Virtue and the Moral Life

Theological and Philosophical Perspectives

Edited by William Werpehowski and Kathryn Getek Soltis - Contributions by Mark A. Wilson; Julie Hanlon Rubio; Lisa Tessman; Mary M. Doyle Roche; James F. Keenan, SJ; Margaret Urban Walker; Jamie Schillinger; Jean Porter; Jennifer A. Herdt and Edmund N. Santurri

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.

Lexington Books

Pages: 220 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-0-7391-8231-4 • Hardback • July 2014 • $128.00 • (£98.00)

978-0-7391-9452-2 • Paperback • April 2016 • $54.99 • (£42.00)

978-0-7391-8232-1 • eBook • July 2014 • $52.00 • (£40.00)

Subjects: Religion / Ethics, Philosophy / Good & Evil, Religion / Christian Theology / Ethics, Religion / Philosophy, Religion / Theology

Virtue and the Moral Life

Theological and Philosophical Perspectives

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

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.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 220 • Trim: 6½ x 9⅜

978-0-7391-8231-4 • Hardback • July 2014 • $128.00 • (£98.00)

978-0-7391-9452-2 • Paperback • April 2016 • $54.99 • (£42.00)

978-0-7391-8232-1 • eBook • July 2014 • $52.00 • (£40.00)

Subjects: Religion / Ethics, Philosophy / Good & Evil, Religion / Christian Theology / Ethics, Religion / Philosophy, Religion / Theology

Author

William Werpehowski holds the Robert L. McDevitt, K.S.G., K.C.H.S. and Catherine H. McDevitt L.C.H.S. Chair in Catholic Theology at Georgetown University. He is the author of Karl Barth and Christian Ethics: Living in Truth (2014) and American Protestant Ethics and the Legacy of H. Richard Niebuhr (2002).
Kathryn Getek Soltis is assistant professor of Christian ethics in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and director of the Center for Peace and Justice Education at Villanova University.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I: Why Virtue?
Chapter One: Seven Reasons for Doing Virtue Ethics Today
James F. Keenan, S.J.
Chapter Two: Augustine and the Liturgical Pedagogy of Virtue
Jennifer A. Herdt

Part II: Virtue, Conscience, and Public Life
Chapter Three: Historical Accountability and the Virtue of Civic Integrity
Margaret Urban Walker
Chapter Four: Moral Grief and Reflective Virtue
Mark A. Wilson

Part III: Virtue, Children, and the Family
Chapter Five: Children, Virtue Ethics, and Consumer Culture
Mary M. Doyle Roche
Chapter Six: Passing on the Faith in an Era of Rising ‘Nones’: Practicing Courage and Humility
Julie Hanlon Rubio

Part IV: Virtue and Moral Failure
Chapter Seven: Sin, Sickness, and Transgression: Medieval Perspectives on Sin and Their Significance Today
Jean Porter
Chapter Eight: Making More Space for Moral Failure
Lisa Tessman

Part V: Virtue and the Challenge of Otherness
Chapter Nine: Distinguishing Humility and Justice in Christian and Islamic Virtue
Jamie Schillinger
Chapter Ten: Human Corruption and the Possibility of Love: Dostoevskian Ruminations on Forgiveness
Edmund N. Santurri

Reviews

Featuring some of the most interesting and senior scholars working on the virtues today, the volume makes a fine contribution to the literature.... [M]ost entries...significantly advance research into their chosen topics.... The volume will be useful to more advanced students who want to see issues of public and family life run through a virtue ethics filter, and it will be studied closely by specialists who look to figures such as Porter and Herdt for pioneering developments in the field.
— Studies in Christian Ethics

While many of the foremost voices in Christian virtue ethics are represented here, this collection strides beyond the ordinary by also including prominent philosophers and by pondering new or neglected matters, such as moral failure, moral grief, the virtue of civic integrity, and the liturgical pedagogy of virtue. This is an essential work for anyone interested in creative thinking about virtue theory today.
— Lisa Sowle Cahill, Boston College

Virtue and the Moral Life provides an excellent overview of discussions in virtue ethics today. It offers a broad, uniquely interdisciplinary view that breaks away from the standard isolation of philosophical virtue ethics from theological virtue ethics. It creatively puts younger ethicists in conversation with distinguished scholars in both theology and philosophy. Many will find something to appreciate in this important volume.
— Stephen J. Pope, Boston College

Containing clearly written, creative contributions from both established and more recent theologians and philosophers, this volume will stand out as an important, twenty-first century resource on virtue ethics. Its co-editors deserve credit for their skillful efforts in bringing together such a fascinating collection of essays that should be required reading for anyone—scholars, students, and the wider public—interested in virtue and the moral life.
— Tobias Winright, Hubert Mäder Chair of Health Care Ethics, Saint Louis University