RT Article
T1 Augustine's Moral Psychology
JF Augustinian studies
VO 48
IS 1/2
SP 23
OP 44
A1 Couenhoven, Jesse
LA English
PB Villanova Univ. Press
YR 2017
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1640667954
AB This essay addresses common misunderstandings about the part of Augustine's theological anthropology one might call his "moral psychology." It particularly seeks to distance Augustine's mature account of human agency from influential faculty psychologies. I argue that it is misleading to talk about Augustine's view of the "will," given what we typically mean by that term, and that "choice" is not central to Augustine's account of human freedom. These claims hold not least because of the way Augustine thought about what he called the uoluntas, in which affect and rationality are combined. The disunity of the Augustinian self is found, as a result, not in battles between "higher" and "lower" faculties but in the tensions that exist within whole persons. Such insights influence Augustine's interest in the complexity of intentional and unintentional desires - sexual and otherwise - and the essential role played by relationships in making us who we are.
K1 Anthropology
K1 AUGUSTINE, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430
K1 Augustinians
K1 Ethics : Psychological aspects
K1 Liberty
DO 10.5840/augstudies201771933