Download or read book The Evolution of Altruism and the Ordering of Love written by Stephen J. Pope and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 1995-04-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Stephen J. Pope argues that contemporary scientifically-based theories of the evolution of altruism provide important insights into one of the fundamental moral problems of Christian ethics, the natural basis of love and its ordering. He explores the contributions evolutionary theory makes to our understanding of the biological foundations of kin preference and reciprocal care, the limits of love, and the need for an ordering of love—issues relevant to any ethic that accords a central role to the deeply natural affections found in friendship, marriage, and the family. He proposes that understanding human nature in its broader evolutionary context brings to ethics a needed balance between the personal and biological dimensions of human nature. In the context of Catholic ethics, Pope points out functional similarities between Thomas Aquinas's use of then-available scientific theories in his interpretation of the natural basis of primary relationships and Pope's own efforts to avoid the deficiencies that characterize contemporary Catholic interpretations of love based on personalism and existentialism. He concludes with a call for a multidimensional interpretation of love, one that incorporates scientifically-based theories about human nature together with an appreciation of the significance of motives, intentions, and freedom, for the ordering of human affections and moral responsibility. This book will be of interest to moral theologians, especially those concerned with the topics of love, justice, and natural law ethics.
Download or read book The Price of Altruism George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness written by Oren Harman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the intellectual journey of eccentric American genius George Price, who tried to answer the evolutionary riddle of why people are nice, and eventually gave away all his belongings and took his own life in a squatter's flat.
Download or read book Communities of Kinship written by Carlo Calleja and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Communities of Kinship: Retrieving Christian Practices of Solidarity with Lepers as a Paradigm for Overcoming Exclusion of Older People, Carlo Calleja describes kinship as a moral category, arguing that practicing kinship with others can cultivate virtues that shape the character of the agent. Contemporary Western society tends to focus on kinship as the sharing of blood ties or genetic material. On the other hand, the spiritual kinship that is proposed by religions tends to be exclusive and often nominal. For this reason, Calleja proposes practices and structures of solidaristic kinship, which involves sharing in the suffering of the other person. Finding parallels between the exclusion of lepers and the efforts of Christian communities to reforge kinship bonds with them in ancient and medieval times, he argues that communities of kinship with older persons can help cultivate the virtues needed for the flourishing of oneself and society.
Download or read book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life written by Karen Armstrong and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2010-12-28 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karen Armstrong explains how to practise the religion of compassion that her last books have preached. In November 2009 Armstrong and TED launched The Charter of Compassion, which states that "We call upon all men and women to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion...to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings — even those regarded as enemies." To date, it's been signed by over 48,000 people on the Web, including such figures as The Dalai Lama and Queen Noor, Dave Eggers and Meg Ryan. (www.charterforcompassion.org) Out of the ideals of that Charter has come this humane, accessible, indispensable short book for our times.
Download or read book Agape Justice and Law written by Robert F. Cochran and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-25 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses key contemporary legal debates from the perspective of the central Christian ethical category of love, agape.
Download or read book Counseling Pregnancy Politics and Biomedicine written by Patricia Elyse Terrell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examine the impact and importance reproduction and genetics have on religious values Counseling Pregnancy, Politics, and Biomedicine: Empowering Discernment explains the mystery of the God-human relationship so ministers, priests, and pastors can follow the ethics and mechanics of counseling human reproductive health and be informed on issues of religion, medical experimentation, and politics. The unique book is a teaching text and a desktop reference for clergypersons and pastoral care ministers, providing them with information on the sensitive and intimate topic of reproductive health from a Christian worldview so they can advise and empower congregation members to make thoughtful decisions about health care. Counseling Pregnancy, Politics, and Biomedicine examines four disciplines through a Christian point of view: 1) religion based on humanity created in the image of God; 2) different varieties of ethics; 3) systems of law and politics; and 4) philosophies on experimental medicines. Each topic is grounded with its religious background, providing a practical, easy-to-follow path for Christian thinkers. The book also addresses the concerns a religious person might have about health and ministry, what genetic therapy can accomplish, the alternatives to genetic therapy, and how theology, ethics, law, and medicine apply to the issues expectant mothers face. Counseling Pregnancy, Politics, and Biomedicine examines: the major points in recognized ethical theories how Christian principles became part of secular law over time the legal dilemmas involved in protecting the health of pregnant women how and why palliative care is a viable alternative to modern therapies the politics and morality of terminating a pregnancy how to protect women from becoming research “instruments” the moral status of the embryo and much more Counseling Pregnancy, Politics, and Biomedicine explains God’s desire for good health by identifying ways in which Jesus is the example of what it means for every person to be “created in the image of God.” The book is a vital resource for clergypersons and pastoral care ministers.
