Accountability as a Sub-Type of Justice: Reflections on 'Obedience' and 'Religion' in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. (August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Case, Brendan
• Is Part Of: Studies in Christian ethics. Volume 34:Number 3(2021)
• Page Start: 324
• Page End: 335
• Publication Date: 2021-08
• Subjects: accountability -- justice -- rights -- Thomas Aquinas -- virtue ethics; Christian ethics -- Periodicals; Morale chrétienne -- Périodiques; 241.05
• DOI: 10.1177/09539468211009757
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0953-9468

Abstract

This article proposes that we recognize 'accountability' as a forward-looking virtue, which disposes its possessors to live accountably in relation to those to whom they are rightly answerable, and which can be sub-divided into 'particular accountability', exercised within specific and limited relationships, and 'ultimate accountability', regarding the shape of one's life as a whole. The article then proposes that these two forms of accountability find close analogues in two virtues which Thomas Aquinas described as 'annexed to justice', namely 'obedience' (accountability to human superiors) and 'religion' (accountability to God).