The authors of Aquinas's Ethics have furnished budding Thomists and curious onlookers alike with an outstanding introduction to Aquinas' moral thought. Written for first (or perhaps second) time readers, this volume strikes just the right balance between technical argument and readability, without compromising the rich complexity of Thomas' account of human nature and the good life.

Every introduction to Aquinas' ethics must face the estimable difficulty of finding a voice among recent competing interpretations of his moral thought. Virtue ethicists worry that natural lawyers overplay Aquinas' relatively scant remarks on natural law, thereby neglecting his extensive account of the virtues. Natural lawyers, on the other hand, complain that too heavy an accent on virtue and narrative exchanges ethics for story-telling, historical awareness for historicism. And then there are the theologians: Aquinas' concepts of law and virtue, they say, are made lame in abstraction from his theological commitments. Thomas' moral theology is, after all, moral theology, and so his description and appraisal of human action is unthinkable apart from his account of grace.

Naming these anxieties points to the promise of this volume: rather than styling Aquinas as natural lawyer or virtue ethicist, as philosopher or theologian, the authors advance a holistic reading of Aquinas' ethics which appreciates the interdependence between his concepts of law, virtue and grace. By the authors' lights, the key to integrating these concepts is a more robust account of Aquinas' metaphysics of human nature and action theory. Just so, they devote the first two parts of the book to extended discussions of these topics. Novice readers, especially, will appreciate these sections for their crisp, clear explications of otherwise thorny Thomistic terms of art, not to mention their clear presentation of Thomas' account of moral action and the happy life. The upshot of these discussions issues in part 3, which treats the virtues, law and grace as integral aspects of Thomas' conception of moral formation ordered towards ultimate human happiness, friendship with God. Here too the discussion is insightful and instructive though, compared with its preceding chapters, less complete and at times imprecise. Most notably, the explication of Aquinas' concept of grace lacks the care and precision of the earlier sections. Such shortcomings, however, are minor blemishes and easily offset by the book's many strengths.

Doubtless, experts will judge that the authors have not fully entitled themselves to the integrationist reading they suggest. But no book of this sort can be expected to account for the strengths and weaknesses of the competing interpretations on offer. To do so would require holding forth on myriad interpretative disputes, a task which, to their credit, the authors have deliberately avoided. And yet, one wonders if the challenges to their reading run deeper than the limits set by its intended audience. Is an integrated reading of Thomas' ethics – one which gives virtue, law and grace their proper due – possible with almost no attention to Aquinas' Christology? For Aquinas, Christ, the God-man, is not only the way to but also just is the goal of human existence. So too is Christ the one from whom grace and the virtues flow. He is the moral exemplar, the legislator of the New Law and the one whose Spirit makes evangelical obedience possible. Metaphysics and action theory are undoubtedly indispensable aspects of Aquinas' moral theology. But a strong case could be made that Aquinas' Christology, not his metaphysics of nature and action theory, is the true key to integrating his concepts of law, grace and the virtues. Whatever the case, the strengths of this volume would have been enhanced by a stronger Christological focus.

Still, Aquinas's Ethics deserves a place among the best introductions to Aquinas. It is excellently organised, elegantly written and, unlike most other volumes of its kind, throws light on Aquinas' technical claims with recourse to numerous vivid, real-life examples. Those responsible for teaching Aquinas will, for these (among other) reasons, also find this book to be an exceedingly helpful pedagogical resource.