Longing for the Good Life: Virtue Ethics after Protestantism

Longing for the Good Life: Virtue Ethics after Protestantism PDF Author: Pieter Vos
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567695085
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This book argues that Protestant theological ethics not only reveals basic virtue ethical characteristics, but also contributes significantly to a viable contemporary virtue ethics. Pieter Vos demonstrates that post-Reformation theological ethics still understands the good in terms of the good life, takes virtues as necessary for living the good life and considers human nature as a source of moral knowledge. Vos approaches Protestant theology as an important bridge between pre-modern virtue ethics, shaped by Aristotle and transformed by Augustine of Hippo, and late modern understandings of morality. The volume covers a range of topics, going from eudaimonism and Calvinist ethics to Reformed scholastic virtue ethics and character formation in the work of Søren Kierkegaard. The author shows how Protestantism has articulated other-centered virtues from a theology of grace, affirmed ordinary life and emphasized the need of transformation of this life and its orders. Engaging with philosophy of the art of living, Neo-Aristotelianism and exemplarist ethics, he develops constructive contributions to a contemporary virtue ethics.

Longing for the Good Life: Virtue Ethics after Protestantism

Longing for the Good Life: Virtue Ethics after Protestantism PDF Author: Pieter Vos
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567695085
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
This book argues that Protestant theological ethics not only reveals basic virtue ethical characteristics, but also contributes significantly to a viable contemporary virtue ethics. Pieter Vos demonstrates that post-Reformation theological ethics still understands the good in terms of the good life, takes virtues as necessary for living the good life and considers human nature as a source of moral knowledge. Vos approaches Protestant theology as an important bridge between pre-modern virtue ethics, shaped by Aristotle and transformed by Augustine of Hippo, and late modern understandings of morality. The volume covers a range of topics, going from eudaimonism and Calvinist ethics to Reformed scholastic virtue ethics and character formation in the work of Søren Kierkegaard. The author shows how Protestantism has articulated other-centered virtues from a theology of grace, affirmed ordinary life and emphasized the need of transformation of this life and its orders. Engaging with philosophy of the art of living, Neo-Aristotelianism and exemplarist ethics, he develops constructive contributions to a contemporary virtue ethics.

The Transcendent Character of the Good

The Transcendent Character of the Good PDF Author: Petruschka Schaafsma
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100064636X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This volume addresses issues of moral pluralism and polarization by drawing attention to the transcendent character of the good. It probes the history of Christian theology and moral philosophy to investigate the value of this idea and then relates it to contemporary moral issues. The good is transcendent in that it goes beyond concrete goods, things, acts, or individual preferences. It functions as the pole of a compass that helps orient our moral life. This volume explores the critical tension between the transcendent good and its concrete embodiments in the world through concepts like conscience, natural and divine law, virtue, and grace. The chapters are divided into three parts. Part I discusses metaphysical issues like the realist nature and the unity of the good in relation to philosophical, naturalist, and theological approaches from Augustine to Iris Murdoch. The chapters in Part II explore issues about knowing the transcendent good and doing good, exemplified in the delicate balance between divine command and human virtuousness. Early Protestant theological views prove to be excellent interlocutors for this reflection. Finally, Part III focuses on how transcendence is at stake in two heavily debated moral issues of today: euthanasia and the family. The Transcendent Character of the Good will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in theological ethics, moral philosophy, and the history of ethics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Aristotle on Truth, Dialogue, Justice and Decision

Aristotle on Truth, Dialogue, Justice and Decision PDF Author: Liesbeth Huppes-Cluysenaer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031454855
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
In this thought-provoking book, you’ll find timeless questions explored through a fresh lens. First delving into the profound significance of Socrates’ dialogical method and the inescapable nature of conflict, it ponders the rational capacities of humanity in terms of establishing harmonious communities. But this isn’t merely a philosophical debate; it’s a pragmatic exploration of real-world challenges. No longer limiting itself to abstract theories, the book then seeks to navigate the practical terrain of science and politics. Drawing inspiration from Aristotle, renowned for his investigations into the intricate connections between theory, technology, ethics, and politics, it tackles the essential question: How can we reconcile divergent views? At the book’s core lies Aristotle’s revolutionary concept of dialogue, which portrays truth as a delicate equilibrium between opposing forces, transcending the rigid boundaries of true and false. Join this captivating journey as the author reveals the hidden paths to meaningful coexistence in a world filled with conflicting perspectives.

