ABSTRACT This essay is motivated by the seeming contradiction that Korean unification is sought after by most Koreans yet speculations about the social and cultural changes it might bring are almost absent. This may be because Korean unification denotes a series of differences contrasted to the present—because it is a potent “master symbol” with one foot in utopian speculation and the other in policy studies. In this essay, I outline some of the complexities, starting with an examination of illustrations of (...) unification in textbooks for the tensions and contradictions they introduce. I then turn to fiction and film, sketching not only what some South Koreans hope will happen after unification with the North but, indeed, the limits of their imagination regarding what the future will hold for South Korea. In the end, I concur with Grinker that representations of unification are “utopian,” but I object to the association of “utopia” with a socially engineered straitjacket. On the contrary, the utopias projected here suggest stepping off a precipice into worlds unknown, futures defined by their radical difference from today. The end of the essay locates these more imaginative dimensions of Korean unification in the “hope” of Ernst Bloch. (shrink)

Preface -- Prolegomenon : Hayek's three unsettling theses -- Beyond human nature -- Beyond moral justification -- Beyond human governance -- Three enquiries on the open society -- The rise of a normative species -- A natural history of moral order -- The "starting point" -- The egalitarian revolution -- Self-interest, reciprocity and altruism -- Internalized, enforced, social rules -- The other side of morality -- Cultural evolution -- Part I : the rise and fall of inequality -- A complex (...) moral species -- The diversity and self-organized complexity -- Liberalism and the open society -- Understanding diversity -- Autocatalytic diversity -- Diversity and complexity -- Too much complexity? -- The morality of self-organization -- The social contract -- A self-organization model -- Moral diversity In the open society -- Part II: the complexities of self-governance -- Self-governance -- Macro control -- Macro structure -- Strategic dilemmas and polycentricity -- Meso-level goal pursuit -- Sectoral policy -- Self-governance from the bottom-up : simplifying the problems of governance -- Our moral nature and governance in the open society -- Liberal democracy -- Epilogue -- Appendix A -- Appendix B. (shrink)

This contemporary, comprehensive, and practical text helps you discover and determine your own guidelines for helping within the broad limits of professional codes of ethics and divergent theoretical positions. This text is the relied-upon, essential text for students in any helping field-the book many students return to well into their professional careers. The authors raise what they consider to be central issues, present a range of diverse views on the issues, discuss their position, and present opportunities for you to refine (...) your own thinking and actively develop your own informed position. Questions explored include: What role do the therapist's personal values play in the counseling relationship? What ethical responsibilities and rights do clients and therapists have? What considerations are involved in adapting counseling practice to diverse client populations? And more... (shrink)

This book provides a clear and helpful overview of the philosophical core of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, one of the most significant and interesting philosophers of the late twentieth century.

Michael L. Morgan is Emeritus Chancellor Professor at Indiana University and the Grafstein Visiting Chair in Jewish Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He has written extensively on ancient Greek philosophy, modern Jewish philosophy, and post-Holocaust theology and ethics.

Nicolai Hartmann hat philosophische Studien zur Erkenntnistheorie, Ontologie, Ethik, Philosophie des Geistes und Naturphilosophie geschrieben. Die Beiträge des Bandes gehen davon aus, dass seine Arbeit auf all diesen Feldern im Zeichen der Verabschiedung der Systemphilosophie sowie der Begründung einer Konzeption systematischen Philosophierens steht. Im Zentrum von Hartmanns Denken steht das "Kategorienproblem", d. i. die Frage nach den elementaren Strukturen der Wirklichkeit und der menschlichen Erkenntnis. In seinem Bezug auf die philosophische Tradition und seiner Hinwendung zu den Natur- und Sozialwissenschaften unter (...) Einbeziehung auch der alltäglichen Erfahrung macht Hartmann deutlich, dass er an dem Anspruch festhält, die Phänomene der Lebenswelt, Wissenschaft und Geschichte in einem einheitlichen "Aufbau der realen Welt" zu integrieren, ohne ihre Heterogenität und Selbständigkeit zu leugnen. Die Beiträge konzentrieren sich daher auf das Konzept einer "Neuen Ontologie", das Programm der "Kategorienforschung", den Wissenschaftsbezug von Hartmanns Denken, dessen Relevanz für die philosophische Anthropologie und die Problematik des geistigen Seins, der Freiheit sowie der Geschichte. (shrink)

