著者

横田 蔵人

出版者

山口大学哲学研究会

雑誌

山口大学哲学研究 (ISSN:0919357X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.25, pp.61-82, 2018-03-23

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In the second part of his Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas mediates a conflicts between two ideals of human excellency, the magnanimitas and humiltias. The ideal of magnanimitiy is quintessence of elitism in ancient Greek political society, which praises the man of pride and self-esteem who also contemns the inferior persons lacking meritorious characters. Aristotle glorifies this virtue in the Book IV of his Nicomachean Ethics as a summit and ornament of the all virtues; this promotion was troublesome among the medieval Christian intellectuals, because such ideal of human excellency seems highly incompatible with the virtue of humiliats, typically Christian virtue of the man of self-humiliation, gentle and humble in heart. ST. Thomas analyses these two virtues in his Summa and determines and redefines their proper functions in total system of morality. Magnanimity is now classified under the virtue of fortitude and humility is installed in a subclass of temperance. The function of the former class of virtues is to agitate and encourage wimpy will-power, whereas the latter restraints and repress excessive appetite. The two virtues are twin necessary parts, an accelerator and break controlling and adjusting human motivation. However, in his reconcilliation of the two virtues, Angelic Doctor seems downgrades the ideal of humility from the level of the gifts of Divine grace infused into the Christians, to the level of only human excellency accessible to even pagans beneath the limits of natural capacities. Does Aquinas dismiss the religious dimension of the virtue of humility in order to reconcile it with the pagan Greek morality? In this article, we investigate the essence of Aquinas's concept of humility and try to manifest its preconditions. According to St. Thomas, the essential condition of humility is "reverence for God' inherent in human nature. In other words, Aquinas admits that the humanity is created as naturally religious. St. Thomas downgrades the status of humility to the level of human nature, as well as he upgrades the human nature to the transcendent dimension. Humility as the just conduct vis-à-vis God is now reinterpreted by Angelic Doctor as a virtue of common religious humanity.