This essay examines St. Thomas Aquinas’s views on different types of impairment. Aquinas situates physical and moral impairments in a teleological account of the human species, and these impairments are made relative in light of our ultimate flourishing in God. For Aquinas, moral and spiritual impairments are of primary significance. Drawing on Philippa Foot’s account of natural goods, we describe what constitutes an impairment for Aquinas. In the Thomistic sense, an impairment is a lack or privation in relation to that (...) which is appropriate to the human being, known by our nature and ultimate perfection. For Aquinas, perfection lies in the transformation necessary for union with God. (shrink)

Jeffrey P. Bishop argues that contemporary understandings of the good death are predicated on conscious choice. This focus on rational conscious choice as the primary criterion has troubling implications for how we evaluate the death of children, whose capacity for autonomy is unclear. In this essay, I will explore ways in which the death of children creates silences, arising most notably from our ideas about the good death. In contrast, I will argue for a different model of a good death (...) that is predicated on intersubjectivity, shared meaning-making, and presence, and which finds its foundation in Christian eschatology, which is not an escape from the present; rather, all our present actions find meaning in God. Our completeness must always and can only be found in God, and understood this way, children can die a good death. (shrink)