The Difficulties of Mercy: Reading Thomas Aquinas on Misericordia
Abstract
In the Questions on charity in the ST (2a2ae, qq. 23-46), Aquinas considers at length the vices opposed to charity, omitting altogether any Question on a vice opposed to mercy. What does the omission reveal about mercy and its difficulties? First, I reject ready-to-hand explanations of the omission. Second, I consider the relation between mercy and compassion, showing that for Thomas the primary impediments to compassion are less vices than psychological forces irreducible to any single vice. Third, I turn to a different set of obstacles to mercy – acts that can arise from compassion, but do not help (and often harm) the person in need. Given these difficulties, how can Thomas take the practice of virtuous mercy to be generally possible? I conclude with a discussion of suffering and the gift of wisdom.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Mercifulness that is not guided by the theological virtue of charity is merely a passion, an undirected instinct to give, and nothing more.
“But as Robert Miner (2015, 80) points out, mercifulness that is not guided by the theological virtue of charity, is merely a passion-an undirected instinct to give, and nothing more.”
From Can a MacIntyrian Care about Severely Disabled Strangers? (2022) · cites this paper as Robert Miner (2015, 80)
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Can a MacIntyrian Care about Severely Disabled Strangers?
McCracken, G. (2022) · The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine · doi:10.1093/jmp/jhac029
- Authors
- Miner, R. C.
- Affiliations
- Baylor University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Miner, Robert C.
- ORCID
- Miner, Robert C.
- Venue
- Studies in Christian Ethics
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2015-02
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 70-85
- ISSN
- 0953-9468 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-5235
- OpenAlex
- W2321175921
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 5.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Studies in Christian Ethics (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Medieval Philosophy and Theology
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Historical Economic and Legal Thought
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Keywords
- Thomas Aquinas, mercy, Misericordia, compassion, wisdom, love of neighbor
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
