Complicating Conscience, Refreshing Discontent

• Authors: Medeiros Paul J.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The 19th Century New England author Thoreau provides an approach to conscience and unjust laws approximating that given by St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae. But the portrait of conscience given by Thoreau in the 1848 oration “Civil Disobedience” is incomplete. Thoreau’s approach is solved by accepting insights given in Part I and Part I–II of Summa Theologiae. Allowing St. Thomas’ insights requires reform of Thoreau’s civil disobedience and conscientious objection. But Thoreau’s arguments are given new life.

Keywords

EN

conscience; natural law; rationality; civil disobedience; conscientious objection; plantation slavery

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii - Uniwersytet Jagielloński
• Journal: Diametros
• Year: 2016
• Issue: 47
• Pages: 50-63

Dates

published

2016-03

Contributors

author

Medeiros Paul J.

• Providence College

References

• Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 1, trans. R.E. Allen, Yale University Press, New Haven 1989.
• St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Vol. 1, trans. Fathers of the Dominican English Province, Benziger Brothers, Inc., New York, NY 1947.
• Philip Cafaro, Thoreau’s Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue, University of Georgia Press, Athens 2004.
• Rick Anthony Furtak, Jonathan Ellsworth, James D. Reid (eds.), Thoreau’s Importance for Philosophy, Fordham University Press, New York, NY 2012.
• François Specq, Laura D. Walls, Michel Granger (eds.), Thoreauvian Modernities: Transatlantic Conversations on an American Icon, University of Athens Press, Georgia 2012.
• Henry D. Thoreau, „Civil Disobedience,” Cape Cod and Miscellanies, [in:] The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Houghton Mifflin & Co, Boston, MA 1906, p. 356–387.
• Henry D. Thoreau, Walden, [in:] The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Houghton Mifflin & Co, Boston, MA 1906.
• Robert C. Solomon, Continental Philosophy Since 1750, Oxford University Press, New York, NY 1988.

Notes

EN

Special Topic - Thomas Aquinas' Theory of Conscience and Contemporary Debates on Conscientious Objection

Identifiers

DOI

10.13153/diam.47.2016.868