomas picks up the weighty and delicate subject of suicide. His position is...
View ArticleThomas Says: Thanksgiving Edition
It shouldn’t surprise us that Thomas has written about thankfulness. There are very few topics that he did not cover. He devotes an entire question of the Summa to thankfulness. (It is part of his...
View ArticleThomas Says: Why We Shouldn’t Kill Each Other (And Why Sometimes We Should)
This question really is a no-brainer. It’s wrong to kill innocent people, right? Right. On a question like this, the answer isn’t surprising, so we need to pay attention to the reason why Thomas thinks...
View ArticleThomas Says: Why You Can (And Should) Kill in Self-Defense, Part 1
Fewer topics in Thomas’s moral philosophy have received more attention than his treatment of what has come to be known as double-effect. What is particularly interesting is that Thomas manages to...
View ArticleThomas Says: Why You Can (And Should) Kill in Self-Defense, Part 2
In this post, I want to conclude my summary and discussion of Thomas’s reasoning about killing in self-defense by examining the objections to his position that he considers and his replies to those...
View ArticleThomas Says: What Happens if, Whoops, I Killed You?
This is the second-to-last post summarizing the position on killing laid out by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa. In the concluding post I will pull together a number of points about his position on...
View ArticleThomas Says: A Recap on Killing
This is the last post in the Thomas Says series on killing. I want to summarize some points Thomas makes in this question of the Summa. First, let’s note the obvious, which hasn’t been noted yet in...
View ArticleThomas Says: So Scandalous!
Because you can never have too much Aquinas, I’ve decided to reboot my blogging here with another series on the thought of the Angelic Doctor. The first topic in the series was Thomas’s thoughts on...
View ArticleThomas Says: So Scandalous It’s a Sin
In the first post in this series on Aquinas’s account of scandal, we saw that Aquinas defines scandal as “something less rightly said or done that occasions spiritual downfall” and that he...
View ArticleThomas Says: Scandal, It’s So Special
This is the third in my intermittent series on Aquinas on the topic of scandal, which is covered in question 43 of the second part of the second part of his Summa Theologiae. In the first two posts I...
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