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Aristotelian Feminism and Thumos: A Thomistic Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2025

Philip Diaz-Lewis Open the ORCID record for Philip Diaz-Lewis [Opens in a new window]
Philip Diaz-Lewis*
Affiliation:
The department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
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Email: pd270@exeter.ac.uk
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Abstract

Aristotle’s views about the female body are commonly held to be an insurmountable obstacle to aligning his philosophy with feminism. Sarah Borden Sharkey, however, has attempted a robust Aristotelian feminism that alters only the minimum. She argues that to succeed it must give positive and detailed reasons for sexual equality, a task that she leaves open. Building on Sharkey’s work, this essay argues that Thomas Aquinas’ view of the will allows such a position, by combining it with Aristotle’s notion of thumos as the main dividing factor between the sexes. The result is an Aristotelian–Thomistic view that keeps female biological difference, while allowing equality in attaining virtue and prudence.

Keywords

AquinasAristotelianismAristotlefeminismintellectualismphilosophyThomismvoluntarism

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New Blackfriars , First View , pp. 1 - 11
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers.

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References

1 GA., 1.20.728a17-18.

2 Ruthe Groenhout, ‘The Virtue of Care: Aristotelian Ethics and the Contemporary Ethics of Care’, in Cynthia A. Freeland, ed., Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), p. 173.

3 Charlotte Witt, ‘Form, Normativity and Gender in Aristotle: a Feminist Perspective’, in Lilli Alanen and Charlotte Witt, eds., Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004), pp. 120-122.

4 Sarah Borden Sharey, An Aristotelian Feminism (New York: Springer, 2016), p. 135.

5 Ibid., pp. 128–135.

6 Met., 10.9.1058b.

7 Ibid., 10.9.1058a37–b3.

8 GA., 1.2.716a4-18; 2.4.738b20-27.

9 Ibid., 2.1.732a5-10.

10 Ibid., 2.1.732a7-10.

11 Sarah Borden Sharkey, An Aristotelian Feminism (New York: Springer, 2016), pp. 116–117.

12 Ibid., pp. 122–124.

13 Accidents can change without affecting the nature of a substance because the substance is part of the definition of accidents, but not vice versa. See: Cat., 5.4a10-b19; and Met., 7.1.1028a35-36.

14 Sarah Borden Sharkey, An Aristotelian Feminism (New York: Springer, 2016), p. 129.

15 Ibid., pp. 70–72.

16 EN., 9.11.1171b4-10. Aristotle chides the habit of grieving for friends while in the company of others, because it is a womanly desire to have others share in one’s sadness.

17 Sarah Borden Sharkey, An Aristotelian Feminism (New York: Springer, 2016), pp. 130–135.

18 There are disagreements over the nature of thumos. Giles Pearson sees it as coextensive, if not synonymous, with orgē and does not specify distinct objects, while Deslauriers broadens it into a desire for honour and glory. Given its proximity to reason, I side with Deslauriers. However, what matters for my argument is that thumos, though distinct from orgē, always functions through it. See: Marguerite Deslauriers, Aristotle on Sexual Difference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 237–239; and Giles Pearson, Aristotle on Desire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 128–129.

19 DA., 3.9.432b4-7.

20 EE., 3.1.1229a21-28.

21 EN., 7.6.1149a24-31.

22 GA., 4.6.775a14-21.

23 Ibid., 1.20.728a16-21.

24 EN., 3.8.1117a4-8; EN., 5.8.1135b26-27; Pol., 7.7.1327b36-39.

25 EN., 3.8.1116b31; 3.8.1117a4–5.

26 Pol., 7.7.1327b36-1328a16.

27 EN., 6.5.1140b20-22.

28 Marguerite Deslauriers, Aristotle on Sexual Difference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 245–246.

29 Pol., 1.13.1260a7-15.

30 Rhet., 2.12.1389a9-11; 2.14.1390a29–30.

31 EN., 7.8.1329a4ff; 7.13.1332b35.

32 Pol., 7.7.1327b23-36.

33 EE., 3.1.1229b28-30.

34 Peter L. P. Simpson, ‘Aristotle’s Defensible Defence of Slavery’, Polis 23 (2006), p. 108. I follow Peter Simpson in holding that Aristotle thinks that natural slaves may have a deliberative impairment for whatever reason, not just by birth.