After Virtue

After Virtue PDF Author: Alasdair MacIntyre
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1623569818
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Virtue and the Moral Life

Virtue and the Moral Life PDF Author: William Werpehowski
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739182323
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
The scope of interest and reflection on virtue and the virtues is as wide and deep as the questions we can ask about what makes a moral agent’s life decent, or noble, or holy rather than cruel, or base, or sinful; or about the conditions of human character and circumstance that make for good relations between family members, friends, workers, fellow citizens, and strangers, and the sorts of conditions that do not. Clearly these questions will inevitably be directed to more finely grained features of everyday life in particular contexts. Virtue and the Moral Life: Theological and Philosophical Perspectives takes up these questions. In its ten timely and original chapters, it considers the specific importance of virtue ethics, its public significance for shaping a society’s common good, the value of civic integrity, warfare and returning soldiers’ sense of enlarged moral responsibility, the care for and agency of children in contemporary secular consumer society, and other questions involving moral failure, humility, and forgiveness.

Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics

Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics PDF Author: Elizabeth Agnew Cochran
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567671364
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The Stoics are known to have been a decisive influence on early Christian moral thought, but the import of this influence for contemporary Christian ethics has been underexplored. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran argues that attention to the Stoics enriches a Christian understanding of the virtues, illuminating precisely how historical Protestant theology gives rise to a distinctive virtue ethic. Through examining the dialogue between Roman Stoic ethics and the work of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, Cochran illuminates key theological convictions that provide a foundation for a contemporary Protestant virtue ethic, consistent with theological beliefs characteristic of the historical Reformed tradition.

Reformed Virtue After Barth

Reformed Virtue After Barth PDF Author: Kirk J. Nolan
Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corp
ISBN: 0664260209
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
With its focus on the traditions and communities that form us over the course of a lifetime, virtue ethics has richly expanded our understanding of what the Christian life can look like. Yet its emphasis on human virtues and habits of mind and life seems inconsistent with the Reformed tradition's insistence that sin lies at the heart of the human condition. For this reason, virtue ethics seems out of place in Reformed theology, especially in the company of the Reformed tradition's greatest twentieth-century theologian, Karl Barth. In this new addition to the Columbia Series in Reformed Theology, Kirk Nolan argues that Barth's theology actually proves virtue ethics can be compatible with the Reformed tradition. Rather than see virtue as an inevitable and natural process of growth, Barth helps us understand that development in the Christian life comes through a process of repetition and renewal, and that all virtue comes solely as a gift from God. Nolan establishes an important bridge between Reformed moral teaching and the tradition of virtue ethics.

Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics

Protestant Virtue and Stoic Ethics PDF Author: Elizabeth Agnew Cochran
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780567671387
Category : Christian ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
"This book examines the dialogue between Roman Stoic ethics and the work of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran illuminates key theological convictions that provide a foundation for constructing a contemporary Protestant virtue ethic consistent with a number of theological beliefs characteristic of the historical Reformed tradition. Building on this conversation, this book develops the claims that faith holds a unique value among possible moral goods; virtue has a unity that coincides with a soteriology that conceives justification as radically transforming a Christian from a sinner to one who is righteous before God; and moral responsibility is realized through a dispositional consent to God's loving providence."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics

The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics PDF Author: Romanus Cessario
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Over the past decade a quiet revolution has been gathering momentum in the fields of moral philosophy and Christian ethics. These disciplines are undergoing a decisive shift as duty, obligation, and decision yield their central role in the understanding of the moral life to the long neglected concepts of virtue, character, and action. Romanus Cessario presents here a general introduction to the study of Christian moral virtues that reflects the emergence of this new and compelling vision of the moral life. The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics provides an account of the nature of the moral virtues by explaining how the virtues work in our everyday lives.

Passions and Virtue

Passions and Virtue PDF Author: Servais Pinckaers
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813227518
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
This book, the last that noted moral theologian Servais Pinckaers, OP, wrote before his death, was conceived as a follow-up to his previous work Plaidoyer pour la vertu (An Appeal for Virtue) (2007) Pinckaers' aim in Passions and Virtue was to show the positive and essential role that our emotions play in the life of virtue. His purpose is part of a larger project of renewing moral theology, a theology too often experienced as an ethics of obligation rather than as a practical guide to living virtuously. To this end, Pinckaers sketches a positive psychology of the passions as found in the biblical tradition, in the writings of the Fathers of the Church, in pagan authors and, especially, in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.