Aquinas at 800, Part 4: Applied Ethics

Episode Topic: Applied Ethics

Can we make a case for Aquinas as a model of reform when it comes to ecological virtues, bioenhancement, or even death with dignity? Contemplate Aquinas’ thoughts on souls, integral wholes, and the conditions and acts necessary for the expression of virtue in our lives.

Featured Speakers:

• Heather Foucault-Camm, PGCE, M.Sc. ’23 M.A., Program Director, Science & Religion Initiative, University of Notre Dame
• John Meinert, Associate Professor of Theology, Benedictine College
• Fr. Michael Baggot, Professor of Bioethics, Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum
• Libby Regnerus, Graduate Student, Baylor University

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/68ef17.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Aquinas at 800. 

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Transcript

Introduction to the Panel on Applied Ethics

1 0:06

am very privileged to be here to be your chair today for our panel on applied ethics. Our first presenter, John Maynard, is an associate professor of Theology at Benedictine College in Kansas. His most recent publication is Peace in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas Philosophy, theology, and Ethics, and it was published by CUA press. Thank you, sir. He will speak with us today on Aquinas as object and model of reform, the case of the ecological virtues.

Adapting Aquinas' Ethics for Modern Ecological Concerns

Audience Questions and Discussion

2 0:36

Thank you for coming. as I said before, I've written a little short outline of the paper, longer paper I've written, and I'm gonna go through it rather quickly because I think I'd rather spend more time seeing what you all think about the project I'm engaged in rather than me just telling you about it. so my basic thesis, I'm arguing the context this came up at, we have a center for integral ecology at my institution called Benedict in college. And we had a presenter there who was presenting about ecological virtue. And one of my colleagues came to me and said, what is ecological virtue? Like, can we really posit justice toward animals? And my flippant reply was, well, yeah, why not? right. Aquinas and I, I, I, I already had my initial thesis. Aquinas is pretty flexible about what he posits as a potential part of a virtue, so why not justice? And so I'm trying to work that into a longer paper and using the ecological virtues as a test case. But my basic thesis is Aquinas has built into an ethics, a kind of reform mechanism by treating the virtues as whole Okay. And treating them as principle parts or principle virtues as whole with parts, where he and his own work. And I think Thomas subsequently have shown high flexibility in the parts of virtues, which has allowed Tomism to adapt to lots of different circumstances, but also remain ecclesial in the sense that it has, um, some kind of flexibility with it. We can continue to act as parts of the church as it moves toward becoming more ecologically aware. Perfect. We can go that direction. And in other words, Aquinas built it into his ethics. So that's my thesis and I'm using the ecological virtues as a kind of test case, right? Because these are new virtues in some sense. They're being posited by an environmental movement. so there's a whole part of the paper where I kind of try to trace this out and show the history of environmental virtue ethics. Then I pick three that I think we could work with just to see how it might work, right? What did I pick? Wonder, ecological Justice and Benevolence. Benevolence. and so then the bulk of the paper spends time talking about, uh, what Aquinas means by his meteorology or parts and holes. Understanding them in terms of the transcendentals of one in division. So what is a whole is what is, can be divided into parts. And a part is that into which a whole is divided, but in as much as a whole is it's one. So he's got this whole metaphysics of parts and holes, which is very interesting. and then I try to take that and apply it, show that he applies it to his virtue theories. Right? So famously in the Summa, he claims that every cardinal virtue, at least I think you could also argue for the theological virtues, but that's more of an extension, right?'cause the treating each cardinal virtue as a principle virtue specified by its matter, but also as a whole, composed of all three different types of parts, integral subjective and potential, I guess I should say, what those are. So Aquinas thinks there are three major types of holes, integral holes, which are different parts composed to each. Contribute their own perfection to build a hole. subjective holes is when you, uh, is like a genus is a hole, and it's predicated of different subjects. So subjective hole of different species. And then potential holes are when a higher form contains the power in itself of the lower right. So the example there is that irrational soul contains potentially right or in itself the power of the nutritive and the vegetative souls. And of course, animal contains both human and horse and duck and whatever other animals you want. And that a house is an integral hole built of walls and windows and you know, other things to build a house, right? Each contributing something so Aquinas thinks is virtues are holes in all three senses. Also. So he famously pauses integral parts of virtues, which are conditions or acts necessary for the expression of the virtues main act. and then he has subjective holes, which are different specifications of the object of the virtue with specific differences that would denominate different virtues that are all of the same genus. And then of course, potential holes is anytime a separate virtue resembles by analogous predication. The main principle virtue, you just call it a subjective part, it deals with a secondary matter. It deals with an easier matter, right? But it has an analogous, resemblance to the main virtue, right? So he understands his virtue theory and virtues as whole, and I think this allows him a lot of flexibility, right? that's the main thesis, is by allowing it as a whole. You can have. Virtues shift in their integral parts because conditions necessary for the full expression of a virtue could change, either by addition or subtraction, by subjective holes, right? You could discover a new species, which most of us don't think would challenge anything, right? New species, great. Just stick it in there. And, potential holes, right? If you have something that even resembles by analogous predication, a main virtue, then you can pos it as a potential part of that virtue, right? And I think in Aquinas, uh, it was common in the Middle Ages to build your virtue ethics this way, right? Aldis has the five parts of justice, right? So it's just kind of a midieval thing. I don't think Aquinas like came up with this on his own. but building a virtue ethics this way allows it to be highly adaptable. By addition or subtraction according to the different parts. And Thomas have used, have used the theory this way historically. So in the paper, I, I don't just train trace Aquinas's meteorology or the ecological virtues. And then the ways in his meteorology virtues could change, but also show some examples of the way Thomas have used this to be highly adaptable historically within some kind of continuity, namely the cardinal virtues or the theological. okay, so that's my basic, take, right? It could be reformed according to the, integral subjective or potential parts. That's a lot more metaphysically complicated. But that's my basic thesis in that if you go back to thinking about ecological virtues, I think a lot of aquinas's ethics could be adapted to adopt these according to one of those three things. So I think, for example, ecological justice, I read this, there's lots of work on Aquinas and animals and, uh, whether we could have a debt to a non-rational, creature. but pretty much all sides of the debate. We'll admit that if you're going to posit a debt, well, it's going to be a metaphor or an analogy, poof. That's all Aquinas needs to posit a potential part. Like that's, it's a low bar, right? And so we spend all this time arguing about this, but I think Aquinas is probably more flexible. Yes, if you wanna speak strictly, it's not just we have no debts and justice to animals or to plants or the rest of creation. But if Right half of aquinas's thought is a metaphor and an analogy. So I don't see why we can't do that here. We do have a debt there, but according to a different mode of speech. And understanding it, if you want to be totally precise about it. so we could pause it. Ecological