Did St. Thomas Aquinas Justify the Transition from 'Is' to 'Ought'

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0. A Short History of the Problem The title of this dissertation refers to the problem formulated by David Hume. In order to identify the task I undertake in this study, as well as its importance, and in order to explain better why my presentation assumes this specific form, I will present the roots of this problem in Hume’s philosophy, and G. E. Moore’s contribution to the problem. This dissertation is not a comparative study of Hume (or other authors) and St. Thomas Aquinas. I shall merely introduce Hume’s statement of the “Is/Ought Thesis” and its famous modification made by Moore, so as to trace back the origin of the problem constituting the topic of this dissertation and to insert my exposition of Aquinas in the context of contemporary discussion. 0.1. David Hume David Hume (1711-1776) was a prominent figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is regarded even today as the most important philosopher ever to write in English 1 and is numbered as the third most influential “British empiricist” after John Locke and George Berkeley. Hume’s best known works, including A Treatise of Human ature (1739- 1740), Essays, Moral and Political (1741-1742), An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), and 1 Cf. e.g. William Edward Morris, “David Hume”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2007 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2007/entries/hume/.
14 0. A Short History of the Problem Dialogues concerning atural Religion (1779), influenced many generations of philosophers 2 and have a significant influence today, especially in the English-speaking world. 3 According to a common interpretation, Hume’s philosophical project aimed at the total reform of philosophy, and in this vein a central part of his program was – for the sake of modesty – profoundly anti-metaphysical. 4 More specifically, in his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, 5 Hume intends to bring about “a reformation in moral disquisitions” resembling what had recently been achieved in natural philosophy (on several occasions he reveals his admiration of these discoveries). 6 Natural philosophy had been cured of “a common source of illusion and mistake” as well as from “passion for hypotheses and systems.” Hence, he would like to advance a similar progress in moral science. In order to do so he urges that we should “reject every system … however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation,” and 2 Morris notes that “his influence is evident in the moral philosophy and economic writings of his close friend Adam Smith. Hume also awakened Immanuel Kant from his ‘dogmatic slumbers’ and ‘caused the scales to fall’ from Jeremy Bentham’s eyes. Charles Darwin counted Hume as a central influence, as did ‘Darwin’s bulldog,’ Thomas Henry Huxley. The diverse directions in which these writers took what they gleaned from reading Hume reflect not only the richness of their sources but also the wide range of his empiricism. Today, philosophers recognize Hume as a precursor of contemporary cognitive science, as well as one of the most thoroughgoing exponents of philosophical naturalism” (ibid.). 3 Cf. e.g. James Fieser, “David Hume: Life and Writings,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humelife.htm (accessed August 2007); and Don Garrett, “Hume, David,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. Craig, London: Routledge, 2005, http://www.rep.routledge.com.proxycu.wrlc.org/article/DB040SECT13 (accessed November 2006). 4 Cf. EHU, 26. A not yet thirty-year-old Hume in the Introduction to his Treatise declares that “any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical” (A Treatise of Human ature, David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton [eds.] [Oxford University Press, 2007], p. 5 [further quoted as T]). Against too high expectations in philosophical research, Hume suggests an academic scepticism which “consists in a certain diffidence, modesty and lack of dogmatism in all one’s judgments plus a determination to refrain from all ‘high and distant enquiries’ beyond our faculties – such as cosmological speculation concerning ‘the origins of worlds’ – that have no connection to ‘common life.’ Hume in the Enquiry recommends and endorses this mitigated scepticism, which he judges to be socially useful, … [and] call[s] for the elimination of scholastic metaphysics and theology not based on mathematical or experimental reasoning: ‘Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion’” (Garrett, SECT9). 5 Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Tom L. Beauchamp (ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) (quoted further as EPM). 6 “It is not for nothing that his work is entitled A Treatise of Human ature, and subtitled, An attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects; it is an attempt to study and explain moral phenomena (as well as human knowledge and emotions) in the same sort of way in which Newton and his followers studied and explained the physical world” (John L. Mackie, Hume’s Moral Theory [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1980], p. 6).
Page 1 and 2: Piotr Lichacz, O.P. DID ST. THOMAS
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS --------------------------
Page 5 and 6: 2 Introduction what the character o
Page 7 and 8: 4 Introduction of “man’s last e
Page 9 and 10: 6 Introduction however, when studyi
Page 11 and 12: 8 Introduction believers. 16 Perhap
Page 13 and 14: 10 Introduction In this study I wou
Page 15: 12 Introduction provisionally analy
Page 19 and 20: 16 0. A Short History of the Proble
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Page 36 and 37: 32 1. Aquinas’s General Approach
Page 62 and 63: 58 2. St. Thomas’s Logic First, w
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62 2. St. Thomas’s Logic for the
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64 2. St. Thomas’s Logic is used
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66 2. St. Thomas’s Logic concerns
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68 2. St. Thomas’s Logic Therefor
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70 2. St. Thomas’s Logic “Aquin
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72 2. St. Thomas’s Logic Let us t
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74 2. St. Thomas’s Logic can say
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76 2. St. Thomas’s Logic This is
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78 2. St. Thomas’s Logic act. “
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80 2. St. Thomas’s Logic conseque
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82 2. St. Thomas’s Logic Aristotl
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84 2. St. Thomas’s Logic Knowing
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86 3. Theory of Signification and P
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100 3. Theory of Signification and
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4. Scientific Methodology or Ways o
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114 4. Scientific Methodology or Wa
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* * * 138 4. Scientific Methodology
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5. The Division of Theoretical Scie
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146 5. The Division of Theoretical
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174 6. Explanation in Natural Scien
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204 7. Some Lessons from Natural Sc
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7.3. Cogitative power (vis cogitati
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242 8. The Analyzability of Goodnes
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CONCLUSIONS The aim of this dissert
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266 Conclusions common to diverse d
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268 Conclusions really are. Imperat
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270 Conclusions In Chapter 6 we exp
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272 Conclusions We offered only som
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274 Conclusions is claimed to be go
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Works of Thomas Aquina
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278 Bibliography Anscombe, G. E. M.
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280 Bibliography Engelmann, Edward.
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Kenny, Anthony. Aquinas on Mind. Ne
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284 Bibliography -----. “Beyond t
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286 Bibliography Sweeney, Eileen C.
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ABBREVIATIONS EPM - David Hume, Enq
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Did St. Thomas Aquinas Justify the Transition from 'Is' to 'Ought'

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