Book contents
- Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness
- Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Aquinas on Individual Happiness
- Chapter 1 Three Kinds of Perfectionism
- Chapter 2 The Heart of Happiness
- Chapter 3 Perfect Happiness
- Chapter 4 Natural Imperfect Happiness
- Chapter 5 Graced Imperfect Happiness
- Part II Aquinas, Happiness, and the Unity of Ethics
- Bibliography of Works by Thomas Aquinas with Abbreviations
- General Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 1 - Three Kinds of Perfectionism
from Part I - Aquinas on Individual Happiness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2025
Book contents
- Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness
- Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Aquinas on Individual Happiness
- Chapter 1 Three Kinds of Perfectionism
- Chapter 2 The Heart of Happiness
- Chapter 3 Perfect Happiness
- Chapter 4 Natural Imperfect Happiness
- Chapter 5 Graced Imperfect Happiness
- Part II Aquinas, Happiness, and the Unity of Ethics
- Bibliography of Works by Thomas Aquinas with Abbreviations
- General Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Aquinas recognizes a number of wildly different kinds of individual happiness. What fundamentally unifies these various kinds of happiness so that they all count as varieties of happiness to begin with? This chapter starts to answer this question and thereby starts to home in on the true heart of happiness in Aquinas. Because perfectionism was predominant in Aquinas’s time, the chapter starts by laying out three importantly different varieties of perfectionism about happiness. It turns out that different commentators have treated each of those three varieties of perfectionism as the version that Aquinas endorses. So this chapter predominately explains and evaluates each of these three readings of Aquinas, while also drawing out lessons to be incorporated into any adequate novel account of the heart of happiness in Aquinas.
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- Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness , pp. 19 - 36Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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