Abstract

This dissertation demonstrates that Augustine's political thought is partly based on and largely consistent with the classical understanding of right by nature. Neither based on natural law nor on the exclusive authority of Christian revelation, Augustine provides an account of virtue and of politics that is based on the virtues and specifically on the love of God and neighbor, and on practical wisdom. According to this view, virtue does not consist exclusively in obedience to a code or in the application of rules. Rather, Augustine defines virtue as the order of love . Virtue is achieved by loving appropriate objects in the appropriate way. Despite using rhetoric that appears to deny the natural goodness of politics, this dissertation demonstrates that Augustine's real political teaching is based on a robust account of political rationality and of political virtue. Thus, the dissertation examines his rhetoric to show how its anti-political tone masks a substantive political teaching. It examines his subtle analysis of cases of moral reasoning in extreme circumstances to show how he analyzed these cases as a theorist of right by nature rather than as a natural law thinker or exclusively from the perspective of a Christian apologetic. It shows that he considered the ordinate love of glory an appropriate political good. It shows that he considered politics a natural human good that cultivates human virtue. It provides an account of political representation to consider which loves and their political expression cultivate the good life. It considers how the love of God and of neighbor could be expressed politically and according to natural reason. Finally, it shows how his justification of the coercion of heretics is consistent with his natural right thinking