ABSTRACT
The preoccupation of modern political theory with coercive force, its legitimate uses and principled limitations, has colored most recent treatments of the relationship between the law of a political society and the moral virtue of its citizens. This chapter argues that the "legal enforcement of morals" paradigm conduces to an exaggerated focus on Thomas Aquinas's negative pedagogy: law as "restraining and taming" the viciously inclined human. It also argues that Aquinas's political theory also comprises a positive pedagogy: law as assisting the well-intentioned person to grasp and develop the "social and civic" dimensions of the ethical virtues. The chapter considers what relevance this aspect of Aquinas's theory might hold for contemporary liberal democracy, focusing on the institution of the "legal holiday." It focuses on well-framed, basically just laws and their impact on moral formation. Aquinas at times speaks of "legal laws," those human or civil laws in accord with natural law and the fundamental criteria of social justice.
