Aquinas Vs Penn

Saint Thomas Aquinas and William Penn both explored the relationship between moral character and the rule of law. In the 13th century, Aquinas carefully considered the virtuous life of man and its aim at “the beatitude of heaven,” which is the “end to which his whole life and all his actions are ordered” (504, 491). Four centuries later, William Penn focused more on the ends of government than of man, but he does specify that God chose man as “his deputy” to rule the world (38). Despite this designation, Penn clarifies that government is only necessary because of the Fall when man strayed from the holy law. Penn presents two ends of government: “to terrify evil doers” and “to cherish those that do well” (38). On the other hand, Aquinas believes

Aquinas states that the king “should have for his principal concern the means by which the multitude subject to him may live well” (505). Living well, according to Aquinas, is to be naturally a “social and political animal,” to “exist for his own sake” in accord with nature, because “whatever is in accord with nature is best” (493, 495). In order to accomplish this, the king must do three things: “establish a virtuous life,” “preserve it,” and “promote its greater perfection” (505). Because the end of man’s life is to live a virtuous life, and the end of a virtuous life is the beatitude of heaven, it follows that a king seeking the good life ought to encourage his people to pursue the good life. Aquinas not only urges the king in this endeavor but moreover to “forbid the contrary” (504). What does it look like to forbid the contrary; is saying “thou ought not” enough to effectively rule a people? Aquinas suggests that the key to a cooperative and obedient multitude begins with a proper education of the laws and teachings found in the Bible, a concept Penn will later

Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be never so good” (40). That is to say, if there is a multitude of good people, even a bad government will be redeemed, but there is no government good enough to prevail against the perversion of a bad people. “Government” here appears to refer to the structure of a ruling system as opposed to particular individuals within the government. The goodness of a government for Aquinas, while slightly influenced by the structure itself, depends primarily on the goodness of the individual(s) in the government. Penn’s analysis has a broader focus than Aquinas’s, and judges the collective goodness of a people and its effect on the government; Aquinas, however, seems to distinguish more between the ruler and the ruled. According to Aquinas, the goodness of the ruler can be separate from the goodness of the people, allowing for a good people to be ruled unjustly by a disordered ruler. For Penn, men can be good or bad, and the government is ruled by the people; a good people make a good government, but a bad people corrupt the