justice, right? Where we do recognize the goodness of creation, there's a kind of odd alterum there, which resembles justice, even if it's not strictly due. which would at the very least require us to, to try to, to want the conservation of that goodness and the conditions necessary for it. At least for God's glory. I think you can at least go that far. But again, it's about reforming, not necessarily animal rights or something like that. I think you can do the same thing with the ecological virtue of wonder, which for most ecological virtue ethics, they're not so much concerned that we're the kind of, they are concerned that we become the kind of people who can wonder at non-rational creation. Which I think in aquinas's ethics wouldn't be a separate virtue. I just think he'd, he'd call it contemplation or joy or something like that. You'd reduce it to something more standard. But there a lot of EVE ecological virtue ethics is concerned about how that wonder enters into decisions we make, vis-a-vis non-human creation. And if you, for Aquinas right, the holes is complicated. So one, an act of one virtue could be an integral part of another, right? So for example, EBIA, which helps us take counsel, well, could enter as an integral part into prudence depending on the circumstance. So I see no reason why we couldn't take wonder and have it function as an integral part of decision making when we're deciding vis-a-vis non-rational creation, something like that. So that part of EVE would be easy to integrate via an integral part into like ecological decision making or something like that. I've got some stuff about benevolence, but that one's a little bit harder and there's a lot more writing on it. because that's an act of charity for Aquinas. He does think we love non-rational creation out of charity, by a love of concupiscence, and we want for them, they're good, which is to glorify God principally and to be conserved. He says for human use. I think you can get a go a long way with that. But anyway, and then I pause it. You could probably, in the ecological literature, they'll talk a lot about ecological prudence, right? Namely, making decisions in light of the conditions of your local ecology and the common good that's shared by being in a place and sharing resources together. that if you can posit those as separate shared goods, right? Which I mean, maybe you'd argue that there's not a shared good there. If you wanted to speak strictly, you'd probably have to say,'cause it's not shared.'cause you can't possess a good without being rational in the technical sense. But again, we're not in the technical realm. but Aquinas doesn't always operate in that realm. So it's, the point is we don't need to be that, precise. We don't always operate at that level. Speaking about human perfection sometimes requires us to use analogy and metaphor to kind of get ourselves to the right place in our relationships. so you could, if you can posit a separate common good, like an ecology is a common good, or at least Aquinas thinks that all of creation shares a common good in our integral parts of the universe, that you can posit some kind of species of prudence called ecological prudence or something like that. If you can say there's an ecological, common good coin says, well. Prudence is specified by the multitude that it's, that the, the good that a multitude is ordered to. So if you have separate multitudes and some common goods, boom, separate species. so again, highly flexible. I think you could integrate a lot of these things by just recognizing that treating the virtues as whole, gives a, an adaptability. Now, I didn't talk about in the paper, I think there are lots of other benefits to this kind of scheme for both Aquinas and Thomas as well as ecological virtue ethics and the church. I think for Thomas, this kind of built-in adaptability helps us to, to act as a part, as a, uh, Cain says, right? to act as a part of the church that Aquinas, that Tomism isn't. So it has a built-in adaptability such that it's not so ossified that we can't, when ecological concerns come up, which Aquinas had no idea, right? We don't need to be like. Super strict about it, right? You can adapt to it and it's no problem. which is of course important if you don't want to enter these schematic, which most Tomas don't. So that was good. so a benefit for Tomism, I think it offers a lot of benefits for ecological virtue ethics, Catholic or otherwise. I go into a lot of examples of eclo, of virtue ethics and Catholic takes on the environment. And I think we're kind of in a, in a place right now where there's new concerns that are not being super well integrated into a fuller vision of the human person. And I worry that they're going to, um, spin off into their own separate system. So this happened, at least if you follow Keenan in the 16th century with Ry. We, like, we couldn't make sense of this new stuff and so we spun a new system to deal with it. I'm worried we're doing that. Where a lot of e uh, ecological reflection is in some sense tying itself to quasi utilitarian moral methodologies to help make sense of it. And I worry about that. So I think it, it's helpful to give ecological virtue ethics a Catholic or otherwise from becoming its own separate system. In other words, also becoming matic. It may be in interested in the intellectual sense, I don't know. but also connecting ecological virtue ethics to a wider vision of the human good, by integrating them into the, at least the cardinal virtues. I think you can claim the theological virtues also are whole Aquinas does. But, I don't go into that a lot. I do a little bit in the paper. And the last thing, I think it offers a benefit that it gives us a clear place to teach new virtues and Right, because you, we always teach the theological and cardinal virtues that's very easy to teach. Great. they're holes and so they have different parts. So we want to talk about ecological justice. Fantastic. Potential part of justice. Teach it with justice. uh, so it's good for catechesis. I also think it gives us a really good pastoral leg to stand on. I think a lot of us felt this after lato, see, I'll just speak for myself, where I had no freaking clue what I was supposed to do now, or how to deliberate about it or how that was connected to the rest of my life, or whether I should start confessing, not cutting the mold off my cheese and eating it anyway. You know what I mean?'cause you can'cause mold, cheese and mold doesn't go all the way to the center. you know what I, so helping to incorporate the ecological virtue ethics gives us some way to deliberate about that in terms of the wider virtue ethics of Catholic that matches a Catholic anthropology, but also to confess our sins vis-a-vis the environment. I think a lot of our temptation, this is totally. a conjecture, but reading Ratzinger's in Call to community talks about a real temptation to relativism is that when you don't have true forgiveness, that is backed up by authority, you feel the need to reduce the moral law so that you can live with yourself. And I think that's true, at least in my own life, that I'd love to reduce the moral law so I can live with myself. that by giving the, putting the ecological virtues, adapting them in this way would allow us to accept the moral law in a fuller sense and as well as confess, right? Where for Catholics rubber hits the road, my sins toward the environment, because I failed in one of these particular virtues. and that allows us to bear the weight of the moral law. anyway, I got all this anyway. That's what I'm doing. I think it also aquinas's conception matches really well. Total side note, congar and Ratzinger and Dulles's conception of a hermeneutic of reform, that it has continuity and principles, but adaptability and other things. I think Aquinas has kind of baked this into his virtue. Ethics, not on purpose, right? but it's allowed Thomas to be highly adaptable and creative in different circumstances. And I think we can do it again with the ecological virtues. And that's important anyway. What do y'all think? That's what I've got.

1 16:58

Friends, we have some time for questions.

3 17:02

Okay. Here. Thanks John. This is great. so when in la, see when in the last chapter where the Cobra starts talking about particular virtues mm-hmm. Some of the virtues that he talks about. Ready? I don't think he use ecological virtue to bear.

2 17:17

He does. Well, he cites of Yeah. The Brazilian Bishops conference document, which does use the term, he also uses the term and then he, he talks about adopting new habits, ways of being, I mean

3 17:31

Yeah.

2 17:32

Say things.