This book advocates for the philosophical import of care in re-evaluating problems of humanitarianism in the context of the ongoing international refugee and forced migration situation. In doing so, it rethinks the human capacity to care about the suffering of distant others. At a time when emotional resources are running low, there is a need to recast what it means to care, with the aim of generating a productive movement against the rise of value fundamentalism globally—embraced in mantras of ‘good (...) and evil’ and ‘us and them’—and to confront xenophobia and oppressive politics. The author draws upon a wide array of rich traditions, including historical and contemporary writings on self-care and care of the other, to re-examine the intersection of care ethics and justice. She also rethinks the relationship between care and contestation, here analyzed in the aesthetic, ethical, political, and religious domains of human experience. From within the context of this contingent historical repetition of political oppression, the book constructs a reminder not only of what it feels like to care, but how and why we should act upon our care. Care Ethics and the Refugee Crisis is an important contribution to the growing literatures on care ethics and immigration/forced migration in philosophy. It will also appeal to scholars and advanced students working in other disciplines such as political science, refugee and migration studies, and social anthropology. (shrink)

I. Diverse interpretations.--II. Purpose and naturalism.--III. The realities of experience.--IV. An historical controversy.--V. The ideal construction of naturalism.--VI. The web of causation.--VII. The problem of life.--VIII. Mind and mechanism.--IX. The science of metaphysics of will.--X. Genetic psychology.--XI. The metaphysical postulate.--XII. Determinism and purpose.

This book, originally published in 1987, considers how the science of linguistics creates its own objects of study. It argues that language is the one essential tool in the ¿social construction of reality¿ ¿ the way in which our environment as we perceive and respond to it is actually created by the cultural constructs we bring to bear on it ¿ and that it is also the means by which this reality, once constructed, is preserved and transmitted from person to (...) person and from generation to generation. Hence it is entirely appropriate to refer to the linguistic construction of reality. (shrink)

In public debates over biotechnology, theologians, philosophers, and political theorists have proposed that biotechnology could have significant implications for human nature. They argue that ethical evaluations of biotechnologies that might affect human nature must take these implications into account. In this book, Gerald McKenny examines these important yet controversial arguments, which have in turn been criticized by many moral philosophers and professional bioethicists. He argues that Christian ethics is, in principle, committed to some version of the claim that human (...) nature has normative status in relation to biotechnology. Showing how both criticisms and defences of this claim have often been facile, he identifies, develops, and critically evaluates three versions of the claim, and contributes a fourth, distinctively Christian version to the debate. Focusing on Christian ethics in conversation with secular ethics, McKenny's book is the first thorough analysis of a controversial contemporary issue. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of the modern self, arguing that we are not as bereft of the resources to engage in rational thought about value as he makes out. I claim that MacIntyre’s argument presumes that philosophy has a much greater power to shape individuals and cultures than it in fact has. In particular, he greatly exaggerates the extent to which the character of the modern self has been an effect of the philosophical views of the self (...) that have been influential during the period, leading him to be overly pessimistic about its nature and powers. Finally, I argue that MacIntyre has provided us with no strong reason for thinking that a moral tradition structured by modern values could not be viable. (shrink)

A theory is presented to explain how accurate, single-joint movements are controlled. The theory applies to movements across different distances, with different inertial loads, toward targets of different widths over a wide range of experimentally manipulated velocities. The theory is based on three propositions. (1) Movements are planned according to “strategies” of which there are at least two: a speed-insensitive (SI) and a speed-sensitive (SS) one. (2) These strategies can be equated with sets of rules for performing diverse movement tasks. (...) The choice between SI and SS depends on whether movement speed and/or movement time (and hence appropriate muscle forces) must be constrained to meet task requirements. (3) The electromyogram can be interpreted as a low-pass filtered version of the controlling signal to the motoneuron pools. This controlling signal can be modelled as a rectangular excitation pulse in which modulation occurs in either pulse amplitude or pulse width. Movements to different distances and with loads are controlled by the SI strategy, which modulates pulse width. Movements in which speed must be explicitly regulated are controlled by the SS strategy, which modulates pulse amplitude. The distinction between the two movement strategies reconciles many apparent conflicts in the motor control literature. (shrink)

