@iwpoe
Interesting, Plato's city comes into light.

Mysterious Brony wrote:

@DanielCC
I think, from a classical theist a la Aquinas, moral deism is no good because moral deism ends up denying many crucial A-T metaphysical fundamentals. (In those days, the Newtonian metaphysical picture was prevalent and I think this is one of the reasons why Locke argued that God was the ultimate ground of morality or rights.) However, could a classical theist argue that metaphysical moral deism is a useful fiction as a practical political philosophy out of respect of other religions?
 

 
Poe's later post is correct - I was using the term 'Deism' as synonymous with non-revelation based Classical Theism and not as representative of the view of any historical deist. (In actuality I'm not sure if many deists were committed to the sort of view Ed outlines if only becomes some of their other views e.g. the success of the cosmological argument or God as a moral arbitrator imply otherwise).
 
It would differ from A-T in that it would deny the validity of Natural Law (good riddance in my opinion) as a self-contained system of immanent ends*, accessible to the naturalist if they're willing to countenance ‘physical intentionality’. As it stands Thomas moral theory is a combination of Goodness as the realization of natural ends and Goodness as participation in God; the sort of theory I’m looking to outline would put a heavier emphasis on the latter aspect.    

*On the other hand I wonder if I'm not committed to a more substance dualistic account of human nature (one can be both a substance duelist and hylemorphist as Bonaventure and arguably Scotus were). If one accepts the premise 'Our bodies ends are not our own' one looks pushed towards the conclusion 'we are not our bodies'.
 

Last edited by DanielCC (4/08/2016 4:52 am)