Moral philosophy in the medieval West derived from two main sources: Christianity and classical ethics. The attempt to reconcile these different traditions and develop a viable synthesis of the two was a central concern of moral philosophy throughout the period.
It was precisely this issue that made Aristotelian ethics, with its this-worldly orientation, particularly problematic for medieval Christians. In the Nicomachean Ethics, which began to be available in Latin translation at the end of the twelfth century, Aristotle declared that humankind's supreme good was a happiness that consisted of philosophical contemplation in the present life—…
As in the Christian West, medieval Islamic and Jewish moral philosophy devoted considerable effort to reconciling scriptural precepts and values with those deriving from the classical ethics inherited from Greece. Muslim moral philosophers, rather than drawing a clear distinction between the imperfect happiness of the present life and the perfect beatitude of the hereafter in the manner of their C…
Although Aristotelianism dominated ethics in the West well into the seventeenth century, the Renaissance witnessed the recovery of other ancient traditions of moral philosophy. As had happened with Aristotle's ethical thought in the Middle Ages, the acceptability of these revived philosophies was largely conditioned by their compatibility with Christianity. The Florentine priest and philoso…
Abelard, Peter. Peter Abelard's Ethics. Edited and translated by D. E. Luscombe. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971. Aquinas, Thomas. Selected Writings. Edited and translated by Ralph McInerny. London and New York: Penguin, 1998. Kraye, Jill, ed. Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts. Vol. 1: Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Montaig…
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