Abstract
Steven J. Jensen, Living the Good Life: A Beginner’s Thomistic Ethics, Catholic University of America Press: Washington, 2013; 216 pp.: 9780813221458, £20.50/$24.95 (pbk)
Numerous volumes explain and analyse Thomas Aquinas’s moral theory for scholars and students. Jensen’s book offers one of the clearest, comprehensive and most systematic expositions of Thomistic ethics aimed at helping the beginner to understand the essential features of Aquinas’s account, and serving as a practical guide for moral conduct. Jensen effectively distills Aquinas’s voluminous treatment of moral psychology, the ontological structure of human actions, concepts of good and evil, virtue and vice, and moral law into an accessible format. He demonstrates how Aquinas’s treatments of each topic cohere into an overall view that is compatible with the latest discoveries in the science of moral development.
As a ‘beginner’s’ guide, Jensen properly avoids wading into interpretive debates regarding the nuances of various theses comprising Aquinas’s ethical system. Jensen thus offers a largely unassailable presentation and also deftly shows the pragmatic nature of Aquinas’s ethical prescriptions. For example, Aquinas does not consider moral formation to be a once-and-for-all affair that happens at some tipping-point when one has finally matured. Rather, it is a lifelong process that is not best practised by constantly making New Year’s resolutions that are broken by 1 February (p. 70). Jensen also details how emotions and natural desires fit into the moral reasoning process – striking a balance between Kantian rationalism and Humean emotivism. Jensen, though, does not take the next step to invoke contemporary psychological theories advising how one can, for example, ‘daily choose to control her desires’ (p. 85).
Discussing the formation of conscience, Jensen faults a slave-owner, ‘Roger’, for choosing not to listen to a group of abolitionists whose arguments may lead to a change in the morally right direction (p. 42). Owing to the fact, however, that Roger’s conscience has been informed by other slave-owners since childhood, he probably believes that listening to abolitionists is not a proper means of gaining relevant information on this issue. Rather, his conscience probably tells him that listening to such ‘progressives’ will risk diverting his moral compass from ‘true north’, as he understands it. It is presumed that Roger should already know that his slave-owning is wrong and is therefore morally obliged to seek correction. But, if Roger believes his slave-owning is morally justified, then it is reasonable for him to avoid listening to those he believes to be wrong and may confuse him by their sophistical arguments. Jensen would exhort Roger to reason what the natural law dictates to be the right moral conclusion (ch. 13). Genuine disputes persist, though, even for honest investigators of the principles of natural law, calling for moral humility in the light of epistemic inconclusiveness. The reason Roger should listen to the abolitionists is not because they are right and he is wrong – for it would be difficult for him to know that a priori – but because he should humbly acknowledge the potential falsehood of his moral beliefs, which is good advice for those on opposing sides of controversial issues today.