This paper examines the views of a number of late scholastic moral theologians, with emphasis on Francisco Suárez, about the limits of the duty to refrain from those otherwise permissible actions which make it difficult for people to choose uprightly. In so doing, the paper singles out and analyses a number circumstantial factors capable of excusing ordinary agents for giving others an occasion of sin.

In Aquinas's Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance, Matthew Levering argues that Catholic ethics make sense only in light of the biblical worldview that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God by pouring out his spirit. Jesus has made it possible for us to know and obey God's law for human flourishing as individuals and communities. He has reoriented our lives toward the goal of beatific communion with him in charity, which affects the exercise of the moral virtues that (...) pertain to human flourishing. Without the context of the inaugurated kingdom, Catholic ethics as traditionally conceived will seem like an effort to find a middle ground between legalistic rigorism and relativistic laxism, which is especially the case with the virtue of temperance, the focus of Levering's book. After an opening chapter on the eschatological/biblical character of Catholic ethics, the ensuing chapters engage Aquinas's theology of temperance in the Summa theologiae, which identifies and examines a number of virtues associated with temperance. Levering demonstrates that the theology of temperance is profoundly biblical, and that Aquinas's theology of temperance relies for its intelligibility upon Christ's inauguration of the kingdom of God as the graced fulfillment of our created nature. The book develops new vistas for scholars and students interested in moral theology. (shrink)

Les textes -- Tiédeur et laxisme d'Érasme -- Rigueur et sobriété de Luther -- Les prédécesseurs de Luther -- Lignes do force du débat -- Que reste t-il de nos prières et de nos efforts? -- La doctrine des deux règnes -- La liberté le traite de la liberté du chrétien de M. luther -- Serf arbitre et nouvelle théologie -- L'oeil et le regard -- L'exigence de vérité -- La justification -- Essai de résumé du Traite du serf arbitre (...) de Martin Luther. (shrink)

Kant scholars have rarely addressed the centuries-old tradition of casuistry and the concept of conscience in Kant’s writings. This book offers a detailed exploration of the period from Pascal’s Provincial Letters to Kant’s critique of probabilism and discusses his proposal of a (new) casuistry as part of an moral education. / Trotz der Hinweise an wichtigen Stellen in Kants Schriften richtet die Kantforschung ihre Aufmerksamkeit nur selten auf die Jahrhunderte währende Tradition der Kasuistik und den Begriff des Gewissens, der in (...) ihrem Rahmen ausgearbeitet wird. Eingehend untersucht wird in diesem Buch insbesondere der Zeitabschnitt von Pascals »Briefen in die Provinz« bis zu Kants eigener Kritik des Probabilismus und seinem Entwurf einer (neuen) Kasuistik als Teil der ethischen Methodenlehre. (shrink)