Medievalists.net: Adelard of Bath and Roger Bacon: early English natural philosophers and scientists

A website for Josef Pieper. (via First Things)

Righteous

What are the Greek and Hebrew words which are translated by the word "righteous" or "just"? The Online Etymological Dictionary has the following for "righteous":

early 16c. alteration of rightwise, from O.E. rihtwis, from riht (see right) + wis "wise, way, manner." Suffix altered by influence of courteous, etc. Meaning "genuine, excellent" is c.1900 in jazz slang. Related: Righteousness.

And for right:

right (adj.1)

"morally correct," O.E. riht "just, good, fair, proper, fitting, straight," from P.Gmc. *rekhtaz (cf. O.H.G. reht, Ger. recht, O.N. rettr, Goth. raihts), from PIE base *reg- "move in a straight line," also "to rule, to lead straight, to put right" (see regal; cf. Gk. orektos "stretched out, upright;" L. rectus "straight, right;" O.Pers. rasta- "straight, right," aršta- "rectitude;" O.Ir. recht "law;" Welsh rhaith, Breton reiz "just, righteous, wise"). 

"Straight" as describing the path one takes [to God]?

The word can describe a person with respect to his actions in relation to God. (His moral orientation?) Is this what is conveyed by the Hebrew and Greek?

Coming up at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, NYC

OpStJoseph: Solemn Vespers for All Saints Eve
Liturgy and Lecture at St. Vincent Ferrer with Fr. Uwe Michael Lang

By Fr. Lang:
The Reform of the Liturgy and the Position of the Celebrant at the Altar

The Language of Liturgical Celebration
How Latin Could Serve as a "Bond of Unity"

Fr. Uwe Michael Lang on Latin in the Liturgy

Medievalists.net: Masolino’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Mystic Saint or Female Role Model?

Godzdogz: The Angelicum

John Deely has been busy.

But is he rewiting the same book? From U. of Scranton Press:
Descartes and Poinsot: The Crossroad of Signs and Ideas
Augustine and Poinsot: The Protosemiotic Development
Medieval Philosophy Redefined: The Development of Cenoscopic Science, AD354 to 1644 (From the Birth of Augustine to the Death of Poinsot)

Forthcoming

Intentionality and Semiotics: A Story of Mutual Fecundation (also available)


Did he take his history of philosophy and expand certain chapters?
Four Ages of Understanding: The first Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (GB)

A commendable article by Dr. Kevin White

In the Spring 2011 issue of Nova et Vetera, "Aquinas on Good Will." I find the essay's organization to be rather appealing and something I would like to emulate; if only others could be as clear and rigorous in as Dr. White in their writing and presentation.

Who was St. Gregory the Great? Benedict XVI tells us in his own words

James Chastek, What sort of revision does scientific research call for on the Catholic doctrine of the fall?

Thomistica.net: The Aquinas Center of Ave Maria University and the 'New' Thomistica.Net

The university has a lot of good people, but will it ultimately survive the bad leadership of the past? It looks like there are plans to publish the proceedings for the conference honoring Ralph McInerny:

In pursuit of this aim, The Aquinas Center hosts international conferences on the thought of Aquinas, grants annual awards for superlative books and dissertations written on the thought of Aquinas, and publishes substantial volumes on Aquinas’ thought.  These volumes include, to date, Reading John with St. Thomas (CUA Press), Aquinas the Augustinian (CUA Press), Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments (Hillenbrand Books), Reading Romans with St. Thomas (in preparation), and a forthcoming volume on the role of philosophy in theological education in honor of Ralph McInerny.

Medievalists.net: Signification of Names in Duns Scotus and Some of His Contemporaries by Pini Giorgio

Ralph McInerny on rights

Updating some links: On Natural Law and Natural Rights and Natural Law and Human Rights.

The Precepts of Natural Law

There is a very good article in the January 2011 issue of The Thomist by Randall Smith, "What the Old Law Reveals about the Natural Law." I think St. Thomas's discussion of the moral precepts of the Old Law does illuminate his teachings about Natural Law and the first principles of practical reason. However, it is curious that Smith reduces the Natural Law to the two great commandments:

The natural law is grounded in two general, invariable precepts, which are invariable with respect to both rectitude and knowledge: to love God and to love neighbor as oneself. The natural law also contains a series of more specific precepts  derived from these first-level, general, invariable precepts (135).

