Tobias Hoffmann

Would there be possibles if God did not exist? The interpretative impasse on this point has been mainly due to the failure to recognize an ambiguity in Scotus’s terminology. “Possibilia” are (1) the eidetic natures of things or (2) the possibility for a creature to exist. In this paper I argue that Scotus denies that God is responsible for giving things the possibility of existence. In this sense, possibles do not depend on God. Yet I also argue that according to Scotus, only God can originate the eidetic natures of creatures, i.e., the natures of which possibility is predicated. If God did not exist, there would be no possibles, because there would be no eidetic natures and thus no subjects of which possibility could be affirmed. What leads Scotus to this view are not so much considerations pertaining to modal logic but rather epistemological concerns.

This article examines different medieval explanations of the causes of moral goodness, principally the end of the agent and the object of the action. Special attention is given to Thomas Aquinas, who considers the end (that which is willed) to be not only the origin of moral goodness, but also its main criterion. Peter Abelard, whose ethics I argue to be non-subjectivist, had developed a similar theory, though the vocabulary he uses is not very refined. By contrast, for Albert and Duns Scotus, the end is accidental to the moral act. The importance of this study is to shed light on the subjective and objective criteria by which to evaluate the morality of actions.

Most acts of the will have a complex structure, i.e. wanting A in relation to B . Duns Scotus makes the innovative claim that the will itself is responsible for the order of this complex structure. It does this by causing its own will-dependent relations, which he construes as a kind of mind-dependent relations . By means of these relations, the will can arrange the terms of its will-acts independently of any arrangement proposed by the intellect. This not only allows the structure of one's will-act to diverge from the structure proposed by the intellect's final practical judgement; the structure of the will-act need not even have been considered by the intellect at all. One could, therefore, even will an inconceivable state of affairs. I argue that this theory, which scholars have virtually ignored, is fundamental to Scotus's account of divine, angelic, and human freedom, and that it follows necessarily from his voluntarist understanding of freedom. For Scotus, if the will could not structure its acts independently of the intellect, it would not be free

The paper investigates Aquinas’s explanation of how the incontinent can make moral progress. The incontinent cannot be healed by moral instruction, because they already know what is best, but fail to act accordingly. Their moral knowledge has to be interiorized. Thus by attaining prudence and the moral virtues, moral knowledge becomes practically effective knowledge. Yet these virtues are no remedy for the incontinent, who are still struggling to attain them. By reason and will they can resist individual acts of incontinence, but in order to resist incontinence consistently, they need the assistance of grace.

This paper intends to show that Aquinas gives a non-deterministic account of free decision. Angelic sin is the eminent test case: ex hypothesi, angels are supremely intelligent and not subject to ignorance, passions, or negatively disposing habits. Nothing predetermines their choice; rather it ultimately depends on their freedom alone. All angels acted based upon reasons, but why certain angels acted for an inadequate reason whereas others for an adequate reason cannot be fully explained. Thomas's action theory allows him to explain angelic choice as contingent and selfdetermined. The salient features of this explanation are transferable to human free decision

From the early reception of Thomas Aquinas up to the present, many have interpreted his theory of liberum arbitrium to imply intellectual determinism: we do not control our choices, because we do not control the practical judgments that cause our choices. In this paper we argue instead that he rejects determinism in general and intellectual determinism in particular, which would effectively destroy liberum arbitrium as he conceives of it. We clarify that for Aquinas moral responsibility presupposes liberum arbitrium and thus the ability to do otherwise, although the ability to do otherwise applies differently to praise and blame. His argument against intellectual determinism is not straightforward, but we construct it by analogy to his arguments against other deterministic threats. The non-determinism of the intellect’s causality with respect to the will results from his claims that practical reasoning is defeasible and that the reasons for actions are not contrastive reasons.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the text which had the single greatest influence on Aquinas's ethical writings, and the historical and philosophical value of Aquinas's appropriation of this text provokes lively debate. In this volume of new essays, thirteen distinguished scholars explore how Aquinas receives, expands on and transforms Aristotle's insights about the attainability of happiness, the scope of moral virtue, the foundation of morality and the nature of pleasure. They examine Aquinas's commentary on the Ethics and his theological writings, above all the Summa theologiae. Their essays show Aquinas to be a highly perceptive interpreter, but one who also brings certain presuppositions to the Ethics and alters key Aristotelian notions for his own purposes. The result is a rich and nuanced picture of Aquinas's relation to Aristotle that will be of interest to readers in moral philosophy, Aquinas studies, the history of theology and the history of philosophy.

Certain traits of the magnanimous man of the Nicomachean Ethics seem incompatible with gratitude and humility. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas are the first commentators of the Latin West who had access to the integral portrayal of magnanimity in the Nicomachean Ethics. Surprisingly, they welcomed the Aristotelian ideal of magnanimity without reservations. The paper summarizes Aristotle’s account of magnanimity, discusses briefly the transformation of this notion in Stoicism and early scholasticism, and analyzes Albert’s and Thomas’s interpretation of Aristotle. Thomas is found to be a more faithful and ingenious interpreter than Albert. He addresses and solves a number of philosophical problems of Aristotle’s account that still puzzle contemporary interpreters.

This book studies medieval theories of angelology insofar as they made groundbreaking contributions to medieval philosophy. The discussion of angels, made famous by the humanist caricature of ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’, was nevertheless a crucial one in medieval philosophical debates. All scholastic masters pronounced themselves on angelology, if only in their Sentence commentaries. The questions concerning angelic cognition, speech, free decision, movement, etc. were springboards for profound philosophical discussions that have to do with anthropology and metaphysics no less than with angelology. Angels qua separate substances were of central importance in medieval metaphysics (with questions on universal hylomorphism, the esse- essentia composition of creatures, and those regarding individuation of material and immaterial substances). The doctrine of angels has not been the subject of much study in the history of medieval thought, and the volume fills an important gap in the literature. The chapters offer a well-rounded, if not encyclopedic discussion in the chronological or doctrinal sense. They cover the history of debate from Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius until the later middle ages, but instead of an author-by-author approach, focus rather on seminal ideas with demonstrable relevance to “secular” and modern philosophical concerns.

According to Henry of Ghent, akrasia (incontinence or weakness of will) does not presuppose, but rather produces a cognitive defect. By tracing akratic actions and other evil actions to a corruption in the will rather than to a cognitive defect, Henry wants to safeguard their freedom. Though the will is able to reject what the intellect judges as best here and now, strength and freedom of the will increase to the degree that one adheres more firmly to the good. What strengthens the will are the moral virtues, which are essentially virtues of the will.

Duns Scotus vigorously defends an idea foreign to Greek philosophers, namely that the individual has a higher ontological dignity than the species. He develops this view in two contexts: the problem of the principle of individuation and the discussion of divine ideas of individuals. This article focuses on the latter, in which Scotus critiques Aquinas, whom he mistakenly interprets as denying that there are divine ideas of individuals, as well as Henry of Ghent, who repeatedly rejects this hypothesis. In connection with the claim that God has distinct ideas for each individual, Scotus argues that the intentio naturae concerns not merely the species, but also individu-als. Contrary to Greek thought, therefore, Scotus holds that the purpose of individuals is not merely to guarantee the eternity of the species; rather, they have an intrinsic value.