Are There Any Immoral Religions Or Any Moral Atheists?

Thomas Aquinas is a major religious thinker from Italy. He lived from 1225-1274. Throughout his life he shared his beliefs about God and how people are connected to Him. In “Summa Theologiae” Aquinas’ wrote about what he believed to be the purpose of humans: happiness. This is unlike other major thinkers would come to think about the meaning of human life. Darwin believed humans main goal in life is to survive. Aquinas believed human beings can attain this happiness through virtue, God’s grace, reason, and love.

There are many theories and interesting individualities within Natural law ethics which might be evaluated as a share of divine law or the plan of the universe. Natural law of ethics is insistent and cannot be altered by the status quo, as well as being comprehensive and proper for all those people with a purpose. Aristotle assumed that there is a mandate in nature, which is referred to as the theological view, in opposition with the understanding and education of tradition and religion. The moral ideologies that convey human behaviors are, in some sense, honestly result from the nature of human beings and the nature of the world. Furthermore, humans and all living things follow a form of development and growth by nature, you are what you were

There are six main ethical theories in which each one have their own way of thinking and believing. One of the six, is called the natural law theory. The natural law theory explains that everything has a purpose and we should not interfere with the natural way of things per say. Also in this belief, there are things that are considered unnatural, which then gives us a large scale of what would be considered right, or wrong. The theory contains ideas in which there are morals and principles in which humans already contain, such as human nature. In looking at Aquinas's view of this theory, he believes there are four main ideas. The four being, human life, Human procreation, Human knowledge, and Human sociability. In each of these contains bad

Aquinas sought to use the same writings and thoughts to further his agenda for making clear his thoughts. Aristotle based his arguments on the goodness of man. He noted that the man has to develop from within an aspect of being admired based on the characters that are not as controversial. In essence, he meant that it is critical for people to leave a life that is a mirror to others and other generations to come. Aquinas borrowed this concept of the understanding of man to outline the essence of theological value of ethics. In his arguments, Aquinas noted that for one to achieve some level of charity from the perspective of theology, two things were critical. Faith and hope, according to him covered a wide area in understanding or attaining some charity and moral standards. Virtues, according to Aquinas are the driving force towards achieving some certain ‘telo’. Human beings are ever in pursuit of happiness and as such are always motivated to identify such things that bring about wellbeing. To this end, Aristotle talked about Beatitudes as a means through which human beings derive their happiness.

For Dante and Aquinas, happiness does not only compose a useful life on earth but also in Heaven. Dante and Aquinas were sure that continued use of Aristotle virtues would not land any of their followers in heaven. To increase chances of one entering heaven, Dante and Aquinas developed proposed the incorporation of hope, faith, and charity into the daily virtues that people possess. According to Dante and Aquinas, possession of virtues like good temper and judgement could only lead one to live a good life but not perfect for heaven. Dante and Aquinas specifically based there philosophical thinking on four ideas; perfect ordinary happiness on earth, happiness on earth is not important as compared to happiness in Heaven, following of Aristotle virtues was not a problem to them but it could not help in trying moments, and lastly the importance of perfecting the art of love especially to people

Aristotle’s theory will be discussed in full length on his theory of virtue. Now Aristotle did believe in a multitude of theories that are all based off of virtue, but also the soul. To Aristotle, virtue is an excellence, which comes after happiness and achieving our final goal. When Aristotle talks about an individual’s final goal and excellence of that

Through the works of Epicurus, Epictetus, and Aquinas, it is evident that their philosophies inherit a great deal of virtue. Although roughly specified, virtue is implanted within their different ideologies. From achieving happiness, stoic beliefs, and in respects to Christian idealism, virtue turns out to be the driving factor in determining the ideal meaning of life from the perspective of each philosopher and it gives them their value. Backed by firm evidence, it is notable that virtue is more apparent in the Thomism philosophy.

Aristotle was a well-known and respected Greek philosopher. Some of his philosophies have been time less and are still around and being debated. He primarily pondered on what is a good person and a good life? His philosophy focuses on these questions. For Aristotle in order to know whether a person/ life is good, then we first need to understand what is the goal or purpose of that person/life. Aristotle believes that there are virtues, which are good habits or skills that allow us to live a good life. This is called the virtue theory, which aims to achieve the ultimate objective to a good life, which is happiness. He however does state that virtues should not be at extremes, and that one should try to achieve the idea of the "golden mean". In his view, morality is based on these virtues rather then right and wrong. Virtues define our person, our character while the right or wrong are only

Aristotle takes the key to morality to be the concept of “virtue,” which he argues to be activity in accordance with rational principles. He bases this argument on a concept of what is “natural” for man, but his discussion is clearly limited to a small class of Greek male citizens, whom he views as the

Aristotle’s formulation of virtue ethics revolves around three key Greek words: Eudaimonia, arête, and Telos. Each of these terms respectively translates into happiness, virtue, and final cause. Unlike the hedonistic

Thomas Aquinas has the most clear and persuasive views on the goal of moral life. Aquinas claims that the goal of a moral life should be to flourish. If a person lives a moral life with God, then they can achieve true happiness, or flourishing. Indeed, John Calvin and Martin Luther have views on the end of a moral life that greatly contrast to the view of Aquinas. Aquinas takes the most correct and believable stance on the telos, or end, of a moral life.

Virtue ethics was written by a Greek philosopher names Aristotle. Aristotle believed that every human’s goal was happiness. Some philosophers argued that happiness only came from following a set of rules, while Aristotle argued that the best way to have happiness is to cultivate a virtuous character. The two kinds of virtues he recognized were moral virtue and intellectual virtue. The virtue that should be focused on to develop a virtuous character is moral virtue. According to Aristotle, while we are born with a capacity to be virtuous, being virtuous is like a skill that we need to learn and practice to be good at. The key element to being virtuous is being able to find the mean or right amount of our various emotions, dispositions, and actions. Aristotle wrote: “Anybody can become angry- that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for

Concerning the philosopher, the principal factor which coordinates people's decisions towards good or bad actions is a soul. But this process is reciprocal because the soul, in its turn, is forming according to people's actions. The life with the feeling of satisfaction is connected with some level of pleasure; this pleasure, by Aristotle, is the activity determined by virtue. Virtue is a quality of a person's character; it highlights doing any action taking into account both rational

The first principle of law according to Aquinas is that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this” (ST I-II.94.2). The other precepts are self-preservation, procreation, education of offspring, seek truth avoid ignorance, and live in society. Aquinas believes the natural law is written on every human and every human has equal knowledge of good and evil; however, once individual circumstances are factored in, it is dependent upon humans to follow or ignore it. However, Aquinas believes that “the natural law, in the abstract, can nowise be blotted out from men 's hearts” (ST I-II.94.6) but through bad habits of the society it could be weakened. According to Aquinas, the natural law has two main aspects. The first of these is that “the natural law is altogether unchangeable in its first principles” (ST I-II.94.5), which means God can add to, but not take away from, the law. This only applies to the primary precepts; the secondary precepts may change in some particular aspects. The second aspect is that “the written law is said to be given for the correction of the natural law” (ST I-II.94.6.ad 1); to put it simply, human laws are necessary to fill in the gaps/loopholes left from the natural law. Aquinas’ teachings shows that the actions of human is either good or bad depending on whether it conforms to reason.

Virtue Ethics is centred on the belief that everything has a purpose and that, when something fulfils its purpose, it is good. For example, the purpose of a knife is to cut, and so a knife that cuts well has achieved its purpose. This links in to Aristotle’s ideas about the Four Causes and the Final Cause. Plato and Aristotle agreed that the purpose of humanity was the fulfilment of flourishing, and this is known as eudaimonia. When a person has achieved eudaimonia they will be fully content with their lives and they will act morally because they want to. He referred to eudaimonia as “an end in itself”. Aristotle insists that this telos can only be achieved through the use of reason, since the ‘ergon’ (function) of reason in practice is virtue. He says: “The good