Nature, Ethics, and the Doctrine of ‘Habitus’: Aristotelian Moral Psychology in the Twelfth Century

Abstract

Among the range of moral concepts that the Middle Ages derived from Aristotle, few exercised greater influence than the doctrine of habitus (a term ordinarily translated as ‘habit,’ but more properly meaning ‘state’ or ‘condition’). In the thirteenth century, such prominent thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, Godfrey of Fontaines, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham placed habitus (derived from the Greek term ἅξις ) near the heart of their studies of ethics. It is largely possible to explain thirteenth-century interest in the concept of habitus on the basis of the appearance of Robert Grosseteste's full translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Grosseteste's Latin version, taken in conjunction with a growing interest in the field of ethics among arts masters, rendered the technical vocabulary of Aristotelian moral thought into a commonplace of scholastic philosophy.