Persisting in the Good: Thomas Aquinas and Early Chinese Ethics

The life of virtue takes place in a field of adversities. It involves not only contingencies that can thwart the virtues but also the horrors and tragedies that can bring to naught even the sturdiest virtue. Persisting in the Good confronts this ubiquitous fact of moral striving by retrieving moral wisdom from Thomas Aquinas and classical Chinese ethics. Christian moral reflection has been decisively shaped by its early engagement with Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism, but limited effort has been made with Chinese philosophy.

This book fills the gap by bringing Christian theology in conversation with classical Chinese philosophy, demonstrating the potential for mutual illumination on ethical questions such as human nature, ritual, and cosmic order. In the face of constitutional limits both in the self and the world, Yin draws connections between two pre-modern traditions which appeal to a fuller, transcendent good to reshape the patterns with which we pursue more quotidian ends.

Peng Yin is Assistant Professor of Ethics at Boston University, with appointments in the School of Theology; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Department of Classical Studies; Global Medieval Studies; and the Center for the Study of Asia.