3 17:32

Right. So some of the, the, the examples that he gives are what according would call virtues of passion. Mm-hmm. Right. So he talks about humility and Yeah. Society and things like that. Yeah. So the examples you were looking at where intellectual virtues and virtues of the will mm-hmm. Justice and points of nce. Is this gonna work also you think for virtues of the patent, which I mean already are, I mean, I don't know. I think about something like humility is already a potential part of attempt. So we now have a potential part. A potential part.

2 18:02

Yeah. So one Thomas have done that. I was just reading someone recently who is. Depositing separate potential parts of a species of prudence. Great. There's adaptability, and of course we like to systematize things, so it goes here. but part of the reason I didn't talk about those is because in some sense, aquinas's ethics don't need to be reformed at all. if the point is to be e to have a right relationship with creation, I need to be humble, fantastic. Or I need to have gratitude. Pope Francis talks a lot about that. In some sense, it's not a need to change tomism, it's, we'd just become more thomistic and we'd be better off. so I had to find virtues that weren't there already, or weren't just ecological readings of traditional virtues, uh, in order to really test the mechanism for adaptability. yeah, yeah. What do you think.

5 18:58

I'm worried about the decentering, the human person that's potential here. Mm. when I dump my cox waste into a lake

4 19:04

mm-hmm.

5 19:05

I'm not, I haven't offended against the lake. I'm offended against the village who lives at the lake against Israel.

4 19:10

Mm-hmm.

5 19:11

And so I don't see, I, the utility of transferring justice, broadening this content of justice view, it's rape point, ecological virtue should be because I have sin against people.

4 19:21

Mm-hmm.

5 19:21

And, and so I'm trying to animals because it makes me humane, right? Mm-hmm. It's not because I don't fully animal and I don't know why we'd have toand the, the discussion to, to try to, to fit that in. just to source and first points with the UN and what, what,

2 19:38

I mean, part of it's just an example of that. Aquinas has other places where he is willing to stretch concepts beyond what you might say, strictly speaking. that he could incorporate it. I didn't say we have to, And you would wanna say that the primary sense of justice is to humans, obviously. although you might have to posit a potential part of justice to future generations, Something like that. But it, see, you could adapt it that way and say, we have a debt to future generations. Well, that's an odd thing to say. Strictly in justice you do have two rational things, but you have no real, you have an exchange of a kind. Right. But you're already out of the realm of like, strictly speaking. So even for something like debt to future generations, you're probably at a potential part positing a new one. so yeah, whichever way you want to go. In some sense, I think it's helpful to, to think about the adaptability there. Even if we want to say it's not super helpful to say, I have a debt to creation. I have a debt to the humans who also are a part of creation, or I have a debt to God, is. The god of creation or something like that. but I'm not sure we should be super worried about always being as precise as possible. We could say we have a debt to creation, and then the way we understand it is as falling short of the true notion of debt. Right. so you could speak that way and possibly score points at the un, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, part of it is that, yeah, subjective parts are ally speaking the virtue, right? So domestic prudence is all of prudence, right? Just specified as the species and the genus. but potential parts are a full, are analogous predication. so it it, it's important for us to communicate things. But other times it's important to be precise. I mean you have to ask about recycle. Most recycling does absolutely no good for your relationship to the environment.'cause it just goes somewhere. It's just really meant to make us feel good. But if it actually did something, then you would might be able to say, well, the human has a defect, who doesn't want to do this thing? And we might be able to it a part to speak about that, you know? Yeah,

6 22:10

I was think that kind of, I guess falling the little on this, like practically speaking, the results might look the same whether you have kind of like the actual biblical sense of, uh, like a right. Or a debt or something versus the analog, like I guess that sometimes in environmental ethics, like they talk about you. A pins you and all these other things are anthropocentric, like human beings are, you know, higher than other animals. Mm-hmm. Um, and so some people say that that's not very like other environmental perspectives, but I don't know. I think that like the anthropocentric do was perfectly fine. for also aging, speaking for a lot of the same things. It seems to be kind of what you are saying. And I was thinking a good example of a virtue, um, native about mm-hmm. Here at least it's moderation. Mm-hmm. Preference. Right. Right. It's like consumerism is a big issue. but obviously because of the concerns it has how we treat other human beings. But it also has huge concerns for our own life. Yeah. Or we're becoming more materialistic. But that also seems like if we were less, materialistic, more moderate, more focused on spiritual goods, that would really help with that.

2 23:19

That's right. Right. So I wasn't trying to use the test case of becoming more mistic.'cause obviously then Aquinas can't be an exemplar of reform because it's non-REM It's Aquinas was Right. Just go do it. yeah, but I, I think in some sense he's an exemplar of reform.'cause in addition to being right about that, he's built his ethics to accommodate other shifts that would help us articulate, articulate senses in which right. Either under metaphor analogy in which we do owe something to non-rational creation or we do love it in some sense, or we do take it into account in deliberation in these ways, or if that makes sense. Yeah. and I'm not, I'm not convinced I, Aquinas is anthropocentric. It depends on what you mean by the term. I think he's theocentric, which I do think is a huge difference. Where animals are instrumental toward human needs, but they're not solely instrumental to human needs. I think a lot of, anyway, there's like other stuff there about the way environmentalists and sometimes Thomas talk about the value or intrinsic good of creation. If it's as if, if you're instrumental, there's no sense of, that you can be wronged in any sense. And that may be true in relation to the good toward which you're instrumental, but non-rational creation is not only instrumental toward human good. So there are ways you could, wrong humans could probably wrong it, uh, vis-a-vis the primary good toward wit. It's instrumental, which is giving glory to God. so which Aquinas says in benevolence, we wish for, we wish for them, and for all of it, Part of it's adaptability. Part of it's, yeah, we should just, we should all be more temperate. Yeah. But that doesn't talk about change. So, you know, I left it out.

Father Michael Bagget

1 25:18

We have time for one quick question if there is one. Wonderful. Would you join me in thanking Professor Maynard if our second speaker is Father Michael Bagget, who is a professor Atto Bioethics at the Pontifical FNA Regina of Host, and is an invited professor of theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas of Wus and the Catholic Institute of Technology. His research interests include transhumanism and the ethics of emerging technologies, AI at the service of human flourishing, natural theology, and secular societies, the art and theology of Rome and Mistic Virtue Center of Approaches to Moral and Spiritual growth. Father Bagge is the chief editor and a contributor to the book, enhancement Fit for Humanity Perspectives on Emerging Technologies, and that was published by Rutledge in 2022. Today he will speak with us on enhancing the Virtues, a optimistic evaluation of proposals for Moral Bio against. Thank you very much, Ron. Great.

