Stewart Clem

Aquinas Institute of Theology
Saint Louis University
  •  3512
    Alvin Plantinga’s theory of knowledge, as developed in his Warrant trilogy, has shaped the debates surrounding many areas in epistemology in profound ways. Plantinga has received his share of criticism, however, particularly in his treatment of belief in God as being “properly basic”. There has also been much confusion surrounding his notions of warrant and proper function, to which Plantinga has responded numerous times. Many critics remain unsatisfied, while others have developed alternative u…Read more
  •  1810
    In recent scholarship, moral theologians and readers of Thomas Aquinas have shown increasing sensitivity to the role of the passions in the moral life. Yet these accounts have paid inadequate attention to Thomas's writings on Christ's passions as a source of moral reflection. As I argue in this essay, Thomas's writings on Christ's human affectivity should not be limited to the concerns of Christology; rather, they should be integrated into a fuller account of the human passions. One upshot of th…Read more
  •  852
    The Epistemic Relevance of the Virtue of Justice
    Philosophia 41 (2): 301-311. 2013.
    Recent literature on the relationship between knowledge and justice has tended to focus exclusively on the social and ethical dimensions of this relationship (e.g. social injustices related to knowledge and power, etc.). For the purposes of this article, I am interested in examining the virtue of justice and its effects on the cognitive faculties of its possessor (and, correspondingly, the effects of the vice of injustice). Drawing upon Thomas Aquinas’s account of the virtue of justice, I argue …Read more
  •  695
    In this article, I argue that Immanuel Kant fails to provide a satisfactory account of ‘moral debt’ in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. More precisely, he fails to answer the question of why we should assume that a debt exists in the first place. In light of recent scholarship on this area of his thought, I sketch some possible readings of Kant on the nature of moral transformation that suggest how he might account for this debt. I then argue that these accounts fail to justify its…Read more
  •  67
    Post-Truth and Vices Opposed to Truth
    Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 37 (2): 97-116. 2017.
    Philosopher Harry Frankfurt has famously coined “bullshit” as a technical term— it refers not to outright lying but rather to a casual indifference to truth. Disregard for truth is accepted and even expected in many contexts, yet it creates conditions for gross injustice and dehumanization. I offer an account of widespread cultural indifference to truth as structural sin, a condition I call “truth indifference.” Draw- ing on Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the virtue of truth (veracitas), I ma…Read more
  •  48
    Moral philosophers and theologians have long debated the classic moral dilemma of lying to an intruder in order to save a refugee. This dilemma presents an especially difficult challenge to those who reject consequentialist reasoning. Many contemporary defenders of Thomas Aquinas have argued that lying is never permissible under any circumstances, but none has offered a satisfactory answer to the question of what one ought to do when facing such a dilemma. I argue that there can be no morally sa…Read more
  •  41
    Still Human: A Thomistic Analysis of ‘Persistent Vegetative State’
    Studies in Christian Ethics 32 (1): 46-55. 2019.
    Would Aquinas hold the view that a patient in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) is something other than a human being? Some recent interpreters have argued for this position. I contend that this reading is grounded in a false symmetry between the three stages of Aquinas’s embryology and the (alleged) three-stage process of death. Instead, I show that there are textual grounds for rejecting the view that the absence of higher brain activity in a patient would lead Aquinas to say that the patien…Read more
  •  28
    In recent scholarship, moral theologians and readers of Thomas Aquinas have shown increasing sensitivity to the role of the passions in the moral life. Yet these accounts have paid inadequate attention to Thomas’s writings on Christ’s passions as a source of moral reflection. As I argue in this essay, Thomas’s writings on Christ’s human affectivity should not be limited to the concerns of Christology; rather, they should be integrated into a fuller account of the human passions. One upshot of th…Read more
  •  16
    In this essay, I argue that Christian ethicists should not think of themselves as religious ethicists. I defend this claim by arguing that the concept of religious ethics, as it has come to be understood as a discipline that is distinct from secular ethics, is incoherent. In part one, I describe the fraught attempts by theologians in the 20th century to identify the distinctiveness of Christian ethics. In part two, I argue that certain accounts of natural law unwittingly reinforce a problematic …Read more
  •  16
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Searching for a Universal Ethic: Multidisciplinary, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Responses to the Catholic Natural Law Tradition ed. by John Berkman and William C. Mattison IIIStewart D. ClemSearching for a Universal Ethic: Multidisciplinary, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Responses to the Catholic Natural Law Tradition Edited by John Berkman and William C. Mattison III GRAND RAPIDS, MI: EERDMANS, 2014. 339 PP. $35.00Despite it…Read more
  •  12
    Lying and truthfulness: a Thomistic perspective
    Cambridge University Press. 2023.
    This book draws on the thought of Thomas Aquinas to provide an innovative approach to the ethics of lying and truthfulness. It offers a definitive interpretation of Aquinas's thought on the morality of lying, and it makes a novel contribution to theological ethics.
  •  11
    Teaching Religion and Upholding Academic Freedom
    with Betsy Barre, Mark Berkson, Diana Fritz Cates, Simeon O. Ilesanmi, Thomas A. Lewis, Charles Mathewes, James McCarty, Irene Oh, Atalia Omer, Laurie L. Patton, and Kayla Renee Wheeler
    Journal of Religious Ethics 51 (2): 343-373. 2023.
    The editors of the JRE collected short essays from scholars of religion in response to a recent incident at Hamline University that made national headlines. Last fall, Hamline University administrators refused to extend a contract to an adjunct professor of art history after a Muslim student accused her of Islamophobia for showing a 14th‐century image of Mohammad in an online class. The event provoked intense conversations about issues of academic freedom, religious diversity, the status of cont…Read more
  •  5
    The Problem of Clinical Deception and Why We Cannot Begin in the Middle
    Hastings Center Report 53 (1): 28-29. 2023.
    In this brief commentary, I offer an appreciative yet critical analysis of Abram Brummett and Erica Salter's article, “Mapping the Moral Terrain of Clinical Deception.” I challenge the authors to clarify their choice of the term “deception” (as opposed to “lying” or “dishonesty”), and I explain how these different terms may affect one's moral analysis. I also draw attention to the authors’ claim that veracity is the ethical default of clinicians. I argue that their failure to defend this claim r…Read more
  •  2
    This essay explores the ways in which John Henry Newman’s preaching on asceticism can speak to the ostensible tension in contemporary Christianity between ‘spiritual’ and ‘earthly’ concerns. Newman contends, paradoxically, that a conscious self-denial of lawful material pleasures is necessarily correlated to the Christian’s ability to perceive the spiritual grace that can be mediated by physical objects. The sermons of his Anglican period reflect what he would eventually articulate as the “sacra…Read more