Abstract

Aquinas thought that some of the moral virtues are dispositions to rational passions . A moral virtue is a virtue, a stable state of character, or a disposition to good acts , and moral: the agent has voluntary control over the acts to which it is a disposition, and those acts contribute significantly to her moral life and "a good state of mind by which one lives rightly" ). ;Aquinas's claim that some virtues are dispositions to rational passions, thus, means that he thinks emotions and desires can be disposed to be in accordance with right reason, and can be voluntary to a certain extent , and also that good emotions and desires are part of what's needed for someone to live rightly--i.e., emotions and desires of certain sorts are morally required or morally good in their own right . ;This dissertation is primarily an investigation and defense of both of these claims. Aquinas's view that emotions can be voluntary and rational depends on his view of their relation to states of mind such as beliefs, intellective judgments, and feelings of pleasure and pain. I defend his account of such relations, his account of the nature of the voluntary and of emotions, and ultimately his claim that emotions can be voluntary and rationally habituated. I also defend his view that good emotions and desires are morally required. I argue that having rationally habituated emotions and desires gives moral agents the right relation to particular objects, and allows them to act for the right particular reasons, though it also requires certain general intellective commitments which insure that the agent's particular motivations and reasons are moral ones