Cognitive and Mood Enhancement

Exploring Gene Editing and Psychedelics

7 26:26

Well, thank you very much. And I think that this presentation, uh, transitions well from what we just heard, because I'm convinced as we heard that Thomas Aquinas provides a lot of perennial principles for us to approach and assess well, contemporary issues or challenges that he could not have imagined. I mean, perhaps some of the things that I'm talking about are difficult for us to imagine today. Uh, so certainly he would not have been thinking about them some 800 or so years ago. I wanna look today, especially at some proposals for moral bio enhancement. It's part of a larger project for radical human enhancement that's often associated with the transhumanist movement. So their goal is to improve our lives significantly at different levels, the cognitive level, our, in our mood, physically, in terms of our lifespan, et cetera. But there are also thinkers outside of transhumanism that are deeply concerned and interested in using the best technology at our disposal to make our lives better. So I wanna see what we can do to assess some of these proposals, which admittedly are still often in an experimental phase. Much of the movement that we have today, we could say, was launched by a work that came out, a decade ago called Unfit for the Future, the Need for Moral Enhancement, and this was put together by Julian Lesco. Mara Pearson. And just to summarize their perspective, they are convinced that the process of evolution that has brought us here today has really favored human beings who can survive and thrive in small communities. And so we've managed to get by huddling together and protecting our own and moving forward in that way, and that's been really great and essential to get us to this point. But we live in a very different world. We live in a world where many of our problems are global problems, so they like to cite all of the potential disasters that can come from uncontrolled climate change, where they talk about nuclear warfare. We could add pandemics. These are global problems, right? So it's not about what one family or tribe or clan does. It's about how we collaborate as a larger whole. But unfortunately, this evolutionary process, which has allowed our survival, has left us woefully ill-equipped, unfit for the future, which in a sense is already our present. And so they think that we need even more than good old fashioned education and other forms of moral patient. We also need some serious biotechnical boosts. And so they proposed this idea of intervening through pharmaceutical approaches, through genetic approaches and other interventions so that we are morally enhanced. And they tie this project of moral enhancement very much to other popular projects of cognitive and mood enhancement. So we can be morally enhanced if we are on the whole better able to judge and assess moral situations with say, less bias, less narrow perspective. And we're also able, we're also motivated, so more sort of emotionally compelled to do this again, not just for our own, but at the global level. So they want to combine projects of cognitive enhancement and mood enhancement together to this kind of moral enhancement. And they're also very clear, especially in this first book that launched the movement that this might not work. Okay. So it, it may not work, but if it doesn't. At least their position in, in 2012 seemed to be, we're probably doomed. If, if we don't morally enhance ourselves, in this radical fashion, we're probably going to destroy ourselves. met with the authors in an event in May, and it was delightful to, to chat with them about these themes. And I, I think they have a, a slightly more modest, moderate, view a decade later. But we, we can maybe discuss that a bit, a bit in the questions and answers. Okay. So just before we get to how to assess this kind of ethically and how this may or may not fit into a mistic, moral theology or, or philosophical ethics, I just wanna obviously assess some of the base questions about the feasibility of this project and maybe some of the ideas of what they might like to do here. I. First off, I think it's worth giving them a fair hearing because there are lots of reasons why it would be really helpful for us to have cognitively enhanced people. Just think of all of the kind of safety disasters, econ, problems that come about because people are somehow, limited in their, their capacities, their skills. also it'd be, it could potentially be great for economic product productivity for this. And while they're the first to say that economic success doesn't equal a full good life or human happiness, it at least places some conditions in, in for us to, to flourish and to benefit and all sorts of societal benefits and discoveries and medicine and science and so forth. So it's fair to give them a hear, a hearing, but when we come to these questions about feasibility, there are already some limits. uh, Susan B. Levine has done a lot of work on this and she identifies three main areas that should give us some pause and some current concern. First, there seemed to be cognitive trade-offs for, so say in tests with methylphenidate. It seems like we have improved working spatial memory, but maybe some disruption of intentional control. It seems like a lot of the pharmaceutical approaches have these kind of trade-offs. So you often get maybe benefits in, long-term memory, but then less capacities and in working memory to, so you might maintain certain information for longer periods, but struggle to, to learn something new. And this applies not just at the pharmaceutical level, but also some tests that we've done. say with transcranial magnetic stimulation. There was one test where they looked at mathematical work, so stimulating the. Posterior parietal cortex seemed to improve capacity to learn new mathematics, but then seemed to lead to poorer results in employing what was already learned. Whereas when they stimulated the, dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, it had kind of the opposite effect, basically, easier to employ previously learned math, but harder to learn new information. So these sorts of trade-offs show that maybe these paths are not as promising as we, we might have hoped. Baseline dependent effects, pretty much saying that a lot of the, the successive seem to have come from people who are already sort of on the, the lower end, maybe don't even reach what we would consider normal levels. So perhaps we're dealing more with therapies than enhancements here and say, in the case of serotonin, it's not as though you get benefit, benefit the further you go. There seems to be a sort of U curve and. Serotonin's too high, you might have negative effects, suicidal ideation or, or other problems. Just to say that in many cases we might have legitimate therapy without successful enhancements. There's also the question of how good this is for creativity. So some of the pharmaceutical approaches that say improve attention and focus could be really good for a repetitive, simple task, but not so good, where it actually helps to bounce around and consider different aspects of an issue to develop a, a creative and innovative solution. So again, we might gain in some area, but lose out in another area. So there's also, these questions about using, different approaches to mood enhancement, uh, how successful that can be, how much that can. Contribute to giving us these, these better motivations and, and better intentions in, in what we're trying to do. Some of the, the most famous cases or or tests here have been in using oxytocin, right? We associate that with pair bonding. And it seems like this could be really great to form and solidify the kind of collaboration that we need to tackle all of those big issues and problems like saving the world. And some of the tests seem to suggest that there are some benefits at administrating, say, nasal spray of oxytocin to create a stronger in-group, cohesion. But that there may actually be a greater suspicion and animosity towards those considered in the outgroup. So stronger bonds in that small group, but not so much, you could say in the global stage, which would mean that we're not really getting what, what we were looking for. Also selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been used to test kind of levels of fairness, which maybe could contribute to that sense of justice. And, they use these ultimatum games and try to decide how we divvy up a certain amount of funds and see whether we offer a fair amount to someone else and whether that person is capable of detecting well, whether this is fair or not. and these, these tests, again, are still in their initial phases, but it seems like there may be some slight improvements in the sense of fairness when we're dealing with issues that directly affect us, but not so much with, with issues that don't touch upon our life or don't potentially harm us. So again, it seems like the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors might not quite get us to that sense of global altruism and collaboration that, that they're looking for. there's also some interesting tests about. Maybe sometimes when we have negative moods, we're actually better in certain cognitive practices. So they've done these tests with eyewitness memory, deception, unjust stereotyping, and it basically seems like there is a greater likelihood of, assessing a situation properly when there is a certain, dip in your mood or a negative affect. So it seems that that makes us a bit more vigilant and less prone, to deception. So all to say that if our project, if the moral bio enhancement project hinges on this kind of combination of cognitive and mood enhancement, it has to address the problem that sometimes one helps or, or one hinders the other. There's also this whole issue of trying to identify and in a sense, maximize or eliminate. good or bad emotions. So especially from a mistic uh, perspective, it's not so much that we're looking, well, obviously we're not looking to eliminate emotions. We're, we're not looking to just maximize certain emotions because they're always and everywhere good. We're rather looking to, habitation in virtue that allows us to