In this book, Joseph G. Morgan examines the career of Wesley Fishel, a political scientist who vigorously supported American intervention in the Vietnam War, which he deemed a "great, and tragic, American experiment." Morgan demonstrates how Fishel continued to champion the prospect of an independent South Vietnam, even when Vietnamese resistance and infighting among American and Vietnamese leaders undermined this effort. Morgan also analyzes how opponents of the war questioned Fishel's scholarly integrity and his academic collaboration with (...) the US government in implementing Cold War policies. (shrink)

This book equips readers with a sound understanding of the value-base of mental health care and provides them with the skills and knowledge to demystify complex values in decision-making in order to reach outcomes which are focused on the needs of service users. Engaging case examples and exercises link theory and practice throughout.

In this chapter, I present an analysis that re‐examines and reconstructs how Adorno reads Kierkegaard in his 1933 Habilitationsshrift, Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic and why he reads him in the manner he does, and inquire what the Kierkegaard book may teach us about Adorno's later philosophic development. In the process of my analysis and in light of my answer to the latter question, we will come to understand Adorno's Kierkegaard reading through the following argument: (i) both a negative and (...) positive theology are present in Kierkegaard; (ii) Adorno embraces only the negative, apophatic and rejects the positive, cataphatic theology because Adorno reads the latter as an escape from worldly needs and action; and (iii) the negative theology that Adorno accepts is instructive of and bears an important relation to Adorno's 1970 Aesthetic Theory. The present chapter thus provides a summary of the most insightful and relevant scholarship on Adorno's intersection with Kierkegaard as well as a new argument about Adorno's Aesthetic Theory from rethinking this intersection. (shrink)

Identity: The Necessity of a Modern Idea is the first comprehensive history of the concept that answers the question, "who, or what, am I?" Gerald Izenberg contends that our most important identities, while historically conditioned, are rooted in permanent categories of human existence, such as sexuality, sociality, and labor.

In this diverting collection of essays, Gerald Weissmann looks back at the past few decades of his long career working at the intersection of the arts and sciences. The Fevers of Reason features some of his best and most representative works, alongside eleven new essays that have never before been published in book form. Masterfully drawing from an array of subject areas and time periods, he tackles everything from Ebola to Eisenhower, Zika to Zola, Darwin to Dawkins, and once (...) again shows that he is one of the most important voices in humanistic science writing today. (shrink)

Up-to-date and comprehensive, this practical best seller provides students with the basis for discovering their own guidelines for helping within the broad limits of professional codes of ethics and divergent theoretical positions. Respected authors Gerald Corey, Marianne Corey, and Cindy Corey raise what they consider to be central issues, present a range of diverse views on the issues, discuss their position, and provide opportunities for students to refine their thinking and develop an informed position. With new material in every (...) chapter and an emphasis on critical thinking, ISSUES AND ETHICS IN THE HELPING PROFESSIONS, 10th Edition, is useful for students as well as practicing professionals. This edition features MindTap®, the digital learning solution that helps instructors engage and transform today's students into critical thinkers and successful helpers. (shrink)