Download or read book Love Technology and Theology written by Scott A. Midson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores love in the context of today's technologies. It is difficult to separate love from romanticist ideals of authenticity, intimacy and depth of relationship. These ideals resonate with theological models of love that highlight the way God benevolently created the world and continues to love it. Technologies, which are designed in response to our desires, do not necessarily enjoy this romanticist resonance, and yet they are now remodelling the world. Are technologies then antithetical to love? In this volume, leading theologians have brought together themes of theology, technology and love for the first time, exploring different areas where notions of love and technology are problematized. In a world where algorithms and artificial intelligences interact with us and shape our lives in ever more intricate and even intimate ways, we might feel attachments to and through machines that suggest sentiments of love while also changing how we think about love. Does love always have to be reciprocal? How can we enact love and care for others with technologies? Whose desires do technologies serve – consumers, corporations, creatures? This volume offers a systematic review of the challenges of living in a technologically saturated world, by means of critical application of, as well as reflection on, theological discussions about love.
Download or read book Moral Theology written by James Keating and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gathers together some of the top moral theologians to recognize and honour the work of James P. Hanigan, and to present their own personal visions on the present state and future direction of fundamental moral theology.
Download or read book God Encountered written by Frans Jozef van Beeck and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Michael Glazier book"--Vol. 2, pt. 2, t.p. Vol. 2 published by the Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minn. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. v. 1. Understanding the Christian faith -- v. 2. The revelation of the glory. pt. 1. Introduction and fundamental theology. pt. 2. One God, creator of all that is. pt. 3. Finitude and fall. pt. 4A. The genealogy of depravity: morality and immorality.
Download or read book The Political Morality of Liberal Democracy written by Michael J. Perry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important new work elaborates and defends an account of the political morality of liberal democracy.
Download or read book Heroes Saints and Ordinary Morality written by Andrew Michael Flescher and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2003-11-25 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us are content to see ourselves as ordinary people—unique in ways, talented in others, but still among the ranks of ordinary mortals. Andrew Flescher probes our contented state by asking important questions: How should "ordinary" people respond when others need our help, whether the situation is a crisis, or something less? Do we have a responsibility, an obligation, to go that extra mile, to act above and beyond the call of duty? Or should we leave the braver responses to those who are somehow different than we are: better somehow, "heroes," or "saints?" Traditional approaches to ethics have suggested there is a sharp distinction between ordinary people and those called heroes and saints; between duties and acts of supererogation (going beyond the expected). Flescher seeks to undo these standard dichotomies by looking at the lives and actions of certain historical figures—Holocaust rescuers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, among others—who appear to be extraordinary but were, in fact, ordinary people. Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality shifts the way we regard ourselves in relationship to those we admire from afar—it asks us not only to admire, but to emulate as well—further, it challenges us to actively seek the acquisition of virtue as seen in the lives of heroes and saints, to learn from them, a dynamic aspect of ethical behavior that goes beyond the mere avoidance of wrongdoing. Andrew Flescher sets a stage where we need to think and act, calling us to lead lives of self-examination—even if that should sometimes provoke discomfort. He asks that we strive to emulate those we admire and therefore allow ourselves to grow morally, and spiritually. It is then that the individual develops a deeper altruistic sense of self—a state that allows us to respond as the heroes of our own lives, and therefore in the lives of others, when times and circumstance demand that of us.