properly channel these emotions and then, react according to the particular situations and circumstances in which we find ourselves. e even if we are able say to, chemically reduce, aggression, there's also the risk of falling into a kind of timidity, right? Just to use one potential example where we think about the efforts to eliminate anger, well, that could also really inhibit us from righteous indignation. That leads to a lot of important social projects to improve society. Okay. So I've, I've talked a lot about limits, or at least briefly have addressed some of the limits to the, the very feasibility of doing this project. and I think though it's still worth looking at some of the experiments, and again, I use that term, experiments because we're still in the early stages of this. But I think it's worth looking at the experiments and even if they're not doing that much or as much as we would like, or as much as the proponents of biomal enhancement would, would like, it's still important to see how they might potentially, assist us in the pursuit of virtue, which of course is of great concern to Thomas and other schools of thought. So just some of the, the experiments at work, I'll go through different. very briefly, of course in the article, I deal with these issues more extensively, but just to give us a sense that there are proposals, for instance, in the realm of gene editing, basically tied to the four cardinal virtues. John, sorry, James Hughes, uh, who is also at that may event. James Hughes has also spoken of, moving toward, cyborg virtues. So we'll look at the influence of, brain stimulation, brain computer interface, and he thinks that we could potentially promote what we'd understand as the cardinal virtues. He likes to also introduce other traditions, say Confucian or Buddhist traditions. But anyways, here, there, there seem to be certain genes that are at least associated with risk taking. So the theory is here, well, if we could get to a, a greater precision in our understanding of the genetic relationship between. These genes and risk taking, might we help people become more courageous? Might we encourage them to, to take risk when they're, you know, too cowardly to do so otherwise? also in terms of justice, might we be able to, identify certain areas that are associated with aggression levels, to kind of eliminate tendencies toward vengeance or other offenses against justice? Or might we encourage empathy, which would create a, potentially greater social cohesion, certain genes associate, say with food craving. Okay, so can we help people become more temperate in, in how they address, food use or alcohol use? And then prudence, it's not as clear, but it, see, it seems like I. We could potentially improve, say, memory or other aspects. You could say, integral parts of prudence to facilitate the deliberative process and, and other important aspects of moral decision making. So if Gene editing's not your preferred approach, try psychedelics. So as some of you're aware that actually psychedelics are being taken much more seriously now, it's not just Timothy Leary and, you know, people in their, their vans listening to 1970s music. there were, there are developments, Johns Hopkins and, and other, uh, centers that have done much more serious and controlled. Thankfully, studies of psychedelic use, I. Griffiths, who I believe just passed away recently has looked, especially at psilocybin. So you can see all of these positive effects in terms of patience, cognitive flexibility, positive thinking, compassion, social concern, and also perception of the feelings, thoughts, motions of others. And so you can see how there are some proposals to use the psychedelics not only for strictly therapeutic purposes, right? Most of the studies now are being, the done for those with, post-traumatic stress disorder, those with depression. There are some interesting developments in, in alcoholism. So not only looking at kind of the microdosing and therapeutic accompaniment to help people with these clearly clinical conditions, but how might we also favor a moral awakening or a moral improvement? Of course there are all sorts of questions that arise as to, whether we're really helping people to say, remove obstacles to, uh, a better understanding of reality or remove obstacles to, healthy moral practice and, and how much we're kind of favoring a, a kind of delusion or a, detachment from reality. And that also comes when you start to look at questions of ego dissolution and this general sense of being part of a transcendent whole, or those who report profound religious experiences. Are we actually helping them come into contact with reality? Are we just sort of fabricating an experience that doesn't have, real objective content, also brain, computer, interface and, and these fun cyber. Virtue virtues that James Hughes and others are promoting. Okay? What can we do with the prefrontal cortex in terms of impulse control and deliberative reason? Okay? Could this, you know, help contribute to say, wiser, more prudent people? Could we tap into this? A lot of our work now has been in brain stimulation, but the hope is that as brain computer interface develops that we could do this better with greater precision, more reliability, and so forth. Okay? So there's all sorts of fun stuff that we can talk to about, and like I said, I, I very much encourage you to, to look into the article whenever it is published. but I just wanna hone in a little bit on where I think this fits into a bigger picture of. To Mystic Moral Life, virtue, ethics and so forth. So we're very interested in virtue. And so I think it's important for us whenever we're looking at proposals to favor the moral life, in particular in the case of James Hughes, to actually encourage virtues, whether they're cyborg or otherwise, to remind ourselves kind of what it means to truly live a virtuous life. So there was a piece that just recently came out in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy that very helpfully goes through these, or many of the proposals for boal moral bio enhancement and starts to ask the question, can we ever consistently and reliably produce virtue? Spoiler, spoiler alert, the answer is no, but it's not a complete dismissal of what they're doing. It's simply a reminder that we need these three aspects. Motivational, right? So you actually, you know, want your desires are properly aligned. You're not just a continent person, but your desires are properly formed and aligned to act for the right motives. Rational, right? That you have the correct pattern of reasoning. And so you actually have a prudence, which allows you to decide based on the circumstances and the situation in which you find yourselves how to use or, or act in accord with these different character traits, even if these character traits have been profoundly shaped or encouraged by the different interventions that we, we looked at. And then the behavioral right? This is something consistent, not sporadic, and it's something that actually comes from your second nature, right? It's actually who you are. It's something that, that has, been formed in you and is not something that is simply the, the kind of result of an intervention that has made you passive. And that in a sense is not really your responsibility or does not spring from who you are. okay, there's all sorts of questions too, about. human flourishing and, and what we mean by that. But sort of in the interest of time, what I wanna do here as well is just, say that my own approach is basically that a optimistic Phil philosophical theological outlook should be very interested in these different proposals and concerns, assuming that they develop well. I think some of these interventions could in fact assist in facilitate, nudge us in the right direction, assist in certain dispositions, maybe remove certain, physiological neurobiological obstacles to the development of virtue. But while they may aid, assist, facilitate our pursuit of virtue, they can never guarantee it. They can never produce it, uh, consistently and reliably. For some of the reasons that I very briefly outlined here and that there's just no way of getting around, virtue habituation or the gift of infused virtues that I think that we need to endorse and actively, you know, consent to whatever sort of disposition these interventions may be nudging us toward. So, I, I'm, I'm not afraid of them all. I don't think we have to dismiss them. I'm even comfortable with the idea of accepting not only therapy, but enhancements that is, that which goes beyond what is the kind of biological norm for health, so long as those enhancements are consistent with our biological health and are not hindering us from pursuing other non-physical goods. So I'm comfortable with and, and willing to accept the idea of incorporating these, bio enhancements, some of the proposals. But would want us to look beyond them to see how they fit into a larger picture of the good life. And I think that we have a lot of orientation and guidance from Tomism toward the end of the article, I issue a, an even deeper critique. It's not simply that I think certain transhumanist or those who are aligned to the transhumanist movement, pick out bad interventions or proposing bad uses of technology. I actually think that many of them lack the philosophical resources to even use the term enhancement. That's a very value laid in value charge term. And at least many of the thinkers in this school tend toward a. Kind of moral subjectivism and a a, a great focus on human autonomy, a resistance to any notion of imposing some sort of universal standard of the good life. And so I think from that kind of moral subjectivism, they simply lack the philosophical terms to speak of an enhancement. And they're basically left to talk about bio technical biomedical alterations. Things are, will be different, but whether that different is better or worse will depend upon some teleology, some clear ethical standard. And that's where I think Tomism can come in to offer quite a bit. And to offer a well-grounded teleology to assess prudentially, does this intervention assist this person, this community, toward a more virtuous life or not? Thank you very much.

