Virtue and the Moral Life

Theological and Philosophical Perspectives

Contributions by Mark A. Wilson, Julie Hanlon Rubio, Lisa Tessman Professor of Philosophy, Mary M. Doyle Roche, James F. Keenan, SJ Boston College, Margaret Urban Walker Donald J. Schuenke Chair, Jamie Schillinger, Jean Porter, Jennifer A. Herdt, Edmund N. Santurri Edited by William Werpehowski, Kathryn Getek Soltis Villanova University

Publication date:

22 July 2014

Length of book:

220 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

236x161mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739182314

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.

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

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.