Anselm of Canterbury on Moral Choice: Aristotelian and Kantian Virtue Ethics

What is it about?

The paper responds to K. Rogers’ claim that Anselm should be seen as an Aristotelian rather than a proto-Kantian thinker. It does so by pointing out common themes in virtue ethics and Kant’s deontology (focusing on anthropological foundations) and by emphasizing the Augustinian background Kant shares with Anselm. Kant, too, acknowledges the central role of happiness as human fulfillment, and he might even agree that we should distinguish between two forms of fulfilling what Anselm calls the “desire for happiness”: being like God and being with God. This distinction marks the difference between a “purely” Aristotelian and a properly Christian virtue ethics account of happiness. Anselm is not so much an Aristotelian eudaemonist but an Augustinian “beatitudinist”.

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