Dr. Thomas Osborne Discusses Political Authority
By Meghan McGinley, Staff Writer
*Originally Posted September 25th, 2024
The 2024 president election is right around the corner, and Saint Vincent College (SVC) has not been afraid to discuss it. On Tuesday, Sept. 10, The Center for Political and Economic Thought (CPET) hosted Dr. Thomas Osborne at the Fred Rogers Center to give students the lecture “Elections and Authority: Where Does Political Authority Come From?”
Osborne attended Duke University to get a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2001 and is currently a professor of philosophy at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas. He has multiple presentations including, "The Ethics of James of Viterbo; The Philosophy of James of Viterbo, An International Workshop,” and “Aquinas on the Will’s Self-Motion". His area of expertise consists of Thomas Aquinas, philosophy, natural law, and theoretical ethics, with a focus on the idea that man is naturally polite. Osborne states that tere are three types of economic views: political, ethical, and household economic views.
“I spend most of my time on the second, although I’ve written more on the first and third. I probably know the least about the second,” Osborne said. Osborne mentioned that there are all different family boundaries over time, yet they all remain stable. According to Osborne, the political community is described as, “the kind of authority that a group of families can pass laws and declare war”. Authority comes from God, however political authority does not. We as citizens vote in the political figures. Some say that we are in a country of making money, yet Dr. Osborne disagrees. He feels that there is a “bigger picture” to what is going on in our world today. He thinks that we have a system and that voters play an important role. When citizens vote and participate, they are not creating authority, but they are helping pick virtuous rulers and removing those that are not.
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