Virtue According to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas

Virtue is one of the fundamental concepts in Aristotle’s moral philosophy, and understanding it paves the way for comprehending and evaluating his ethical system. Saint Thomas, Aristotle’s greatest medieval follower, also approaches this concept in a manner seemingly similar to Aristotle’s, yet with the distinction that he imbues it with a transcendent meaning alongside its original sense. The central question, then, concerns the place of virtue within Aristotle’s ethical system and whether the meaning of virtue in Thomas’s intellectual framework is precisely the same as the Aristotelian one. Given that Aristotle offers a human, worldly, and rational definition of happiness, the good, and virtue—while Thomas struggles to reconcile these concepts with his own Christian-philosophical framework—this study aims to address these questions. Also, at the end, we briefly review the words of both philosophers.