Ce travail interroge la constitution d’une métaphysique de la personne humaine dans la pensée de Thomas d’Aquin. Si on s’accorde généralement à reconnaître que la réflexion thomasienne sur la personne a eu une influence décisive sur la compréhension moderne de l’homme comme personne, on constate également que l’expression personne humaine n’est pas familière de l’Aquinate et ne fait l’objet d’aucun développement particulier dans son œuvre. En effet, l’approche métaphysique de la personne humaine dans le corpus thomasien est logée dans les textes théologiques dans lesquels Thomas, suivant une démarche analogique, définit la personne divine en conservant l’affinité avec l'homme. Ce travail de conceptualisation, à la charnière de la théologie et de l’anthropologie, s’inscrit dans le sillage de la thématique chrétienne de l’homme image de Dieu. Dans le monde latin, les diverses composantes de cette riche tradition se rassemblent à la fin du VIe siècle autour de la figure de Boèce. Au détours des analogies sur les mystères de la Trinité et du Christ, Thomas est conduit à repenser la métaphysique de la substance et de la subsistence, héritage de la traduction de la notion grecque d'hypostase effectué par Boèce. Au bout du compte, ces analogies n’aboutissent pas seulement à une métaphysique de la personne subsistant dans la nature humaine, elles fondent ultimement une véritable métaphysique de la personne humaine en définissant une manière humaine de subsister. / This work examines the formation of a metaphysics of the human person in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. On one side it is generally agreed that the Thomistic thought on the person had a decisive influence on the modern understanding of man as a person, on the other side the term human person is not familiar of Aquinas and not subject to any particular development in his work. Indeed, the metaphysical approach of the human person in the Thomistic corpus is found in the theological texts in which Thomas defines the divine person maintening the affinity with man. This work of conceptualization deals with the Christian theme of man image of God using the analogy. In the Latin world, the various components of this rich tradition come together in the late sixth century around the figure of Boethius. From analogies on the mysteries of the Trinity and of Christ, Thomas is led to rethink the metaphysics of substance and subsistence inherited from the translation of the Greek notion of hypostasis made by Boethius. Ultimately, these analogies do not lead only to a metaphysics of the person subsisting in human nature, they found a true metaphysics of the human person by defining a human subsisting way.

Thesis advisor: Stephen J. Pope / The aim of this dissertation is to expand a contemporary multidimensional discourse on the nature of eating disorders to encompass also a moral dimension. Eating disorders are complex phenomena which include biomedical, psychological, and sociocultural components. This dissertation brings the psychosocial literature on eating disorders and body dissatisfaction into dialogue with contemporary studies in Thomistic moral theology, and argues that such a multidisciplinary dialogue can illuminate new insights both for the study of eating disorders and for recent efforts to recover Thomistic moral theology in a contemporary context. Beginning empirically, the dissertation examines recent evidence showing that exposure to &ldquo;thin-ideal images&rdquo; in the mass media is positively correlated with an increase in body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptomatology. Socioculturally, the explanation for this phenomenon is called &ldquo;thin-ideal internalization,&rdquo; and basically measures the extent to which individuals &ldquo;buy into&rdquo; the validity of images using ultra-thin female models as a paradigm of beauty. Women who have a high level of internalization desire to conform to a thin-ideal, and behave accordingly, even when they are rationally aware of the unrealistic and unhealthy nature of such an ideal. Turning to Thomas Aquinas' moral theology, the dissertation argues that thin-ideal internalization is a form of connatural knowledge, an affective form of knowing (<italic>per modum inclinationis</italic> or <italic>ex instinctu</italic>) which is at the very basis of Aquinas' moral theology, both in explaining the operation of habits and in explaining the role of grace in the moral life through charity and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This dissertation argues that Aquinas' theory of connatural knowledge provides a relevant and constructive contribution to the study of eating disorders, especially on the relationship between body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptamatology. Additionally, the incorporation of the psychosocial literature on eating disorders into Thomistic moral theology provide a valuable contribution to Thomistic moral theology in the effort to understand the role of the affections in moral deliberation, the development of habits, and the importance of Christian practices in the moral life. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

