The Thomistic Institute

Dr. Erik Dempsey explores whether we make morality or discover it by unpacking Aquinas’s three natural inclinations and arguing that they ground objective, inescapable moral obligations rather than mere social conventions.This lecture was given on October 11th, 2025, at Michigan State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speakers:Professor Erik Dempsey an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Departments of Government, Classics, and Religious Studies, and is the Assistant Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin for over ten years, during which time he has offered classes in the history of political philosophy, on the Bible and its interpreters, on American political thought, on classical philosophy and literature, and others. His favorite classes to teach are Jerusalem and Athens, a class comparing the political, moral, and theological ideas