Augustine's On the Good of Marriage and Infused Virtue in the Twelfth Century

In the history of ethics, it remains remains unclear how Christians of the Middle Ages came to see God‐given virtues as dispositions (habitus) created in the human soul. Patristic works could surely support other conceptions of the virtues given by grace. For example, one might argue that all such virtues are forms of charity, so that they must be affections of the soul, or that they consist in what the soul does, not anything the soul has. Scholars usually assume that the explanation lies in the impact of Aristotle's philosophy on medieval theology. This essay argues that the dispositional account of God‐given virtues was already entrenched by the end of the twelfth century and probably owes more to the influence of Augustine's treatise On the Good of Marriage.     

Honoring Jonathan Edwards

In this response to the papers on Jonathan Edwards's ethical thought by Stephen A. Wilson, Gerald R. McDermott, William C. Spohn, and Roland A. Delattre, I comment on their efforts to show that ideas drawn from Edwards can be successfully appropriated for use in contemporary ethics. I conclude that the four authors build a strong cumulative case for the view that some elements of Edwards's thought can serve as resources for our ethical reflections. But I also argue for a deflationary view of how much of Edwards we will find it feasible to take on board when we engage in the task of working out a religious ethics we might accept.     

DEMOCRATIC VIRTUE, COMPARATIVE ETHICS, AND CONTEMPORARY ISLAM

This essay illustrates the kind of moral analysis Jeffrey Stout advocates in Democracy and Tradition by way of examining a conversation among Muslims that took place between June and December 2002. Their debate centers on al‐Qaída's legitimacy as God's chosen defender of Islam, which is called into question due to the tension between al‐Qaída's military tactics and the concepts of honorable combat held within the Islamic tradition. This giving and taking of reasons in both defense and detraction of al‐Qaída's tactics demonstrates the living reality of Islamic tradition—the ongoing process of striving to discern God's will in light of communal agreements about the authority of certain texts and the validity of established rules for interpreting them.     

Virtue Ethics,Social Difference,and the Challenge of an Embodied Politics

Following the revival of virtue theory, some moral theorists have argued that virtue ethics can provide the basis for a radical politics. Such a politics essentially departs from the liberal model of the moral agent as an autonomous reason‐giver. It instead privileges an understanding of the agent as conditioned by her community, and in the case of social oppression and marginalization, communal virtues may become a vehicle for social change. This essay compares political appropriations of virtue theory by Christian theologian Stanley Hauerwas and secular feminist thinkers Lisa Tessman and Margaret Urban Walker. Hauerwas and feminist theorists both embrace a kind of embodied vulnerability as a political virtue, arguing that it enables more genuine social recognition. The virtue feminist critique is more robust than Hauerwas's, however, insofar as it understands mutual recognition to involve acknowledgment of social difference and the concomitant pursuit of justice.     

On Chimeras

This essay is a critical response to Neville Cobbe's article “Cross‐Species Chimeras: Exploring a Possible Christian Perspective.” New technologies, particularly biotechnologies, raise major concerns in society. In the absence of good ethical thinking on these issues, bad ethical thinking becomes regnant. Two common types of bad ethical thinking are (1) confusing whatever disturbs people with genuine ethical issues and (2) confusing religious issues with ethical ones. Cobbe's article commits the former type of error with regard to the possibility of a mouse created with human brain neurons. I analyze and discuss that error and also raise questions about Cobbe's attempt to analyze the creation of chimeras from a Christian perspective.     

ETHICS AND OBSERVATION: DEWEY,THOREAU, AND HARMAN

Abstract: In 1929, John Dewey said that “the problem of restoring integration and cooperation between man's beliefs about the world in which he lives and his beliefs about the values and purposes that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem of human life.” Using this as its theme, this article begins with an examination of Gilbert Harman's reasons for denying the existence of moral facts. It then presents an alternative account of the relationship between science and ethics, making use of the writings of Dewey and Henry David Thoreau. For both Dewey and Thoreau, the dichotomy between a scientific approach to the world and an ethical approach to the world is a false one. The article explores the reasons for believing that the dichotomy is a false one, agreeing with Thoreau that there “is no exclusively moral law—there is no exclusively physical law.”     

Pardoning Puritanism: Community,Character, and Forgiveness in the Work of Richard Baxter

The English Puritan Richard Baxter (1615–1691) developed an account of forgiveness that resonates with twentieth‐century virtue ethics. He understood forgiveness as one component of a larger disposition of character developed in community as human beings recognize themselves as sinful creatures engaged in complex relationships of dependency and responsibility, with both God and one another. In the midst of these relationships, persons experience divine and human forgiveness and discover opportunities to practice forgiveness in return. Baxter thus negotiated a distinctive relationship between Christian hope for reconciliation and more stereotypical Puritan emphases on punishment, civil order, and justice. At the same time that recent moral reflection allows us to raise questions about some features of Baxter's argument (such as his treatment of anger), his work provides important resources for correlating dispositions with concrete obligations, establishing a place for forgiveness in the public realm, and counterbalancing the modern emphasis on individual rights.     

Focus Introduction: Taking the Measure of Jonathan Edwards for Contemporary Religious Ethics

The Journal of Religious Ethics marks the tercentenary of Edwards's birth with the following collection of essays. In keeping with the overall mission of the journal, this tribute takes the form of historical and constructive reflection, in which diverse perspectives on Edwards's work and diverse forms of engagement with it supplement and correct one another. Our hope is that these essays will serve both to generate interest in Edwards's work among those who are unfamiliar with him, and to advance the discussion of central issues in theological and religious ethics. In this introductory essay, we will offer some reflections on Edwards's general significance for contemporary ethics, followed by a closer examination of his main texts and a brief summary of the essays collected here.     

Rethinking the Comparative Study of Religious Ethics

This essay describes the author's change of approach to the comparative study of religious ethics from the one contained in a book on the subject (with Sumner B. Twiss), published in 1978. The change resulted from interactions with Abdulaziz Sachedina, the noted scholar of Islam, demonstrating the importance of comparing different ethical systems in reference to global topics like human rights, particularly the right to freedom of conscience.