O presente estudo propõe uma análise sobre o tema da usura no pensamento de São Tomás de Aquino de forma a determinar sua aplicabilidade à questão dos juros remuneratórios tal qual se apresenta hodiernamente no Direito Brasileiro. Inicialmente a concepção de Aquino é avaliada à luz da tríplice base que a compõe: a Lei Natural, segundo a qual se considera a esterilidade do dinheiro e a justiça natural; a Lei Humana, tida aqui como o Direito Romano, do qual se absorve a noção de fungibilidade do dinheiro e a conceituação dos contratos de mútuo; e a Lei Divina, tomada por São Tomás de forma a corroborar aquilo que se depreende das demais leis. Na sequencia, a problemática dos juros e da sua extrapolação usurária é avaliada no âmbito do ordenamento jurídico pátrio, tanto sob o prisma de sua evolução histórica quanto das discussões que envolvem a matéria em nossos dias. Finalmente, partindo de uma conceituação de juros e usura compatível com o pensamento do Doutor Angélico, avaliaremos o que viria a determinar o preço justo nos contratos de mútuo financeiro com vistas a estabelecer parâmetros indicativos para a limitação das taxas de juros no Direito Brasileiro, tanto nas operações praticadas no âmbito civil quanto naquelas contratadas junto ao Sistema Financeiro Nacional / This study proposes an analysis of the theme of usury in the thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas to determine its applicability to the question of compensatory interest as it is now understood under Brazilian Law. Initially Aquinass concept is evaluated in the light of its triple base: Natural Law, which considers the sterility ofmoney and natural justice; Human Law, seen here as Roman Law, from which the notion offungibility of money and the conceptualization of mutuum agreements are derived; and Divine Law, taken by St. Thomas as a means of corroborating what is deduced from the other laws.Next, the critical issues involving interest and their usurious extrapolation are evaluated in the sphere of our national legal system, from both the perspectives of its historical evolution and of the discussions that involve the subject today. And finally, beginning with an appraisal of interest and usury compatible with the thinking of the Angelic Doctor, we will evaluate what woulddetermine the just price in mutuum contracts,seeking to establish parameters for an eventual limitation ofinterest rates in Brazilian Law, both in transactions involving non-banking entities and in those contracted within the National Financial System.

Thesis advisor: James F. Keenan / This dissertation aims to give a theoretical account of the cardinal virtue of temperance that portrays it as an attractive (albeit demanding) virtue, and provides the justification and method for applying it to multiple spheres of life today. To this end, it offers a critical interpretation and retrieval of Saint Thomas Aquinas' account of the four causes of <italic>temperantia<italic> in the <italic>Summa Theologiae<italic>. I claim that, for Thomas, the four causes of a moral virtue are its mode (formal cause), matter and subject (material cause), proper end (final cause) and agent (efficient cause). Less technically, they can be expressed in terms of five guiding questions to be used in understanding any given virtue: What is the practical wisdom actualized by that virtue? What is the sphere of life with which the virtue is concerned? What aspect of the human heart and mind does the virtue modify? What is the virtue for? What causes the virtue to exist and increase? To answer to these five questions is to give an account of a moral virtue. This dissertation develops and applies this causal method for analyzing a moral virtue, both as a means of interpreting Thomas' account of temperance, and as a tool for constructing a theory of temperance for today. Temperance, I claim, can be defined as the modulation of attraction for the sake of right relationship. It is developed through both discipline and grace. Temperance does not repress desire, but forms and channels its positively, placing it at the service of right relationship to oneself, others, the earth and God. It does limit and restrain desire, but always for the sake of deeper and more meaningful goods. Temperance therefore modulates harmoniously between the restraint and the redirection of desire, the fast and the feast. Temperance is often misunderstood as proposing a purely negative ideal of repression and constraint. The dissertation claims that, on the contrary, temperance is a positive and attractive virtue, and one that is urgently needed in consumer society. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Madigan / Catholic moral philosophers and theologians for centuries used Thomas Aquinas's defense of the death penalty as a point of reference in defending the state's right to execute. Recent Church documents such as Evangelium Vitae, however, seem to take a different approach to the question than Aquinas did. In secular contemporary treatments of the death penalty, Aquinas's account is often caricatured or simply overlooked. One of the reasons for this is the lack of a thorough treatment of the death penalty in the thought of Aquinas. This dissertation seeks to address that deficiency. I present Aquinas's account of capital punishment as an example of determining civil punishments through the exercise of practical reason. Aquinas's thought sanctions neither an absolute acceptance nor an absolute rejection of the death penalty; for him, this is not a question that admits of absolutes. Like other punishments, the death penalty is a determination made by human reason. Its justification depends on specific historical and cultural circumstances and on the needs of the political community, as well as on the severity of the offense. Killing a guilty person is not intrinsically evil, in Aquinas's view, but it is nonetheless a last resort, when nothing else can be done for the good of the community. It may be that recent Church documents have avoided making use of the Thomistic teaching on the death penalty, even where this could have made their reasoning clearer, for fear that such arguments would be misunderstood, or in order to make a clearer case for forgoing the penalty. If this dissertation contributes to our understanding of what Thomas actually says about CP, it will be helpful in reconciling the thought of John Paul II with the tradition of Catholic thought on capital punishment, as well as in offering a reasonable way for thinking about punishments in general. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Thesis advisor: Jane E. Regan / In Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987) Pope John Paul II proposes solidarity as a social virtue for our fragmented yet interdependent world. This lens raises several important questions, but also suggests new opportunities for moral formation and the promotion of institutional charism in the context of Catholic higher education. Employing a praxis methodology, this dissertation begins by analyzing contemporary declines in social capital and the rise of atomistic individualism. The philosophical writings of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor help us to understand the moral and spiritual roots of these sociological trends. With the context established, the dissertation next traces the development of solidarity in the Catholic social tradition and attempts to locate the virtue within a Thomistic moral framework. Closely related to both charity and justice, the vision of solidarity advanced is linked to Aristotle's notion of civic friendship, perfected in its origin (the dignity of the human person) and goal (the common good). Constructive proposal are grounded in the concept of social practices developed by MacIntyre and adapted by religious educators and practical theologians. Beyond textual analysis, this dissertation includes a national survey of 87 senior mission leaders at Catholic colleges and universities. From these findings, concrete recommendations are offered for the practices of mission leadership and service-learning. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