Download or read book Christian Ethics and the Moral Psychologies written by Don S. Browning and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2006-05-17 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in psychology permeates our culture, with psychological solutions advanced for a host of moral dilemmas. How should ethically minded Christians include insights from such disciplines as psychoanalysis, cognitive moral development, and neuroscience in their theological reflection? Don Browning offers a serious proposal for combining these disciplines with the best in ethical reflection from a Christian standpoint. Along the way, he introduces readers to the moral psychology work of Sigmund Freud, Carol Gilligan, Antonio Damasio, and others, opening up a dialogue between their work and the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. Browning also recognizes the potential limits of the conversation between Christian ethics and the moral psychologies, pointing out where they must diverge.
Download or read book Coming to Peace with Psychology written by Everett L. Worthington Jr. and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2013-05-24 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everett L. Worthington believes psychology can contribute to the Christian life, because all of us, psychologists and non-psychologists alike, are human and can benefit from better understanding our fellow humankind. Beyond integrating Christian and psychological truths, his book uncovers new relationships between science and religion, demonstrates psychology's benefits to theology, and helps Christians live a redeemed life that is pleasing to God.
Download or read book Philosophical Essays concerning Human Families written by Stanley Vodraska and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Philosophical Essays concerning Human Families, Stanley Vodraska describes a principle of moral practice that he calls “the principle of familial preference.” In ordinary circumstances, a moral agent should persistently provide preferential treatment to members of his or her family and should not pursue the good of extra-familial persons to such an extent as to disadvantage or neglect his or her family. The essays uncover this principle in human practices of love or charity, mercy, justice, and prudence, and measure its weight in religion, moral philosophy, and the political order.
Download or read book Human Dependency and Christian Ethics written by Sandra Sullivan-Dunbar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dependency is a central aspect of human existence, as are dependent care relations: relations between caregivers and young children, persons with disabilities, or frail elderly persons. In this book, Sandra Sullivan-Dunbar argues that many prominent interpretations of Christian love either obscure dependency and care, or fail to adequately address injustice in the global social organization of care. Sullivan-Dunbar engages a wide-ranging interdisciplinary conversation between Christian ethics and economics, political theory, and care scholarship, drawing on the rich body of recent feminist work reintegrating dependency and care into the economic, political, and moral spheres. She identifies essential elements of a Christian ethic of love and justice for dependent care relations in a globalized care economy. She also suggests resources for such an ethic ranging from Catholic social thought, feminist political ethics of care, disability and vulnerability studies, and Christian theological accounts of the divine-human relation.
Download or read book Sex and Love in the Home Second Edition written by David M. McCarthy and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book inaugurates a completely new way of thinking about the ethics of marriage and sex. I know of no book on the subject more promising than what McCarthy has achieved here. Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke University Much has been written in Christian theology about sex, love, and procreation, but their social meanings and contributions are much more rarely addressed. McCarthy now takes this greatly neglected task, eloquently connecting the Christian household to the common good. All those who want to realize the social vocation of the Christian family will find in this work a rich and challenging resource for understanding and for life. Lisa Sowle Cahill, J. Donald Monan Professor of Theology, Boston College Drawing on his own experience of learning how to be a husband and father, David Matzko McCarthy offers wonderfully incisive and readable reflections on the habits of the household--a neighborly space which resists consumerism--and enables sexual relationships to be ordinary, meaningful, and passionate. If you think that all that Christian theology has to say about sex and relationships is twaddle about complementarity and family values, then this is the book for you. Gerard Loughlin, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Download or read book The Spirit the Affections and the Christian Tradition written by Dale M Coulter and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2016-10-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume explore the role of emotions and affections in the Christian tradition, focusing also on the importance of pneumatology in Christianity.
