Abstract

The book, the first edition of which appeared in 1964, is divided into four not overly developed parts: : ethics as a philosophical discipline; : man's last end; : good and evil; : virtue and law. While in the first part of St. Thomas's Sententia in libros Ethicorum is the main source of Kluxen's account, the following sections are mainly an analysis of several treatises of the Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae. As a matter of fact Kluxen's purpose and substantial merit are to bring out the status of ethics as a practical science not reducible to theoretical philosophy and to defend it against the intrusions of phenomenology, psychology, or sociology. To this effect he presents St. Thomas Aquinas's ethical thought. Kluxen shows an admirable acquaintance with the texts of St. Thomas and with relevant Thomistic literature; being also well versed in contemporary philosophy he manages to put the right questions. His well argued position is that ethics gives the rules of human conduct; its end is not knowledge but action ; it does not receive its principles from metaphysics: "Praxis is an original, primarily established way of human existence". This is certainly correct, but in order to explain and to confirm the principles we grasp spontaneously and to apply them to new fields of action, we need the assistance of general philosophy.