Second Person Perspective, Virtues and the Gifts in Aquinas's Ethics

The second-personal perspective is an emerging development in philosophical and theological ethics. Significant here is the recent work of Andrew Pinsent. He proposes a reading of Aquinas’s treatment of the virtues, gifts, beatitudes and fruits of the Spirit in the light of the second person perspective and the interpersonal experience of Joint Attention. Pinsent draws on recent work in philosophy, neuroscience and experimental psychology to underpin his approach. This article attempts three things: to rehearse the main lines of Pinsent’s proposal; to investigate further two aspects of Pinsent’s study, namely, personal resonance and connaturality as evident in Aquinas’s ethical framework; finally, to offer an initial assessment and an implication of the proposal.