The course will present the political thought of Thomas Aquinas. Drawing on the Greco-Roman legacy (Aristotle, Cicero, Roman Law) and patristic theology (above all, Augustine), Aquinas develops a systematic and sophisticated presentation of the Christian conception of justice and society and thereby exerts a significant influence on subsequent reflection, not least on modern Catholic social doctrine. The course has three main aims:
1. provide an analytical reconstruction of Aquinas’s theory of justice and politics, while assessing the central arguments and comparing them to alternative conceptions;
2. outline and assess the principle debates and developments within the Thomist tradition of political thought;
3. clarify key concepts of modern Catholic social doctrine by showing how they are rooted in the Thomist tradition of political thought.