1 50:06

Thank you very much. Father, we have time for one or two questions.

8 50:10

Yes, I'm very leery of this. It, it's all very promising as therapies for like pathologies or disorders. But to say that they would be enhancements as you like towards the conclusion suggestive, like that would imply a not only robust like understanding of the moral life and human virtue, but then like how that relates to neuro biology as we're like still discovering it. Mm-hmm. This kind of has this very ableist slash eugenics new vogue.

4 50:47

Yeah.

8 50:48

This vibe and it makes me extremely uncomfortable. Yeah, you have like ableism then like one slide, and you didn't really talk about that. Yeah. so if you could talk to that, because I'm immediately like having, you know, a visceral reaction.

7 51:00

Sure, sure. To the idea

8 51:02

of like moral enhancements, neurologically. especially if they're like universally available. Like how does that and not become prescriptive and like, it just Yeah. You can write all kinds of just weird novels about Yeah.

7 51:18

Yeah. I have a few ideas for that. I have a few ideas for that. Yeah. I, so I agree. I, I share, I think that anytime we get to what appears to be an enhancement, there should at least be, caution, concern, serious reflection and, you know, throw in a bit of suspicion. And also, uh, Serious assessment of the social implications of that, as you alluded to briefly, right? Maybe this isn't even intrinsically wrong, but it will create or exacerbate such social inequality or certain pressures of a narrow view of what the good life is, that it's just better not to pursue it. so definitely get that and, and understand that. And, um, also what, what I did really have time to expand on is, is the fact that from a, a, particularly a specifically theological vision, I think we have so many resources for an expanded notion of human flourishing. Most of the transhumanist, or what I call kind of transhumanist aligned proponents of radical bio enhancement or other forms of enhancement are working from a very secular worldview and sometimes explicitly criticize any mention of God or religion as outdated and anti-scientific and so forth.

8 52:35

The religious gene or whatever.

7 52:37

Oh, yeah, yeah. There would, that would, there was some who would favor that. Yeah. There's some who would favor that. Right, right. As a defect. Right. but just to say, I mean, in, in that radically secular view, this is the life we have. And maybe I was at a transhumanism, the body study group last week, and we had a Aubrey de Gray there, and he's a big longevity proponent. So maybe we will have a hundred, a thousand plus years, right. as he's convinced we will. Right. And so we might have more and more. Yeah. Yeah. We might have more and more of this life, but it's not going to be, you know, qualitatively better or different. and so I, I understand how in the imminent frame, if you will, it makes a lot of sense to try to have, as you know, pleasurable, enjoyable, and long life as we know it. It's, it kind of, it's a best form flourishing as we kind of our default right? Of yeah, the young fit, healthy, happy, person. And like if we're lucky in this life, we have what, a few decades of that or less, right? Anyone, let alone those who just for whatever. Yeah. But that's, that is often so to, I'm see a lot of flourishing models that, that seem to tend toward holding up that kind of prime of life state that we can just want to cling to and hold for as long as possible. And I'd say from a Catholic moral theological perspective, tomism or otherwise, that's not the end of the story. And you can actually flourish in many different conditions. You can flourish even if you lack some of the physical, cognitive, or mood capacities that are, we're trying to enhance here. So it, it gives us a much bigger vision of what that's like and it introduces concepts of redemptive suffering and it gives us a whole new perspective on these issues. But it does not surprise me that those who are working more from the imminent frame want to maximize kind of the physical wellbeing for as long as possible. And depending on how they view personhood and how widely or narrowly to apply personhood to, uh, the human species, there will also be some who are sacrificed along the way, which is where the eugenic perspective comes in. But yeah, it's a huge, huge thing. So caution.

5 55:04

Yes.

1 55:06

Maybe have that one final

5 55:07

question, just briefly, the, I'm not ready to drink the Selma yet. Thank you for the tank full of new nightmares fuel. I appreciate that. Um, but, but I would echo this at the end of the day, the last mega tomorrow, bio advancement with eugenics. And this just looks like my genic, I, the KY stopped. I think that I really, I, um, until that can be a robust legal framework to

7 55:32

Yeah. I, I mean, yeah, I suppose it, it depends, yeah. Very much on the particular means approach being used. I agree that there are a lot of neo eugenic, proposals here and yeah, I've offered, you know, critiques of principle procreative beneficence, which is another idea, that, uh, SCO is associated with, which he insist is not eugenic, but I think there are elements of eu eugenic thought. And so there definitely a lot of proposals I say, okay, no. And any proposal that sacrifices the life or wellbeing of the frail, the weak, the vulnerable in this case of procreative beneficence of those embryos who are not actively selected is wrong. I definitely agree with that. If we could reliably, safely and in a way accessible to the wider public through genetic or pharmaceutical means, say generally improve human memory, uh, generally improve concentration, I'm okay with that. I don't think that leads directly to eugenics, but as I mentioned earlier, nor do I think that guarantees, flourishing or guarantees a virtuous life. I mean, I can use my new memory, uh, capacities or concentration capacities to, to research, teach, and serve others, or I could use it to manipulate them. So there's, I don't think any getting around, uh, the work of virtue formation, but maybe some of these moderate enhancements could contribute toward assist aid, the pursuit of those virtues without guaranteeing those

5 57:06

way, because these people have probably never heard these words, and he said, well, so thank you for that.

7 57:10

Yeah, I mean, for what it's worth, it's speaking very briefly with SCO and some of the others who are working on this and chatting with, with them a little bit about my proposals, they do see virtue ethics as a promising way forward, what exactly they understand by virtue ethics and so forth. That's a, that's worth another few conferences, but. There's there, there's some glimmer of, of hope here.

