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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.
List of contents
Introduction M. V. Dougherty; 1. Metaphysical themes in De malo, 1 John F. Wippel; 2. Weakness and willful wrongdoing in Aquinas's De malo Bonnie Kent and Ashley Dressel; 3. Free choice Peter Furlong and Tobias Hoffmann; 4. Venial sin and the ultimate end Steven J. Jensen; 5. The promise and pitfalls of glory: Aquinas on the forgotten vice of vainglory Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung; 6. The goodness and evil of objects and ends Thomas M. Osborne, Jr; 7. Evil and moral failure in De malo Carl N. Still and Darren E. Dahl; 8. Attention, intentionality, and mind-reading in Aquinas's De malo, q. 16, a. 8 Therese Scarpelli Cory; 9. Evil as privation: the Neoplatonic background to Aquinas's De malo, 1 Fran O'Rourke; 10. Moral luck and the capital vices in De malo: gluttony and lust M. V. Dougherty; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
M. V. Dougherty is Professor of Philosophy at Ohio Dominican University. He is the author of Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas (Cambridge, 2011) and editor of Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (Cambridge, 2008).
Summary
This collection of specially commissioned new essays philosophically examines Aquinas's major work on evil. The first book-length English-language study of Aquinas's work on evil, the chapters examine a diverse range of issues relevant to disciplines including medieval philosophy, ethics, philosophy of action, metaphysics, history of philosophy, and theology.
