SOURCE: Faulkner, Robert K. “Knowing What is Good: Rational Deduction and Rational Will.” In Richard Hooker and the Politics of a Christian England, pp. 83-96. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.

In the following excerpt, Faulkner compares views of Aristotle and Hooker on man's nature and the use of the will to overcome evil.

The Prominence of Reason

From desire for infinite life and bliss Hooker deduces the principal moral duties, and his deduction by reason is no less singular than his orientation by desire. That the Christian Aristotelian Hooker relies more on calculation than the philosopher Aristotle will appear peculiar. The cause we have touched. Hooker claims that reason's discourse discovers an end above nature. This claim extends radically the scope of reason's guidance and lessens its subordination to custom and necessity—and to pleasure, other things naturally desired, the virtues, and even judgment and intellect itself.

What...