Kicking my Butt
I'm reading Ethica Thomistica and it's kicking my butt. The Dumb Ox recommended it to me and I believe he may think me smarter than I actually am. I'm taking a break from it by reading a book about Spinoza, if that tells you anything. It's not that I don't "get" it. I feel more like I'm looking at something through a hazy window. What I have been able to grasp thus far has been powerful leading me to believe that working through this will yield some good fruit. In some weird way, it's comforting to bump up against the edge of my understanding. I've always believed that stupid doesn't know it's stupid. So in feeling very stupid right now, I think there may be hope for me.
posted by Kahuna6 at 11:26 PM
1 Comments:
At least it's short! You should try one of McInerny's mysteries. They're more fun--and they too bear the stamp of the classical understanding of psychology and salvation.
Yes we Thomists are rather shocking in our unabashed criticism of "modern" abstract reasoning about ethics. Those abstractions always end up serving the interests of the absolute "state" which is the only voice left standing to settle moral issues--which is to say of those power elites who control the state who get to impose their version of right by might.
Your friend Machiavelli really was very close to the classical view of justice and natural right, just that he didn't want to use that language anymore. He makes it clear that after securing power, a Prince can only survive if he in fact does what is naturally right vis-a-vis the liberty and property of individuals. But stripping the Emperor of his natural right linguistic clothes left Leviathan free to proclaim himself as the source of all right.
The older way of talking about right (ethics and politics) was actually NOT abstract, and based on observation of human nature; while the modern approach, claiming to be realistic, tends towards the grossest abstractions of all as ways of getting people to obey the sovereign.
Oh well, those are just a couple of thoughts that occur to me!
I'll go peruse some of your recent posts to see what you've been up to, health-wise--glad to see you are doing well, friend!
12:04 PM
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