The Primacy of the Good

Abstract This chapter argues that Thomas and Mencius both submit an account of the primacy of the good to counter the world’s inhospitality to virtue. They do so along quite different metaphysical routes: imago dei and the effects of sin in Thomas, and Heaven-given human moral endowment and its fragility in Mencius. It shows how Thomas and Mencius situate human moral potential in a fractured world, replete with tragic possibilities. It discusses how both wrestle with the tension between the primacy of the good and the routine frustration of the good by underscoring the spiritual exercises they propose.