Binding: Hardcover
Description: Recent decades have witnessed an enthusiastic retrieval of eudaimonism according to which the virtuous life is the happy life. But the critique launched by Kant - that eudaimonism is egoistic and distorts the character of duty or obligation - has persisted. Should I develop the virtues because these are the traits I need in order to flourish? Is it facts about my own happiness that determine my obligations to others? In this book Jennifer Herdt deftly sifts through these debates showing why we should embrace 'ecstatic or 'goodness - prior eudaimonism while rejecting 'welfare - prior forms of eudaimonism. Grasping the character of ecstatic eudaimonism she argues has major implications overcoming the common assumption of a sharp break between pagan and Christian eudaimonism as well as of a late medieval or Protestant repudiation of eudaimonism in favor of divine command theory. Agents cannot rightly respond to the goods they encounter unless they respond to them precisely as good and not merely as a means to promoting their own welfare; in responding well their agency is thereby necessarily perfected. In conversation with vital strands of contemporary moral philosophy Herdt goes on to articulate the distinctive character of obligation as a feature of accountability relations among agents. Assuming Responsibility offers a fresh point of departure for theological and philosophical approaches to virtue ethics moral agency and the contested relationship between the good and the right.
Title: Assuming Responsibility Ecstatic Eudaimonism And The Call To Live Well
Author(s): Herdt Jennifer A. (Gilbert L. Stark Professor Of Christian Ethics Gilbert L. Stark Professor Of Christian Ethics Yale University Us)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Barcode: 9780192849205
Pages: 288 Pages
Publication Date: 10/31/2022
Series: Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics
Category: Christian Theology