Aquinas's interpretation of EN 3.1-5 reveals from the outset a special interest in "choice". He states explicitly that Aristotle's definition of virtue as a "habit issuing in choices" requires a special treatment. The other main concepts discussed in 3.1-5, "the voluntary" and "the will" are in Aquinas's view connected with choice. Since choice is an interior act of the will, it is free in the sense of not being necessitated by any factor outside human reason, and cannot be impeded from taking place. It is thus the act about whose freedom there can never be any doubt. Aquinas's concept of will is not confined to simply positing a "rational appetite". By integrating an Augustinian concept of interior freedom and Aristotelian philosophy of nature, Aquinas is able not only to affirm that the will is open to alternative courses of action but to interpret this as a natural phenomenon.

This chapter principally considers the scheme of the cardinal virtues in ST 2-2, which Aquinas developed in order to organize comprehensively the subject matter of ethics. It discusses key differences in ethical method between Aristotle and Aquinas Aquinas develops Aristotle's ethical theory in the EN by resolving difficulties inherent in the EN, drawing on principles taken from Aristotle to do so. He does so as part of a project that he regards as primarily speculative, accounting for the truth of things, and not merely practical, aiming at the good. Ethical theory, if it is true, must have a formal structure, consistent with the best contemporary accounts of the world, and that admits of being more deeply articulated as investigation proceeds and deepens. Aquinas's virtue ethics has a clever, deep, and compelling rational structure. Its claim to truth depends crucially on the claims to truth of Aristotelian natural philosophy and metaphysics.

Wycliffism and Lollardy raise a question of fundamental relevance to the study of late-medieval 'heresy' in England. This chapter explores whether it might be meaningful to use 'Wycliffism' and 'Lollardy' at least for purposes of analysis as designating conceptually distinct phenomena, whatever their actual interrelationship may have been in late-medieval England. The episcopal condemnation in 1277 of 219 Aristotelian articles allegedly supported by members of the faculty of arts in the University of Paris had a long prehistory and an equally substantial posterity. The implied endorsement of lay, extra-institutional, spiritual authority was sometimes accompanied by a questioning of the efficacy and administration of the sacraments. Of equal importance in Wyclif's polemic is anticlericalism. Wyclif's work both uses and critiques the academic-rationalist tools available to medieval scholasticism. Alexander Patschovsky's insight can be of assistance in broaching the vexed question of the medieval meanings and definitions of 'heresy' in general, and of Wycliffism/Lollardy in particular.

Eusebius gives a list of Clement's works. Like the Platonists, Clement's Gnostic studies philosophy in order, starting with ethics, then physics, then theology or metaphysics. Clement's position as catechist in Alexandria and his association with precursors of Plotinus such as Origen and Ammonius Saccas hint at the possibility that Plotinus and post-Plotinian Platonists took inspiration from the Christian School at Alexandria started by Pantaenus. Clement's true 'Christian Gnostic' who, by initiation into the great mysteries, achieves total unification with the Divine, already anticipates Plotinus. Arguably, Clement's most important work is his epistemological inquiry into the roles of faith and intellectual knowledge in the ideal human life. Clement's account of soul looks remarkably Aristotelian. Clement's reflections on the place of philosophy in human life, and in the search for truth, are fundamental. Clement develops a range of original and challenging lines of thought in his attempt to secure the dependence of Christian theology on intellectually respectable work in philosophy.