The Infused and Aquired Virtues in Aquinas' Moral Philosophy

THE INFUSED AND ACQUIRED VIRTUES IN AQUINAS' MORAL PHILOSOPHY Abstract by Angela M. McKay Throughout his writings on the virtues, Aquinas consistently makes two claims: 1) the infused moral virtues are completely different from the acquired virtues (for instance, they can co-exist with a disposition to the corresponding acquired vice); and 2) it is the infused moral virtues which are moral virtues in the truest sense. Together these facts present a puzzle about the detailed accounts of the moral virtues in the second part of the second part: Might these be primarily accounts of the infused moral virtues, and only derivatively about acquired moral virtue? Given that parts of the treatment are clearly concerned with infused moral virtues and other parts are clearly concerned with acquired moral virtue, what portion of the discussion in the second part of the second part is devoted to each? What relevance does acquired moral virtue have to its infused counterpart, and vice versa? These two facts, together with the questions they raise, tend to go unmentioned in literature that deals with Aquinas' treatment of the virtues, but they have important ramifications, particularly for those who might wish to appropriate a Thomistic notion of virtue into contemporary virtue ethics. For if it can be established that there is a significant difference between the infused and acquired moral virtues at both the practical and theoretical level, that Aquinas is aware of these differences, and that, aware of these differences, he focuses almost exclusively on the infused virtues, then Aquinas' moral philosophy departs farther from Aristotle's ethical system than most scholars acknowledge. This dissertation aims to address the distinction between the infused and acquired virtues in Aquinas' moral theory, and to show that the infused virtues are not only different from and independent of the acquired virtues, but that – at least as evidenced by the treatises on prudence and fortitude – this drastically different set of virtues is the true subject of Aquinas' detailed discussion of the virtues in the secunda secundae.