Book contents
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happinessand Ultimate Purpose
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Analytical Table of Contents
- Ante Studium (Before Study)
- Epigraph
- Commentator’s Introduction
- General Prologue of St. Thomas Aquinas to the Treatiseon Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Question 1 Man’s Ultimate Purpose
- Question 2 Where Does Complete Happiness Lie? Failed Candidates
- Question 3 What Then Is Complete Happiness In Itself, And In What Does It Really Lie?
- Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- St. Thomas’s Prologue to Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- Question 4, Article 1 Whether pleasure, or delight, is required for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 2 Whether in happiness vision ranks before delight?
- Question 4, Article 3 Whether comprehension is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 4 Whether rectitude of the will is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 5 Whether the body is necessary for man’s happiness?
- Question 4, Article 6 Whether perfection of the body is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 7 Whether any external goods are necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 8 Whether the fellowship of friends is necessary for happiness?
- Question 5 How Complete Happiness Is Finally Attained
- Afterword So What Is Our Ultimate Purpose? What Is Happiness?
- Index
Question 4, Article 4 - Whether rectitude of the will is necessary for happiness?
from Question 4 - What Complete Happiness Requires
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2020
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happinessand Ultimate Purpose
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Analytical Table of Contents
- Ante Studium (Before Study)
- Epigraph
- Commentator’s Introduction
- General Prologue of St. Thomas Aquinas to the Treatiseon Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Question 1 Man’s Ultimate Purpose
- Question 2 Where Does Complete Happiness Lie? Failed Candidates
- Question 3 What Then Is Complete Happiness In Itself, And In What Does It Really Lie?
- Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- St. Thomas’s Prologue to Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- Question 4, Article 1 Whether pleasure, or delight, is required for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 2 Whether in happiness vision ranks before delight?
- Question 4, Article 3 Whether comprehension is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 4 Whether rectitude of the will is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 5 Whether the body is necessary for man’s happiness?
- Question 4, Article 6 Whether perfection of the body is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 7 Whether any external goods are necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 8 Whether the fellowship of friends is necessary for happiness?
- Question 5 How Complete Happiness Is Finally Attained
- Afterword So What Is Our Ultimate Purpose? What Is Happiness?
- Index
Summary
The idea that one must be just to be happy is not only Christian; in Western philosophy, it goes all the way back to the arguments of Socrates in the dialogue Gorgias. The other characters in the dialogue think happiness results from getting one’s way. If that were true, then happiness would not require rectitude of will. However, Socrates argues that persons with warped wills cannot be happy; that doing injustice is even more to be dreaded than suffering it; and that the best thing that can happen to an unjust person is for his will to be straightened out by punishment. Even though Socrates out-argues his opponents so thoroughly that they run out of things to say in their defense, they never accept his view – showing, perhaps, that the problem lies not just in their intellects, but in their own disordered wills.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020