Aquinas on Human Nature

Happiness, meaning, and Virtue

Going from metaphysics to application

Humans and the human good

  • Aquinas, like Aristotle, defines humans as rational animals

    • This doesn’t mean we are a combination of nutritive, sensitive, and rational souls; we are one soul that is at the same time nutritive, sensitive, and rational

    • Though we have nutritive and sensitive capabilities and needs, we go about exercising those capabilities and satisfying those needs in a uniquely rational way

    • This is why it is good when an animal acts on its every biological desire, but bad when a human does so

      • When an animal acts animalistically, it is acting according to its nature

      • When a human acts animalistically, it is acting against its nature

Natural law theory

  • We are created with a particular nature, with particular rational, social, psychological, and biological needs and capacities

  • There is a law implanted in our nature that tells us what to do to achieve flourishing, and following this law is what leads us both to virtue and happiness

  • We know this law through introspection and study. So, even if we don’t feel like studying, we know that we are rational beings, and developing our rationality is necessary for achieving happiness

    • Therefore, study is virtuous, as it leads to the development of rational capacities

Does Aquinas’ view on “natural law” rest on religion?

  • Aquinas’ notion of “natural laws” seems to resolve the tension between the Abrahamic and Mosaic law-based theory of ethics and the Aristitelian flourishing theory of ethics

  • But it seems to do so by basing natural law on the idea of a natural lawgiver

  • Absent a lawgiver, could where be a “law” implanted in our nature that gives our rationality a “goal” for it to move toward?

  • If we are to take the idea of natural law as having relevance for non-religous society/context, then we must also believe that life has meaning or meaning(s) in and of itself

The role of meaningfulness: it provides reasons for acting

  • Susan Wolf identifies three reasons for our actions:

    • Self interest: we can act out of a desire for pleasure, saftey, comfort, etc.

    • Ethical responsibility: we can act out of a desire to achieve some good end or fulfill some moral duty

    • Meaningfulness: we can act because our activity has significance to us

      • But: why do we find some activities significant, and do we have good reasons to find them so?

Is meaningfulness an illusion?

  • Greek myth illustration

    • In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is condemned to an existence that is generally recognized as awful: he must roll a heavy stone up a hill, only to have it roll down again, so that he must roll it back up again in an endless cycle. He is condemned eternally to a task that is boring, difficult and futile.

    • Sisyphus is standardly taken to be a paradigmatic example of someone leading a meaningless life - his existence, in Camus’ words, is “absurd.” But for some philosophers, we’re all in Sisyphus’ shoes.

  • If life does not have meaning, if there are no “goals” that we can rationally set ourselves, then there can not be any “natural law” that tells us how to reach those goals

Is meaningfulness just personal enjoyment?

  • Richard Taylor proposes a thought experiment: the gods take pity on Sisyphus and inject a substance into his veins that makes him love stone rolling.

  • Has Sisyphus’ (after-)life been transformed from an absurd existence into a meaningful one?

  • Susan Wolf says: No. The absurdity of his existence doesn’t change just because his subjective attitude changes. In fact, he might be worse off!

  • Similarly, a life successfully devoted to a personal satisfaction (through drugs, achievement of thrilling experiences, or mindless absorption of media) might well be meaningless

Is meaningfulness an objective accomplishment?

  • Gandhi, Einstein, or Mother teresa seem to be examples of people living meaningful lives, based on the value of the activities that their lives were centered on

  • Specifically, these lives were focused on attaining something outside one’s own satisfaction: political reform, scientific discovery, and service to the poor.

  • But is every objective accomplishment meaningful? What about a life centered on caring for a pet goldfish? Or a succulent plant?

  • What if one’s accomplishments, no matter how objectively wonderful, lead to frustration, boredom, and resentment?

Meaningfulness as both objective and subjective fulfillment

  • Meaning in life arises when “subjective” attraction meets objective attractiveness.”

  • What is important is to actively and intentionally engage in the kind of projects that give rise to well-founded feelings of fulfillment.

    • We have to be able to correctly see one’s activities as valuable even apart from the feelings they give rise in us.

    • But: we also have to feel the appropriate feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction that are proper to engaging in those activities

Meaningfulness and the Natural Law

  • We have a particular nature, with particular rational, social, psychological, and biological needs and capacities.

  • Human beings flourish the most when they have met their needs and actualized their rational, social, psychological, and biological capacities.

  • The way we can do this by achieving a meaningful existence, which is both objectively valuable and subjectively fulfilling.

  • The natural law consists in the principles and virtues that would lead us living a life of this kind

  • How could we come to know this law?

    • The answer Aquinas gives applies here as well: we use our reason

    • We can rationally know what a “meaningful existence” requires, and we can understand what principles will lead us in the direction of living such an existence