This integrative volume proposes major revisions to the APA ethics code and works toward creating an ethics code applicable across psychology, psychiatry, and related mental health professions. Careful analysis identifies theoretical and structural deficits in the principles and standards comprising the existing APA code, corrects its ambiguities, and provides scientific and compare-contrast illustrations to address current and potential controversies arising from current gray areas. Proposed revisions are informed by the American Medical Association, Canadian Psychological Association, and international ethics codes, emphasizing (...) not only clearer language and diverse situations but also deeper conceptualizations of professional skills such as decision-making and client engagement. Ideally, the resulting universal code would be more inclusive of evolving ethical challenges in increasingly complex work environments and society. Included in the coverage: Comparison of the APA and CPA ethics codes. Proposing five core and five supplementary ethical principles and their sub-principles. Analyzing the APA's ethical standards toward revising the APA ethics code. Elucidating new standards, domains, sub-domains, and meta-principles. Culling lessons from the 2017 AMA medical ethics code. Examining ethical decision-making: fallacies/biases and models. Proposing new concepts, such as participatory ethics and psychological co-regulation. Giving concrete and practical recommendations toward revising the APA ethics code and creating a universal mental health ethics code. An exhaustive text that spans clinical, research, teaching, and education domains, Revising the APA Ethics Code is essential reading for ethics scholars, practitioners, and the APA administrative and ethics committee hierarchies. These real-world guidelines will help ensure that the mental health professions remain both modern and moral. (shrink)

Consider a stylized contrast between medical and business ethics. Both fields of applied ethics focus on a profession whose activities are basic to human welfare. Both enquire into obligations of professionals, and the relations between goals intrinsic to the profession and ethical duties to others and to the society. I am struck, however, by a fundamental difference: whereas medical ethics takes place against a background of almost universal consensus that the practice of medicine is admirable and morally praiseworthy, the business (...) profession is embedded within the framework of firms in a capitalist market economy, and for the last century and a half there has been sustained debate about the moral and economic justifiability of such an economy. To be sure, even under socialism there might be an “ethics of socialist managers,” and there would be some overlap between such an ethic and contemporary business ethics. Nevertheless, many of the characteristic problems of business ethics — e.g., what are the obligations of a corporation to its shareholders? — arise only in the context of a private property-based market economy. This raises a deep problem for business ethics: can one develop an account of ethical practices for an activity (i.e., business) while ignoring that the context in which this activity occurs (i.e., capitalism) is morally controversial? It is as if the work in medical ethics proceeded in the midst of widespread disagreement whether medicine was a good thing. Another way of thinking about the problem is: if one teaches business ethics, does this commit you to accepting that business can be ethical? And doesn’t this commit you to accepting that capitalism is justifiable?1 I suspect that this is a serious problem for many teachers of business ethics. Many were trained in academic philosophy, and within academic philosophy there are many who think — or at least suspect — that capitalism is basically unjust, or perhaps that only a greatly modified capitalism would be acceptable.. (shrink)

This almost self-contained introduction to higher recursion theory is essential reading for all researchers in the field.

This systems approach to the major schools of philosophy of education gives readers a cognitive map of the areas, as well as the ideology in relationship to educational theory. It carefully examines the major schools of philosophy of education; considers the relationship of education to major ideologies including Nationalism, Liberalism, Conservatism, and Marxism; and analyzes the impact of philosophy and ideology on educational theory and practice through the theories of Essentialism, Perennialism, Social Reconstruction, and Critical Theory. Previously published as Philosophical (...) and Ideological Perspectives on Education, and as New Perspectives on Philosophy and Education, this new version follows the content and organizational framework of these earlier editions. Each chapter includes: Definitions of terms; Historical contributors and antecedents; A general discussion of the particular philosophy, ideology, or theory; and Relationships and application to education, especially to schools, curriculum instruction, and to teachers and students. While retaining the helpful pedagogical aids that made the previous editions so popular-- Questions for Reflection and Discussion, Inquiry and Research Projects, Internet Resources, and Suggestions for Further Reading--this edition includes new marginal explanatory and cross reference notes and consistent updating throughout. Also from Gerald L. Gutek: 0205594336 - New Perspectives on Philosophy and Education, 1/e - ©2009 0205360181 - Philosophical and Ideological Voices in Education, 1/e - ©2004 0130122335 - Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education: Selected Readings, 1/e - ©2001 020526106X - Philosophical and Ideological Perspectives on Education, 2/e - ©1997 0205132030 - Education and Schooling in America, 3/e - ©1997. (shrink)