Thesis advisor: Lisa Sowle Cahill / The existence of moral and tragic dilemmas is highly debated within philosophy. Tragic dilemmas are a special kind of moral dilemma that involve great tragedy. Traditionally, philosophy tends to deny dilemmas because obligations cannot truly conflict and an ethical system must always guide agents in deliberation. For the most part, Christian theology dismisses the possibility of moral dilemmas. A highly influential theological rejection comes from Aquinas. Philosopher Bernard Williams famously challenged traditional ideas, worrying that a focus on reason to the exclusion of feelings has prevented ethicists from recognizing important aspects of the moral life, including the existence of moral and tragic dilemmas. This omission renders ethics unable to capture moral experience, and what good is ethics if it doesn’t speak to the moral life as we experience it? This presents a challenge for theology as well. This dissertation takes seriously Williams’s concerns and investigates the possibility of tragic dilemmas within a Christian context. I develop a defense of tragic dilemmas within a Christian virtue framework using feminist insights. I argue that in a tragic dilemma an agent deliberates on, with sufficient knowledge, an issue that involves non-negotiable moral requirements in line with Christian obligations to protect human life and the vulnerable. A tragic dilemma causes great harm and can “mar” the agent’s life. The agent is morally responsible for the harm caused and/or the obligation not acted upon. However, culpability is mitigated due to the constraints of the situation as long as the agent acts with “repugnance of the will.” When involvement in a tragic dilemma produces emotional harm this has the power to undermine character because, as I argue, passions and the moral life are inextricably related. In turn, the agent’s life is “marred.” In light of this, Christian healing is necessary after involvement in a tragic dilemma. In the first half of this dissertation, I investigate moral dilemmas in general. In Chapter 1, I layout the major philosophical debates surrounding moral dilemmas and I highlight touchstones, questions, ambiguities, and problems to bring to theology—issues around logic, autonomy, the nature of moral requirements, blame, restitution, and what constitutes a tragic dilemma. In Chapter 2, I assess the theological response to moral dilemmas vis-à-vis Aquinas. Although Aquinas explicitly denies the possibility for moral dilemmas that are not the agent’s fault, I find new points of contact between Aquinas and moral dilemma theorists. In light of this, there is space for the possibility of moral dilemmas in a Christian virtue context, but this understanding is beyond the boundaries set-up by Aquinas. In the second half of the dissertation, I move to discuss tragic dilemmas, specifically. In Chapter 3, I use Christian thought and feminist insights to develop my definition of tragic dilemmas. As real-life cases of moral injury from war show, tragic dilemmas can cause emotional harm. In Chapter 4, I offer Christian strategies for healing from tragic dilemmas. Because we are social beings and because society often bears some blame for the occurrence of tragic dilemmas, healing must also happen in, with, and among the community member. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

This study will focus on examining the probabilities of justifying military interventions. In order to conduct this study, the U.S. will be the subject of interest. The paper will discuss and analyze the case of justifying an intervention by the U.S. in Syria. The analysis will be based on the Just War Theory by the medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas. To be able to conduct this study, official statements by the US government will be used to understand their reasoning concerning the subject. Mainly, statements will from the current and former heads of state, the American presidents, be analyzed. In the analysis of the paper, the criteria of the Just War Theory will be applied to the U.S. case with the objective to determine if the statements could justify an intervention. The outcome of Discussion and Conclusion reached the result that it would be justifiable for the U.S. to intervene in Syria. However, it becomes clear that the question of legitimate warfare and interventions are more complex than expected.

