Assuming Responsibility

Ecstatic Eudaimonism and the Call to Live Well

Inbunden, Engelska, 2022

AvJennifer A. Herdt,US) Herdt, Jennifer A. (Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale University,Jennifer A Herdt

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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.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2022-05-31
Mått164 x 241 x 21 mm
Vikt586 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieOxford Studies in Theological Ethics
Antal sidor278
FörlagOUP OXFORD
ISBN9780192849205

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Jennifer A. Herdt is Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale University Divinity School, where she has taught since 2010. Educated at Oberlin College, she received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. She has held prior faculty appointments at New College of Florida and the University of Notre Dame, and is the recipient of fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, Whiting Foundation, and Humboldt Foundation, among others. She has served as the 2020 President of the Society of Christian Ethics and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Religious Ethics, Studies in Christian Ethics, and the Journal of Religion.

Assuming Responsibility is a stunning book. Jennifer Herdt ranges magisterially over a range of sources, extending from classical antiquity to the most recent debates in ethics, building a case with a power and elegance that will command the admiration and attention of theological and non-theological readers. This is a theological ethicist working at the height of her powers, synthesizing intellectual history, philosophy, and theology, to mount a bold and convincing thesis, which ends with joy, understood as delight in the good, fellowship, and answerability to others.