1 57:33

Would you join me in thanking Parliament? our final speaker for this session is Livy Ez. She's a doctoral student in philosophy at Baylor University. I'll just turn it, she's, she's virtual theory, moral psychology, and bioethics in her hopes to write for dissertation on moral development. Her presentation is entitled Death Assisted Suicide Aquinas, and the Virtue of Urge

9 58:05

Working on the

4 58:06

Slots.

1 58:07

Slides are on their way. I've seen them and they are brilliant.

9 58:12

Thank you. It was once unobjectionable to think that one could not choose the means or the hour of one's death, but the growing availability of voluntary euthanasia offering a soberly undertaken dignified death has complicated this idea. The language often used around assisted suicide claims to offer those facing terminal illness a way to rationally order their life until its end, perhaps even offering a way of courageously facing death. Yet, based on the mistic conception of courage, I argue that death with dignity through methods of assisted suicide, rob the individual of a noble death rather than enshrining a virtuous end. In the first part of this talk, I examine Aquinas's account of courage and suggest a revision to his theory to fit with an understanding of death as the spiritual battle of the soul. In the second part, I examine reasons given by patients for utilizing assisted suicide. Discuss the marks of the courageous man, and I identify how these patients miss these marks in proceeding with assisted suicide. In a longer version of this paper, I also address objections which ascribe nobility to the act of suicide and argue that cultivating the virtue of courage better fulfills patient's desires for dignity and autonomy. However, given our limited time today, I'll stick to the mistic motivations for this view. Now, the Vir ethics tradition is concerned with moral character such as, such that what you do partly Coates constitutes who you are. The individual decides what sort of person she wants to be throughout her life, and finally, at death. And as animals with the rational nature, we can choose in accordance with or in opposition to right reason habitually acting well requires the virtues which serve to guard the practice of right reason and create us a second nature by which the pursuit of the good is pleasant and easy. Courage or fortitude protects reason from shrinking and fear what Aquinas describes as a withdrawal from an evil that entails difficulty. Yosef Peeper with Tim inspiration remarks that courage presupposes vulnerability, the mark of a human rather than an angelic nature confronted with injury. Courage enables one to suffer. Well, disability is characterized by a firmness of mind, which involves bearing and withstanding those things wherein it is most difficult to be firm, namely in certain grave dangers. Equus finds that these especially involve those with threatened bodily injury. The most difficult expression of fortitude involves facing death as the most fearful of all bodily evils, since it does away with all bodily goods. So death is the ultimate injury, the deepest injury, and thereby all lesser injuries refer to it as pre figurations of death. So, while death is not the only context in which fortitude can operate, it is the paradigmatic case of its expression. However, Aquinas limits the circumstances in which facing death for some higher good counts. Here he sides with Aristotle's quintessential brave man. The soldier in battle courage is expressed in battle because the dangers of death, which occur in battle, come to man directly on account of some good because to which he's offend, defending the common good by a just fight descriptions of courage seem less fitting when one faces dangers of death arising out of sickness, storms at sea, taxed from robbers and the like. However, singular combat, and those who face a danger of death on account of virtue. We might think here of those who care for the disease, those who take up a noble quest or are martyred, these are all still, fitting cases for courageous expression. What he doesn't comment on are the everyday sort of dangers of death, which all will face regardless of whether they engage in battle. So while it seems more characteristic of fortitude to be revealed in battle, I think we can extend the battleground of fortitude to those who must choose to face death well or poorly, which is everyone for death is not necessarily less fearful when it approaches in the, in the hospital versus in war. Modern man likes to speak of death in rather positive terms, like passing on ceasing to live, replacing funerals with celebrations of life, or swapping corpses with the cheery portraits of the deceased. But death is always violent. Some individuals die more peacefully than others like in sleep, but death itself is always the same. It's the severing of body from spirit, soul life, et cetera. So without fail, enemy or death comes as an enemy to the body. Which fights to preserve itself as an organism and ultimately loses. Now the idea of the death, regardless of its context, is a battle became increasingly popular in the 15th century. Ours morandi tradition, the tradition responds partly to the vast number of gruesome pandemic deaths due to the Black plague. The longer version was a woodblock printed text published initially around 1450 and widely circulated. One of the first of its kind, following the invention of the printing press. Whereas the shorter Ars Morandi was a series of woodcut images useful in teaching for the illiterate. Many of late Medieval Europe. Sister Mary Catherine O'Connor writes that the tradition is a complete and intelligible guide to the business of dying. A method to be learned and kept at one's fingers for use in that all important and inescapable hour. So in other words, this tradition is a spiritual weapon of sorts. The images represent a, the struggle between good and evil. The combatants are the evil suggestions of the bad angel and the inspirations of the good. Lydia Dugdale notes that it is clear from the representations of angels and demons that a battle wages for the dying man's soul. An earlier reproduction of an early copy of the text located in the British Museum describes a man dying emaciated by illness. Suicide is strongly entertained. One of the demons, touches the dying man's shoulder with his right hand. While in his left, he bears a scroll with the inscription killed self. The following images display The dying person under attack can see some of them. On this slide, the devil tempting them with unbelief, despair, impatience, vein glory, and attachment to relatives and material possessions. But fortunately and every case, the dying man's good angel comes to his rescue. Stirring him to hold fast, to faith, hope, love, humility, and detachment the antidotes for these temptations. Now, a temptation that is particularly of note for the topic we have at hand is impatience and suffering. The sick man is shown kicking his medical attendant in exasperation, his wife and daughter, Lahan exclaiming, see what suffering he endures. But once again, the good angel administers to him and presents him with exemplars of endurance. Dying man fold respond by folding his hands in prayer. So showcasing these experiences is meant to stir the dying viewer to acknowledge the reality of what faces them or the non-drying viewers. So us at this moment to prepare themselves for such a moment confronting death on account of some natural evil exhibits the right criteria for the practice of courage. It involves facing fearsome grave danger, particularly that which destroys bodily goods. It's the sort of event towards which one can have firmness of mind fighting the temptation to fear and despair, and the individual can face death bravely, because what is at stake is his greatest good and eternal destiny. This involves not viewing death as good, after all, it destroys bodily goods, which we rightly value. But one might welcome death as, uh, with knowledge that the goods at stake are higher than bodily preservation. So if the process of dying is a spiritual battleground, the virtue of fortitude is centrally relevant. So our question becomes whether one can die courageously through assisted suicide initiatives, pushing for wider access to assisted suicide often refer to patients undergoing extreme bodily duress and encourage compassion and mercy towards these people. But it's not so clear that what is being sought is nearly physical relief. A summary of data from Oregon where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997, finds that refractory, that is unmanageable physical pain is no longer the most compelling reason for ending one's life through lethal ingestion. Rather, 90% of patients examined instead, cite the reality of losing autonomy and the ability to engage in enjoyable activities. Around 75% were worried about the loss of their dignity, just under half claimed to want to avoid being