Opponents of abortion have traditionally responded to Judith Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” by denying that her example of the unconscious violinist is analogous to a pregnancy that results from rape. In this article, I argue that this strategy does not work. Although there are differences between Thomson’s violinist and pregnancies that result from rape, the differences are not morally relevant. The appropriate strategy for the opponent of abortion, I argue, is to simply bite the bullet: the opponent of abortion (...) should simply reply that Thomson’s innocent victim is not free to unplug himself from the violinist. (shrink)

This book contains new work on character from the perspectives of philosophy, theology, and psychology. From a virtual reality simulation of the Milgram shock experiments, to understanding the virtue of modesty in Muslim societies, to defending soldiers’ moral responsibility for committing war crimes, these chapters break new ground and significantly advance our understanding of character. The main topics covered fall under the heading of our beliefs about character, the existence and nature of character traits, character and ethical theory, virtue epistemology, (...) the nature of particular virtues, character development, and challenges to character and virtue from neuroscience and situationism. The book significantly shapes discussions of character in scholarship. (shrink)

This chapter for our edited volume (Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology) provides background material on what we consider to be several of the fundamental questions about character, such as whether character traits exist, what their makeup is, and how they can be improved.

Although scholars agree that Aquinas believed the pagan could possess “true but imperfect” virtues, there is deep disagreement over the question of how these “true but imperfect” virtues should be understood. Some scholars argue that Aquinas believed the pagan’s imperfect virtues are nonetheless ordered to a genuinely good end (his natural good) and are connected by acquired prudence. Other scholars argue that Aquinas believed that any virtues that the pagan possesses are considerably more limited: they are more akin to dispositions (...) than habits, and they are not connected. This paper argues that this latter position is incoherent. If one is willing to concede that the pagan can perform genuinely good actions, then one must concede that the pagan can possess genuine (albeit imperfect) virtues that are connected by acquired prudence. (shrink)

Although it is well known that Aquinas holds that infused versions of prudence and the other acquired virtues are bestowed on man along with habitual grace, there is no uniform and widely accepted account of how the infused and acquired virtues are related: some scholars interpret Aquinas to mean that the acquired virtues are ‘taken up’ into the infused virtues, while others credit him with the view that the infused and acquired virtues somehow coexist. This paper explores one common way (...) of maintaining that the Christian’s infused and acquired virtues ‘coexist’. I argue that while such an interpretation is able to accommodate some of Aquinas’s most fundamental claims about the infused and acquired virtues, it is also problematic in important respects. (shrink)

This introduction describes the origins and rationale behind the papers that comprise this special issue of Studies in Christian Ethics. These papers represent several recent contributions to scholarship on the theology of character.

This article examines moral change, primarily through the lens of Summa Theologiae I-II 49–50. I argue that the specific difference Aquinas asserts between habits and dispositions allows for the possibility that virtuous habits can sometimes exist alongside problematic bodily dispositions. While in the typical case the actions that bring about a habit also bring about appropriate bodily dispositions, it is my contention that the cultivation of a habit need not eliminate all contrary bodily dispositions. This implies that one's past, whether (...) it be one's pre-rational conditioning or past choices, can create bodily obstacles to the cultivation of virtue that later moral reformation may never entirely eliminate. (shrink)