Congratulations to Logan Weir, who defended his doctoral dissertation on April 1st! His topic was "Thomas Aquinas on Desire for the Ultimate End" and his director was Professor Tobias Hoffmann, now of the Sorbonne.
Logan Weir was born and raised in Strathmore, Alberta. He received a bachelor's degree in Catholic Studies from Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in 2017 and a licentiate in Philosophy from the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in 2021. After teaching at St. Phillip's Seminary for one year, he now teaches at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College, which he will continue to do next year as Dean of Students.
Dissertation Abstract:
Aquinas thinks that every action is aimed at one ultimate end. There are three questions that arise as a consequence of his position. First, why is i the case that every action is for the sake of one ultimate end? In other words, why is it impossible for an agent to have two ultimate ends? Second, how can every action be aimed at one ultimate end when some things are lived for their own sakes? Third, given that some agents claim that they are not aware of the sort of thoughts that would be required to order every action to the ultimate end, how could all of the agent's actions be so ordered? I show that Aquinas was aware of and answered these questions.
Chapters one and two provide the necessary historical background. In chapter one, I argue that Aristotle thought that ends can stand as wholes to subordinate ends, which is a thesis that Thomas draws on in answering the above three questions. In chapter two, I take up Aquinas's reading of Aristotle, in which Aquinas develops a unique argument that all actions must be ordered to one ultimate end. Then, in chapter three, I argue that Aquinas understands desire for the ultimate end to be a desire for something determinate. In chapter four, I expand on Aquinas's arguments that all actions are for the sake of one ultimate end. Finally, in chapter five, I document Aquinas's response to the remaining two questions by taking up his account of venial sin. First of all, venial sin seems to be for its own sake, and not for the sake of its alleged ultimate end, namely, God. Second, explicit thoughts do not seem to confer upon venial sin either its order or its disorder. Venial sin is thus the most difficult test case for Aquinas's position. His solution relies less on thought than on the nature of the action and the agent.