How to Think of Religious Commitment as a Ground for Moral Commitment: A Thomistic Perspective on the Moral Philosophies of John Cottingham and Raimond Gaita

John Cottingham has argued that certain traits that are widely considered ideals of character will only count as virtues granted the truth of theism. Writing from an atheistic or perhaps agnostic perspective, Raimond Gaita has proposed that the language of religion provides a useful aid for the moral imagination. This chapter aims to show how Thomas Aquinas’s category of infused moral virtue can be used to extend and integrate the work of these influential authors, so as to produce a further, broadly based account of the relationship of religious and moral commitment. Since Cottingham and Gaita set out their respective positions relatively briefly, it begins by presenting each approach in its strongest form, and then considers how these approaches may be extended by appeal to Thomas Aquinas’s account of the goods that are the object of the infused moral virtues.