Galvanised by events outside of his consulting room, David Morgan began The Political Mind seminars at the British Psychoanalytical Society in 2015 and their successful run continues today. A series of superlative seminars that examine the effects of the current upheaval going on worldwide, this book is the second to bring these seminars from leading thinkers to a wider audience. Leading politicians, writers, educators, psychoanalysts, psychologists, philosophers, psychotherapists, and psychologists are gathered together in this fascinating volume that investigates social (...) upheaval on the worldwide stage. Stimulating and thought-provoking, this is a must-read for every citizen asking just what is happening in the world today."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Though underexplored in contemporary scholarship, the Victorian attempts to turn aesthetics into a science remain one of the most fascinating aspects of that era. In The Outward Mind, Benjamin Morgan approaches this period of innovation as an important origin point for current attempts to understand art or beauty using the tools of the sciences. Moving chronologically from natural theology in the early nineteenth century to laboratory psychology in the early twentieth, Morgan draws on little-known archives of Victorian intellectuals (...) such as William Morris, Walter Pater, John Ruskin, and others to argue that scientific studies of mind and emotion transformed the way writers and artists understood the experience of beauty and effectively redescribed aesthetic judgment as a biological adaptation. Looking beyond the Victorian period to humanistic critical theory today, he also shows how the historical relationship between science and aesthetics could be a vital resource for rethinking key concepts in contemporary literary and cultural criticism, such as materialism, empathy, practice, and form. At a moment when the tumultuous relationship between the sciences and the humanities is the subject of ongoing debate, Morgan argues for the importance of understanding the arts and sciences as incontrovertibly intertwined. (shrink)

Traumatic events happen in every age, yet there is a particularly cataclysmic feeling to our own epoch that is so attractive to some and so terrifying to others. The terrible events of September 11th 2001 still resonate and the repercussions continue to this day: the desperation of immigrants fleeing terror, the uncertainty of Brexit, Donald Trump in the White House, the rise of the alt-right and hard left, increasing fundamentalism, and terror groups intent on causing destruction to the Western way (...) of life. If that were not enough, we also have to grapple with the enormity of climate change and the charge that if we do not act now, it will be too late. Is it any wonder many are left overwhelmed by the events they see on the news? Galvanised by the events outside of his consulting room, in 2015, David Morgan began The Political Mind seminars at the British Psychoanalytical Society and their successful run continues today. A series of superlative seminars, mostly presented by colleagues from the British Society plus a few select external experts, that examine a dazzling array of relevant topics to provide a psychoanalytic understanding of just what is going on in our world. This book is the first in The Political Mind series to bring these seminars to a wider audience. The Unconscious in Political and Social Life contains compelling contributions from Christopher Bollas, Michael Rustin, Jonathan Sklar, David Bell, Philip Stokoe, Roger Kennedy, David Morgan, M. Fakhry Davids, Ruth McCall, R. D. Hinshelwood, Renée Danziger, Josh Cohen, Sally Weintrobe, and Margot Waddell. They investigate so many vital issues affecting us today: the evolution of democracy, right-wing populism, prejudice, the rise of the far right, attitudes to refugees and migrants, neoliberalism, fundamentalism, terrorism, the Palestine-Israel situation, political change, feminism, austerity in the UK, financial globalisation, and climate change. This book needs to be read by all who are concerned by the state of the world today. Psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts with their awareness of what motivates human beings bring clarity and fresh insight to these matters. A deeper understanding of humanity awaits the reader of The Unconscious in Political and Social Life. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the inheritance of human handedness and cerebral lateralization within the more general context of structural biological asymmetries. The morphogenesis of asymmetrical structures, such as the heart in vertebrates, depends upon a complex interaction between information coded in the cytoplasm and in the genes, but the polarity of asymmetry seems to depend on the cytoplasmic rather than the genetic code. Indeed it is extremely difficult to find clear-cut examples in which thedirectionof an asymmetry is under genetic control. (...) As one possible case, there is some evidence that the direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, of rotation of the abdomen in certain mutant strains ofDrosophilais controlled by a particular gene locus, although there appears to be some degree of confusion on this point. By contrast, it is much easier to find examples in which thedegreebut not the direction of asymmetry is under genetic control. For instance, there is a mutant strain of mice in which half of the animals displaysitus inversusof the viscera. The proportion has remained at one half despite many years of inbreeding, suggesting that the mutant allele effectively cancels the normalsitusand allows the asymmetry to be specified in random fashion.Although this account does not deny that the right hemisphere of humans may be the more specialized for certain functions, it does attribute a leading or dominant role to the left hemisphere (at least in most individuals). We suggest that so-called “right-hemisphere” functions are essentially acquired by default, due to the left hemisphere's prior involvement with speech and skilled motor acts; we note, for instance, that these right-hemisphere functions include rather elementary perceptual processes. But perhaps the more critical prediction from our account is that the phenomenon of equipotentiality should be unidirectional: the right (lagging) hemisphere should be more disposed to take over left-hemisphere functions following early lesions than is the left (leading) hemisphere to take over right-hemisphere functions. We note preliminary evidence that this may be so. (shrink)

