Thomas Aquinas on Virtue and Human Flourishing

Thomas Aquinas offers teleological systematisation of the habits needed for human flourishing. His metaphysical jurisprudence remodels ethics upon this, rather than on a moral precept. &quote;Eternal law&quote; governing the world determines &quote;natural law&quote;, reflected in human legislation (a variety of the &quote;anthropic principle&quote;). Finally, law, unwritten, is infused spirit as self-consciousness, &quote;universal of universals&quote;. Acquired virtues elicit this, become effusion, represented in religion as gifts or graces. But mind's or spirit's omnipresence, necessarily &quote;closer to me than I am to myself&quote;, supersedes the abstractions of heteronomy versus autonomy. The habitual well-being brought by prudence, justice, courage and temperance prompts this picture of gifts and graces. The &quote;theological virtues&quote;, faith (explicit or implicit) and hope fulfilled in love, &quote;crown&quote; our natural rationality, set toward as being the universal. &quote;Become what you are&quote;. Heteronomous law is thus &quote;defused&quote; at root by grounding it entirely upon immovable spiritual (mental) inclination towards universal fulfilment as naturally desired, reflection shows. Virtue, finally, is best assessed as a capacity for the individually beautiful yet habit-based action, Aristotle's to kalon. Aquinas puts this picture as summed up in the beatitudes of the &quote;Sermon on the Mount&quote;.