a burden toward their loved ones, which was about the same amount as those who point to the fear of losing control of bodily function. Only a quarter of patients listed pain management as a concern leading to their decision. Perhaps this data is unsurprising, given massive advances in pain medicine, but what is new and only now conceivable in a technological age is the idea that one can direct the course and circumstances of one's life and death entirely with more resources to combat pain and suffering. Any fruits of personal transformation that frailty might have produced in times past is now rendered incomprehensible. To be clear, patients considering assisted suicide are undoubtedly troubled and ill deserving tremendous sensitivity and care. However, as this data begins to suggest their suffering is not only bodily, but also mental and spiritual. So to consider whether asso assisted suicide can display courage, we must examine whether it's practice coheres with the way in which the virtuous man approaches death. QAs determines for interrelated marks which the courageous man displays standing one's ground, endurance, sorrow for physical goods, but pleasure from spiritual goods and the gift of grace. First, the brave man does not run from danger. The circumstances in which one might display this virtue involve some threat of death. Thus courage requires one not to refuse right action. On account of that threat, Aquinas reflects that the courageous man will not fail to attend to on a sick friend through fear of deadly infection, or not refuse to undertake a journey with some godly object in view through fear of shipwreck or robbers. Now, the martyr displays this steadiness, most characteristically facing a fight that is waged against their own person, and this for the sake of the sovereign good, which is God. Thereby, the action of the martyr is included in the genus of the for of fortitude that regards warlike actions, and we can commend martyrs for having been valiant in battle. This firmness and character associated with the martyr is closely linked to the second mark of the brave man, which is endurance in asking whether endurance or attacks is the chief act of fortitude. QAs rules in favor of the former endurance for while the danger at hand naturally moderates when staring fear is more difficult to suppress. So fortitude primarily stimulates endurance to stand immovable in the midst of dangers rather than to attack them in order to counteract fear. Endurance acts within the soul by cleaving most resolutely to the good, the results being that it does not yield to the threatening passion of the body. The third mark of the courageous person is a balance between sorrow and light. While the brave man experiences sorrow at the thought of losing his life or for bodily pain, Aquinas echoes Azar. In second Maccabees, I suffer grievous pains in body, but in soul and well content to suffer these things. Because I fear thee courage offers the pleasure of the exercise of virtue in that it facilitates flourishing. The joy which flows from courage is enabled by binding oneself firmly to the spiritual good. Since no bodily good is equivalent to the good of reason. However, if it sounds farfetched that the dying man experiences joy in the exercise of the virtue, which thereby dispels the significance of bodily pain, it's important to note that Aquinas, says that this process depends on grace, which is the fourth mark of the, of the brave man, for the sensible pain of the body, makes one insensible to the spiritual delight of virtue without copious assistance. but in comparison, the delight on offer here Aquinas argues, makes even the pain of death pale in its triviality. But to forget one's pain is obviously exceedingly difficult, perhaps not really comforting advice to the dying. So Aquinas, a sense to Aristotle's qualification that it is not necessary for the brave man to delight so as to perceive his delight, but it suffices for him to not be sad. So minimally, the pleasure of virtue balances out when bodily suffering so as to prevent the triumph of fear over the goods of reason. Perhaps only in Superogatory cases could exceed suffering and constitute true delight, given that death is the ultimate injury, it would seem particularly difficult not to grieve the goods that are LA lost here, but the virtue of courage dictates that this sadness or fear not sway one's attachment to the future goods which are at stake. So given these marks that we've laid out for the courageous man, I now compare assisted suicide to noble actions done when the threat of death is clear and foreseen and argue that it the assisted suicide is unlike these cases. So to begin with, call to mind the noble soldier who upon seeing an enemy grenade land close to his battalion, soberly, decides to throw his own body on the explosive, saving the lives of his companions through his death. So this honorable in individuals foresaw that this action would likely end his life. He displays the marks of courage. He does not run from danger. He endures in his resolve. The pleasure of knowing his friends live outweigh his fear of pain. And this is an action which likely requires some kind of higher inspiration pointing to the assistance of grace. Perhaps there are some cases in which the opportunity to be self-sacrificial aligns with the desire to end one's life. But in the majority of these cases, if the grenade is a dud, everyone rejoices and the brave man is happy to save his own life as well. Thus, I argue that the patient desiring assisted suicide is unlike a noble soldier who sacrifices himself, because they flee rather than endure their suffering and fail to find value therein. Rather, this patient can be compared to the soldier who falls on his sword, that is realizing he is overcome by the enemy chooses to end his own life rather than be captured. This soldier flees from danger, preferring to die on his own terms, attacking himself rather than enduring the enemy and abandoning any good he might have done while furthering his cause, thereby falling prey to his sadness rather than finding joy in the exercise of virtue, if this individual fails to accomplish his own death, he regards it as a defeat. The goal of his A, his action is death rather than the fur furthering of his cause, his life, or other lives. A related case is that of the martyr. To return to this, just like the noble soldier, the martyr showcases the marks of the courageous man by steadily enduring the threat of the aggressor and regarding the goods at stake worth pursuing despite the loss of their life. The martyr is particularly supported by grace as he dies for the sacred sake of the sovereign good, which is God. But if the aggressor suddenly changed his mind and stopped persecuting him. The persecuted individual ought to be glad to both preserve his life and spare the aggressor from committing a horrific offense. But once again, I find that this case does not resemble the patient considering assisted suicide. The patient does not submit humbly to their aggressor, this case death in order to bring about the sovereign good, but acts rather like the athlete who artificially enhances their performance in order to triumph, whereas the martyr and the properly ordered athlete endure the danger which confronts them, the patient and the cheater here, short circuit the process. What is missing in the cheater is a regard for anything other than winning. That is he ignores the value of reaching his goal by his own power, cultivating his own virtue, and gaining strength of his own volition. The cheater does not display the virtue of courage, but rather flees from the pain of the efforts required of him and thereby loses the goods available to him in. So to the patient who proceeds with assisted suicide directly desires death, and rejects the goods, which result from perseverance and suffering. So the patient who desires assisted suicide desires death for its own sake. To see the end of one suffering as a good is not problematic. We might welcome death as a kind of relief to that suffering, but undertaking direct pursuit of one's death is a different matter. The fears which patients face are legitimate. Yet I argue that the patient can fulfill their desire to avoid these evils and pursue the good of her rational nature. Courage in particular, through resisting the false hope of assisted suicide, to endure suffering in the face of death for the sake of higher goods. That is to cultivate courage best fulfills the desires of patients in a way that facilitates their flourishing as human persons, rather than being enabled to flee their pain through assisted suicide dying. Patients ought to be encouraged in a way akin to the RS ndi. To emulate, hope, to strengthen them, and prayer and grace to console them. The virtue of courage is only part of what contributes to a good death, but underlie the sort of endurance required to fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith.