Early stirrings of modern liberty in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Early stirrings of modern liberty in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas

Published:2023-06-27 Issue:4 Volume:16 Page:567-584
ISSN:1755-0483
Container-title:Politics and Religion
language:en
Short-container-title:Politics and Religion

Author:

Cavedon Matthew P.^ORCID

Abstract

AbstractIn a 2021 contribution to Politics and Religion, Jesse Russell wrote that St. Thomas Aquinas “had a decidedly illiberal view of a government.” He says Aquinas “advocates a government in which the people are not given public liberty” and did not “prepare the way for the mixed monarchy of the English constitution.” But Aquinas places the rule of moral law above politics, endorses participatory government, prioritizes reciprocal duties rather than coerced conformity, favors a mixed regime with democratic representation, and sanctions resistance to tyrants. Each idea is an important component of modern understandings of freedom. Liberal democracy as a constitutional arrangement, and its various philosophical defenses, postdate Aquinas by centuries. It would be anachronistic to cast him as their partisan. But neither was he a proto-reactionary: his political philosophy is congenial to free, limited government that belongs to the people.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

Sociology and Political Science,Religious studies

Reference51 articles.

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