M. V. Dougherty

Thomas Aquinas's Disputed Questions on Evil is a careful and detailed analysis of the general topic of evil, including discussions on evil as privation, human free choice, the cause of moral evil, moral failure, and the so-called seven deadly sins. This collection of ten, specially commissioned new essays, the first book-length English-language study of Disputed Questions on Evil, examines the most interesting and philosophically relevant aspects of Aquinas's work, highlighting what is distinctive about it and situating it in relation not only to Aquinas's other works but also to contemporary philosophical debates in metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of action. The essays also explore the history of the work's interpretation. The volume will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of philosophical disciplines including medieval philosophy and history of philosophy, as well as to theologians.

This volume provides a comprehensive presentation of the philosophical work of the fifteenth-century Renaissance thinker Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. In essays specially commissioned for this book, a distinguished group of scholars presents the central topics and texts of Pico's literary output. Best known as the author of the celebrated 'Oration on the Dignity of Man', Pico also wrote several other prominent works. They include an influential diatribe against astrology, an ambitious metaphysical treatise attempting to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysical views, and writings on a range of subjects such as magic, Kabbalah, the Church, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of knowledge. The first volume of its kind in English, this collection of essays will be of value not only to advanced students and specialists of late medieval and Renaissance thought, but also to those interested in Italian humanism and Renaissance Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism.

In recent years, Alasdair MacIntyre and others have observed an increasing interest on the part of contemporary ethicists regarding the question of whetherinnocent agents ever find themselves in moral dilemmas. This present-day support for the existence of moral dilemmas for innocent agents has spawned a re-reading of canonical ethical texts in the history of philosophy. The point of departure for the present paper is one particularly contentious battleground of this ongoing historical retrieval, namely, the ethical writings of Thomas Aquinas. I contend that Aquinas is not an ally of those who defend the existence of moral dilemmas for innocent agents. However, Aquinas does present what is in my view a valuable contribution to the discussion of moral dilemmas as such. I show that a close textual reading of one of Aquinas’s examples leads to some rather interesting consequences for his moral theory, and that, surprisingly, this example could be of interest to contemporary ethicists who argue for the existence of moral luck.

In recent years, Alasdair MacIntyre and others have observed an increasing interest on the part of contemporary ethicists regarding the question of whetherinnocent agents ever find themselves in moral dilemmas. This present-day support for the existence of moral dilemmas for innocent agents has spawned a re-reading of canonical ethical texts in the history of philosophy. The point of departure for the present paper is one particularly contentious battleground of this ongoing historical retrieval, namely, the ethical writings of Thomas Aquinas. I contend that Aquinas is not an ally of those who defend the existence of moral dilemmas for innocent agents. However, Aquinas does present what is in my view a valuable contribution to the discussion of moral dilemmas as such. I show that a close textual reading of one of Aquinas’s examples leads to some rather interesting consequences for his moral theory, and that, surprisingly, this example could be of interest to contemporary ethicists who argue for the existence of moral luck.

This volume is the most recent addition to the relatively new series Contemporary Philosophy in Focus published by Cambridge University Press. Previous volumes have focused on Stanley Cavell, Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Thomas Kuhn, and Robert Nozick. The series is patterned after the well-respected Cambridge Companion series, with the difference between the two appearing to be merely that the former treats of living or recently living philosophers, while the latter for the most part deals with major philosophers who have been deceased for some time. The present volume under review is dedicated to the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre, and a commissioned team of seven scholars has presented a helpful collection of essays on diverse aspects of his thought. The volume is not a history of MacIntyre’s lengthy philosophical odyssey, but rather it focuses more narrowly on what is referred to in the volume as the “After Virtue project,” namely, the massive ongoing and developing project initiated with MacIntyre’s critically-acclaimed After Virtue and continued with Whose Justice? Which Rationality, Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry, and Dependent Rational Animals. Thus, the volume for the most part does not treat of MacIntyre’s earlier works in philosophy that do not appear within the trajectory of the “After Virtue project,” for example, works in the field of philosophical theology.