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The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

PREMIUM-Ep. 381: Aquinas on Ethical Psychology (Part Three)

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Mark Linsenmayer

Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.62.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We discuss the first six questions from the "Moral Action" section in the Summa Theologica (1268), which we read in Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings (1993).

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Transcript

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0:00.0

you're about to hear a preview of partially examined life supporter exclusive content

0:10.3

to learn how to get the whole thing check out partially examined life.com slash support

0:14.1

you're listening to partially examined life episode Life, episode 381, part three.

0:22.0

We're down at Dylan, but we wanted to get the rest of this stuff that we read for our last discussion out.

0:29.2

We had the first ten pages of the moral action section of Thomas Aquinas' selected philosophical readings.

0:35.9

Moral action was, I think, the most interesting of all the things we've read for sure.

0:39.9

All right.

0:40.2

So this came down to six questions, and we've sort of outlined already in the previous discussion.

0:47.0

The general theodicy sort of approach here, how is badness even really possible, given that

0:53.9

creation is good, given that God is good and God

0:57.0

would only make good stuff? And so there has to be some sort of, and I think this comes from

1:01.8

Augustine originally, right? Something that is just, it's not fully realized in the recitalian sense.

1:07.0

So yeah, something has mere potential. Well, it's good insofar as even a potential is in existence, but insofar it is not

1:13.3

actualized, let's call that bad.

1:15.3

So the question of Article 1 is, are all actions good or are some bad?

1:21.2

And Mark, you're giving us the background, what lies kind of in the background of all

1:25.4

of this, which is St. Augustine's idea that evil is a

1:29.5

privation and that existence per se is good. And so then the question is, in that context,

1:35.7

how do we explain, not just how some things are evil or bad, but in particular how human actions

1:41.8

can be bad. This is what Mark just said, but I'll just quote from the text.

1:47.3

It's page 343.

1:48.6

We should judge actions good and bad in the same way we do things,

...

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