Virtù esemplari. L’etica tommasiana tra neoplatonismo e aristotelismo

This paper offers an historical analysis of the role of moral exemplarity in Thomas Aquinas‟ thought, in order to contribute to the current discussion on moral Exemplarism. First, I will argue that, by combining Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, Aquinas‟ ethics amounts to a peculiar exemplarist theory of the virtues. The Aristotelian emphasis on the phronimos, combined with the Neoplatonic exitus -reditus conceptual schema, results – I will argue – in an account of the degrees of virtue which grounds a form of theological exemplarism. Then, I will claim that, in order to make sense of Aristotle‟s own ethical dynamism, an understanding of the development of virtue by degrees is needed. By means of such an understanding, I will show that the distance separating Aquinas‟ and Aristotle‟s account of virtue development significantly reduces. Thanks to this analysis, I will finally support a model of virtue development grounded both in moral exemplarity and in an ideal of dynamic unity of the virtues