Altruism and Christian Ethics

Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-521-09361-3
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 18, 286 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 410 g

Reihe: New Studies in Christian Ethics

Separated from its anchorage in religion, ethics has followed the social sciences in seeing human beings as fundamentally characterised by self-interest, so that altruism is either naively idealistic or arrogantly self-sufficient. Colin Grant contends that, as a modern secular concept, altruism is a parody on the self-giving love of Christianity, so that its dismissal represents a social levelling that loses the depths that theology makes intelligible and religion makes possible. The Christian affirmation is that God is characterised by self-giving love (agape), then expected of Christians. Lacking this theological background, the focus on self-interest in sociobiology and economics, and on human realism in the political focus of John Rawls or the feminist sociability of Carol Gilligan, finds altruism naive or a dangerous distraction from real possibilities of mutual support. This book argues that to dispense with altruism is to dispense with God and with the divine transformation of human possibilities.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grant, Colin

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Praktische Theologie Christliches Leben & Praxis

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part I. Alien Altruism: 1. Explanations for altruism; 2. Evidence of altruism; 3. The elusiveness of altruism; Part II. Ideal Altruism: 4. Contract altruism; 5. Constructed altruism; 6. Collegial altruism; Part III: Real Altruism; 7. Acute altruism: Agape; 8. Absolute altruism; 9. Actual altruism.