A questão da existência de Deus acompanha o desenvolvimento intelectual de Tomás de Aquino e tem papel central em sua Suma de Teologia, na qual o filósofo desenvolve sua resposta através das conhecidas cinco vias para a prova da existência de Deus. O objetivo desta dissertação é percorrer o caminho traçado por Tomás de Aquino para chegar às cinco vias, mostrando a necessidade e a possibilidade da prova da existência de Deus como sujeito da Doutrina Sagrada. / The question of the existence of God follows the intellectual development of Saint Thomas Aquinas. It also plays a central role in his Summa Theologica, where the philosopher develops his answer trough “the five ways" of proving the existence of God. This dissertations aims to follow Saint Thomas Aquinas through the journey in developing \"the five ways\", by showing the need and the possibility to prove the existence of God as subject of the holy doctrine.

Os estudos sobre o direito natural costumam dividi-lo em três períodos característicos, cosmológico, teológico e racional, a depender do critério usado para a sua fundamentação, respectivamente, o kósmos, Deus ou a razão humana, sendo que Tomás de Aquino e Hugo Grotius podem ser considerados, cada um, grandes expoentes dos dois últimos períodos. Um dos objetivos do jusracionalismo foi buscar uma fundamentação do direito natural, e do direito como um todo, apenas na razão e natureza humanas, prescindindo-se de Deus. Entretanto, as mudanças nas mais diversas áreas ocorrem cada uma a seu tempo e não todas de uma vez. Por isso, apesar dos esforços empreendidos para se separar os campos do direito e da teologia, é possível que eles continuassem mais interligados do que se imaginava na passagem do jusnaturalismo teológico para o racional. No intuito de identificar se permaneceram algumas características, e quais, da fundamentação teológica nas doutrinas do direito natural racional, será feita uma comparação entre os sistemas de Tomás e Grotius, avaliando também se o holandês foi influenciado pelo italiano. Os resultados alcançados mostram que é possível se afirmar que Grotius, tendo feito mais de cinquenta referências a Tomás em apenas uma obra, foi por ele influenciado, havendo grandes semelhanças entre a fundamentação dos autores em questões cruciais de suas doutrinas, uma vez que concordam que a finalidade do homem não está nesse mundo, que Deus é o criador de tudo o que existe, especialmente do homem, cuja natureza e instrumentos peculiares, notadamente a razão, a linguagem e a vontade, são reflexo da própria natureza divina expressa na Trindade, que é dada aos homens a dignidade de criar, por si mesmos, regras para a organização da sociedade, com grande liberdade de ação dentro de uma moldura divina da lei, uma vez que a Providência não interfere ou suprime o livre-arbítrio, ainda que a Revelação seja um auxílio não apenas para a obtenção da beatitude, mas também para a convivência social e conhecimento da lei natural, e que mesmo o exercício da função de poder só existe por autorização divina, pois se os soberanos não podiam ser julgados por qualquer outra vontade humana, eles o seriam por Deus. Com isso, desde Tomás já se pode reconhecer que a lei natural é campo de atuação por excelência da criatura racional, e ela só adquire significado próprio quando aplicado a elas, bem como que o caráter teológico da obra de Grotius não pode ser negligenciado, e deve ser levado em conta em sua teoria. / Studies on natural rights tends to divide it into three characteristic periods, cosmological, theological and rational, depending on the criteria used as their fundament, respectively, the kósmos, God or the human reason, being possible to account Thomas Aquinas and Hugo Grotius as two major thinkers in the latter, and each, periods. Amongst the goals of the jusrationalism was to seek for a foundation of natural right, and right as a whole, based solely on reason and human nature, with no recourse to God. However, changes in diverse areas occur each at its own time and not altogether. Hence, despite the efforts taken to split rights and theologys fields, it is possible that they remained more interconnected than one imagined in the transition from theological to rational jusnaturalism. In order to identify if some characteristics, and which, of theological fundament remain in rational natural laws doctrines, a comparison shall be made between Aquinas and Grotius systems, assessing whether or not the Dutch was influenced by the Italian. The results achieved show that is possible to say that Grotius, having made more than fifty references to Aquinas in just one work, was influenced by him, acknowledging great similarities in the fundament used by both in crucial aspects of their doctrine, since they agree that mans end is not in this world, that God is the creator of everything there is, specially man, whose nature and peculiar instruments, notably reason, language and will, are a reflect of divine nature itself as expressed in the Trinity, that is given to men the dignity to create the rules to organize, by themselves, society, with great freedom of action within the laws divine frame, inasmuch as Providence does not interfere or suppress free-will, although Revelation is meant to assist not only in beatitudes acquisition, but also in social life and natural laws knowledge, and that even exercising functions of power only exists in virtue of divine authorization, therefore if sovereigns couldnt be judged by any other human will, they would by God. Henceforth, since Aquinas it is possible to recognize that natural law is by excellence the acting field of rational creature, and it only acquires proper meaning when applied to them, as well as the theological character of Grotius works cannot be neglected and must be accounted in his theories.