Abstract

The Enlightenment concept of moral autonomy, which endures nowadays, deems obedience as a blind and irrational behavior, and forgets the virtuous character it had in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, who on his part assumes Aristotle's philosophy. In this paper the Enlightenment conception of moral autonomy is discussed, proving the rational character of this virtue, which has been endorsed by prominent contemporary authors such as Gadamer, Weil and Bochensky, as well as by those who in our time acknowledge the need of the duality authority- obedience for the development of the person's self- government, such as MacIntyre, or Murdoch, who points out the virtues that facilitate it.