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articles
1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Gaven Kerr A Reconsideration of Aquinas’s Fourth Way
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Attitudes towards the fourth way differ from incredulity and embarrassment to seeing it as a profound demonstration of God’s existence. Aside from general treatments on all the five ways, the fourth way has received little by way of direct commentary in comparison to the other better known (and arguably better appreciated) ways. In this article I seek to present Aquinas’s fourth way as a way to God which makes use of his general and more familiar metaphysical reasoning. This serves to give the reading of the fourth way as a profound argument for God’s existence, and also to integrate it with the other four ways given the common metaphysical backdrop.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Dennis Bray Bonaventure’s I Sentence Argument for the Trinity from Beatitude
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Bonaventure’s Sentence Commentary provides the most comprehensive set of trinitarian arguments to date. This article focuses on just one of them, the one from beatitude. Roughly, beatitude can be thought of as God’s enjoyment of his own, supreme goodness. After a brief rationale of Bonaventure’s speculative project, I assay the concept of beatitude and exposit his four-stage argument. Bonaventure reasons: (i) for a single supreme substance; (ii) for at least two divine persons; (iii) against the possibility for an infinite number of divine persons; (iv) for at least three, and against the possibility of four (or more) divine persons. I show how this line of reasoning is significantly more complex than Bonaventure’s terse summaries initially indicate. My main goal is to explicate the four steps and unpack their main support. Along the way I attend to the argument’s sources, logical progression, and I respond to several concerns.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Lawrence Masek The Strict Definition of Intended Effects and Two Questions for Critics
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I present the strict definition of intended effects and pose two questions for its critics: (1) Apart from rationalizing moral intuitions about the craniotomy and other controversial cases, why classify an effect as intended if it does not explain the action? (2) What definition of intended effects can people use to guide their actions? These questions show that broad definitions of intended effects have no basis in action theory and are too vague to guide people’s actions. I suggest that broad definitions seem plausible because people confuse what someone intends and what someone is responsible for causing.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Bernard G. Prusak Conscience and Conscientiousness in Linda Zagzebski’s Exemplarist Moral Theory
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Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory takes as its foundation “exemplars of goodness identified directly by the emotion of admiration.” This paper’s basic question is whether Zagzebski’s trust in the emotion of admiration is well-founded. In other words, do we have good reason to trust that those we admire on conscientious reflection warrant our admiration, such that we will not be led astray? The paper’s thesis is that Zagzebski’s theory would be stronger with a more fully developed account of conscience. The paper outlines and discusses Zagzebski’s theory, articulates the epistemic challenge that the theory confronts, and proposes a sketch of an account of conscience that supplements Zagzebski’s account of conscientiousness.
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Alicia Rodrigo Is God Capable of Enjoying Aesthetic Beauty?: A Controversy between Dietrich von Hildebrand and Jacques Maritain
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Through this paper we seek to deal with the question of whether God is capable of enjoying aesthetic beauty. First of all, we will consider whether this beauty has meaning for God by contrasting Maritain’s and Hildebrand’s thoughts. This will lead us to expose the fundamental distinctions drawn by both authors regarding beauty, and to study more carefully the relationship between aesthetic beauty and the senses. Subsequently, we will present four criticisms of the assertion, inferred from Maritain’s thought, that aesthetic beauty has no meaning for God. Examining these criticisms will involve recognizing the fundamental distinction between transcendental beauty and aesthetic beauty, which cannot be understood just as something grounded in transcendental beauty. Finally, partially restoring Maritain’s theses, we will acknowledge the aporia present in the relationship between aesthetic beauty and God and we will discuss possible solutions to it.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
William Matthew Diem The Domain of Justice and the Extension of Rights: A Reply to Macdonald on Animal Rights
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Paul Macdonald recently argued that a consistent Thomist must hold, against Aquinas, that non-human animals have direct rights. I show that his arguments fail and that, on the contrary, the impossibility of brute animals having rights flows directly from the very essence of justice itself as it is understood by Aquinas.
book review
7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Brian Besong The Debate on Probable Opinions in the Scholastic Tradition
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8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Montague Brown Justice and Charity: An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought
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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
R. Mary Hayden Lemmons The Metaphysical Foundations of Love: Aquinas on Participation, Unity, and Union
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10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Jack Mulder, Jr. Kierkegaard and Spirituality: Accountability as the Meaning of Human Existence
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11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Mark K. Spencer Analogical Identities: The Creation of the Christian Self—Beyond Spirituality and Mysticism in the Patristic Era
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12. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Helen Watt A Virtue-Based Defense Of Perinatal Hospice
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contents of volume
13. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 95 > Issue: 4
Contents of Volume 95 (2021)
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