35 IA., 8.708a9-20. Snakes, for example, are blooded animals, and Aristotle thinks the genus ‘blooded’ carries a maximum of four limbs. Snakes are also long, and the optimal number of limbs for their length would be many, like a centipede. Yet because blooded animals cannot have more than four limbs, nature has taken the best option and given them no limbs whatsoever.

36 GA., 3.10.760b7-14.

37 Joseph Karbowski, ‘Political Animals and Human Nature in Aristotle’s Politics’, in Geert Keil and Nora Kreft, eds., Aristotle’s Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 227–229.

38 Pol., 2.2.1261a22–30.

39 Ibid., 2.5.1263b4-14.

40 Marguerite Deslauriers, Aristotle on Sexual Difference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 195–199.

41 Pol., 1.5.1259b27-28; 1.5.1260a2-5.

42 Ibid., 1.2.1254a21-31.

43 Ibid., 3.9.1280b33-34.

44 Ibid., 1.2.1253a7-18.

45 EE., 7.10.1242a40-1242b1.

46 EN., 8.10.1160b32-34.

47 Ibid., 8.10.1160b32-8.11.1161a30.

48 D. Brendan Nagel, The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle’s Polis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 159.

49 Bonnie, Kent, ‘Losable Virtue: Aquinas on Character and Will’, in Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller and Matthias Perkams, eds., Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 108.

50 EN., 6.1.1138b1-34.

51 EN., 2.6.1107a1; EE., 2.10.1227b5-11.

52 Nicolas Kahm, Aquinas on Emotions’ Participation in Reason (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), p. 185. As Nicolas Kahm writes, the will as an efficient and final cause distinct from the intellect is an innovation of Aquinas’ later texts and is a development away from Aristotelian intellectualism. My account of Aquinas’ soul as totum potentiale closely follows Kahm’s.

53 ST I, q. 80, a. 2.

54 QMD, q. 6.

55 QSC, q. 11, ad 2.

56 QDA, q. 9, ad 14.

57 ST I, q. 77, a. 1 ad 1.

58 Nicolas, Kahm, Aquinas on Emotions’ Participation in Reason (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), p. 233.

59 ST I-II, q. 9, a. 1.

60 ST I-II, q. 27, a. 2, ad 3.

61 Nicolas Kahm, Aquinas on Emotions’ Participation in Reason (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), pp. 93–94.

62 ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2.

63 Nicolas Kahm, Aquinas on Emotions’ Participation in Reason (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), pp. 188–189.

64 ST I-II, q. 85, a. 1, ad 2.

65 QDM., q. 7, a. 6.

66 ST I, q. 81, a. 3.

67 For Aquinas’ distinction between antecedent and consequent passions see: ST I-II, q. 77, a. 6.

68 Nicolas Kahm, Aquinas on Emotions’ Participation in Reason (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), pp. 261–262.

69 ST I-II, q. 3, a. 3; q. 4, a. 5–6; and QDV, q. 26, a. 3 ad 13.

70 QDV, q. 26, a. 3 ad 13.

71 ST I, q. 23.

72 For a similar notion in Aristotle see: EN., 3.9.1117b28-31.

73 ST I-II, q. 31, a. 3 ad 2.

74 ST I, q. 77, a. 8 ad 5; ST I-II, q. 31, a. 4 ad 3.

75 Ibid., q. 82, 5.

76 ST I-II, q. 58, a. 5.

77 Ibid., q. 65, a. 1.

78 Ibid., q. 49.

79 Ibid., q. 49, a. 3 ad 2.

80 For this point, as well as an overview of how Aquinas thinks one acquires prudentia, see: Tobias Hoffmann, ‘Aquinas on Moral Progress’, in Jeffrey Hause, ed., Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 144–145.

81 Rhet., 2.1.1378a19-21.

82 EN., 1.8.1099a11-13.

83 Pol., 7.4.1326b8-26.

84 Michael Pakaluk, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 163–164.