Further reading: Studies
Further reading general and the cardinal virtues for Saint Augustine's Press (South Bend,
IN, ). The disputed questions on evil have recently been published by Oxford University Press () in a translation by Richard Regan, SJ, with an introduction and notes by Brian Davies, OP.
Studies Readers who wish to start with a basic overview of Aquinas's thought might do well to consult Ralph McInerny's A First Glance at Saint Thomas
Aquinas: A Handbook for Peeping Thomists (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, ). Far more detailed, but still accessible, are The Cambridge
Companion to Aquinas, edited by Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge University Press, ), which focuses on Aquinas's philosophy, and The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, by Brian Davies, OP
(Oxford University Press, ), which encompasses both theology and philosophy to present a picture of Aquinas's thought as a whole. On a larger scale is Eleonore Stump's Aquinas (London and New York: Routledge, ), which investigates a wide range of topics within Aquinas's theology and philosophy, juxtaposing Aquinas's thought with contemporary philosophical views in ways that illuminate both. Jean-Pierre
Torrell's two-volume work, Saint Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, ), offers a detailed intellectual biography of Aquinas and a consideration of his entire body of work.
All these works devote at least some space to ethics. For works devoted specifically to ethics, a good starting point is Jean Porter's The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics (Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press, ). (Attentive readers will notice the pervasive influence of Porter's work on the introduction to this volume.)
Although Porter presents her interpretation of Aquinas in the context of contemporary debates within Christian theological ethics, readers with no particular interest in that context will still profit from her clear and helpful expositions of Aquinas's metaphysics of goodness, theory of natural law, and accounts of the virtues. Another useful general survey of Aquinas's ethics can be found in Ralph McInerny's Ethica Thomistica: The Moral
Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, rev. edn, ). The Ethics of Aquinas, a collected of articles edited by Stephen J. Pope (Georgetown University Press, ), includes xxxiv
Further reading both overviews of general themes and specific discussions of each section of the second part of the Summa theologiae.
With a solid grounding in Aquinas's overall moral system, a student can proceed to works that explore more specialised topics. For Aquinas's conception of human action, see Ralph McInerny, Aquinas on Human
Action: A Theory of Practice (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ), and Jean Porter, Moral Action and Christian Ethics
(Cambridge University Press, ). Daniel Westberg's Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford University
Press, ), focuses particularly on the role of intellect in human action.
Kevin L. Flannery, SJ, examines Aquinas's conception of practical reasoning and action in light of the logical structure of an Aristotelian science in Acts Amid Precepts: The Aristotelian Logical Structure of Aquinas's Moral
Theory (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ).
Aquinas's account of the ultimate end of human beings is the focus of Denis J. M. Bradley's Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas's Moral Science (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, ). xxxv