Did he not remember I II 100, 5 ad 1?

Now there was need for man to receive a precept about loving God and his neighbor, because in this respect the natural law had become obscured on account of sin: but not about the duty of loving oneself, because in this respect the natural law retained its vigor: or again, because love of oneself is contained in the love of God and of one's neighbor: since true self-love consists in directing oneself to God. And for this reason the decalogue includes those precepts only which refer to our neighbor and to God.

According to Aquinas, there is a precept to love one's self, but it was not necessary for it to be promulgated as a separate commandment from God.

A reminder about St. Thomas on the fppr:

Now as "being" is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so "good" is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle of practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, viz. that "good is that which all things seek after." Hence this is the first precept of law, that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man's good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided. 

I think this post at Siris, On Grisez on the First Principle of Practical Reasoning, goes too far to make a distinction between the first principle of practical reason and the first principle of law, as it says the first principle of practical reason is "one founded," not that it is. 

(The Latin: "Et ideo primum principium in ratione practica est quod fundatur supra rationem boni, quae est, bonum est quod omnia appetunt. Hoc est ergo primum praeceptum legis, quod bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum.")

Related:
SEP: Medieval Theories of Practical Reason
IEP: Medieval Theories of Practical Reason

Germain Grisez, "The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa Theologiae, 1-2, Question 94, Article 2"

Kelsen and Aquinas on “the Natural-Law Doctrine” by Robert P. George

An Overview of Practical Reason on Aquinas

THE LOGIC OF NATURAL LAW IN AQUINAS'S "TREATISE ON LAW" James Fieser

Tomás Luis de Victoria - Letaniae de Beata Virgine

Fr. Z summarizes the Theological Studies controversy

The Theological Studies dust up, NCR, creeping infallibility, and the ecclesial vocation of the theologian

Fr. Cessario on casuistry

The appendix to Introduction to Moral Theology.

Rather than putting all of the blame for the laity developing a distorted understanding of obedience on the Jesuits (as Geoffrey Hull does in A Banished Heart, iirc), should we attribute it instead to the general intellectual and cultural trends following Trent? Was this development in Christian moral theology mirrored by secular trends in understanding ethics in the 18th and 19th centuries? I can see how it would be in the interest of those in power to create docile citizens, but this is always the case, as we see in Aristotle's differentiation of the good citizen from the good man.

Regarding the appraisal of pre-conciliar treatments of sexual morality,  we should keep these comments by Fr. Cessario in mind:

The liberty of indifference favors a dualist anthropology insofar as the theory envisions the will as set over and against the rest of the powers of the human person. This may explain why casuist moral theology took a disproportionate interest in regulating sexual morality. No greater threat to the liberty of indifference could be imagined than the sudden upsurge of bad lust. So every precaution had to be taken to maintain the serene "indifference" of the will in the face of some de facto, especially unexpected, compelling good. Recall that, according to the casuist theorists, no factor outside of the will itself could set human willing effectively upon a particular course of action (238).

The "Jansenistic" attitude towards sex may not have been due to formal or even cultural Jansenism, but a "practical" Jansenism arising from the dominance of casuistry?

Father Reed talks with Father Romanus Cessario on This Is The Day

James Chastek, A (sort of) Thomistic divine command theory

“Command” is an analogous term, that is, the meanings of “[human] command” and “divine command” are in one sense the same and in another sense different. They are the same so far as, when considering a command, we view it as either (a) a procession from the will or (b) a normative being. But the sense in which a human command is an (a) and (b) is not the same as the way a divine command is. The unity we find between (a) and (b) in human commands must be negated when speaking of divine commands.

I'm curious as to why command is described as a "procession from the will" as opposed to something pertaining to reason. When imposed on another, it does involve the will of the law-giver.

Related:
Introduction to Moral Theology
The Pinckaers Reader

Physical Premotion: What's so hot about Thomism?