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics offers a complete introduction to the fundamental tools and concepts of analysis that PPE students need to study social and political issues. This fully updated and expanded edition examines the core methodologies of rational choice, strategic analysis, norms, and collective choice that serve as the bedrocks of political philosophy and the social sciences. The textbook is ideal for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and nonspecialists looking to familiarize themselves with PPE's approaches.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was active during the Renaissance, developing adventurous ideas even while serving as a churchman. The religious issues with which he engaged - spiritual, apocalyptic and institutional - were to play out in the Reformation. These essays reflect the interests of Cusanus but also those of Gerald Christianson, who has studied church history, the Renaissance and the Reformation. The book places Nicholas into his times but also looks at his later reception. The first part addresses institutional (...) issues, including Schism, conciliarism, indulgences and the possibility of dialogue with Muslims. The second treats theological and philosophical themes, including nominalism, time, faith, religious metaphor, and prediction of the end times. (shrink)

In den letzten Jahren ist eine neue Betrachtungsweise in der Wissen­ schaftsgeschichte entstanden - eine Betrachtungsweise, die ihre fruchtbaren Ideen aus weit auseinanderliegenden Gebieten sucht, die von Wissenschafts­ philosophie und -_Jziologie bis hin zur Psychologie und Ästhetik reichen. Viel­ leicht wird bald ein neuer Name für dieses erweiterte Forschungsgebiet erfor­ derlich sein; noch wesentlicher sind jedoch seine neuen Fragestellungen, Be­ griffe und Modelle. Anhand spezifischer Fallstudien aus der Physik soll in diesem Buch ge­ zeigt werden, in welcher Beziehung die traditionellen (...) Ansichten über die Denkweise von Wissenschaftlern revisionsbedürftig sind.! Dazu mußte ich einige neue Begriffe einführen, wie beispielsweise den Begriff "thematischer Inhalt" der Wissenschaft. Der thematische Inhalt steht gewissermaßen ortho­ gonal zu den empirischen oder analytischen Inhalten der Wissenschaft. Ich werde zeigen, daß Themata eine dominante Rolle in der Entstehung, Durch­ setzung oder Ablehnung wissenschaftlicher Ergebnisse spielen. Zahlreiche unpublizierte Dokumente aus dem wissenschaftlichen Nachlaß Albert Ein­ steins erlauben es, dies besonders am Beispiel der Entstehung der speziellen Relativitätstheorie im Detail nachzuweisen. (shrink)

Le présent article veut (1) montrer que la théorie qualitative de la vérisimilarité exposée par Karl R. Popper dansConjectures and RefutationsetObjective Knowledgeest compatible avec sa méthode des conjectures, corroborations et réfutations; (2) faire voir pourquoi cette théorie apparaît néanmoins trop forte d'un point de vue intuitif; (3) montrer comment le système poppérien permet de contourner la preuve formelle présentée par Pavel Tichy en 1974 à l'encontre de la théorie qualitative de la vérisimilarité; (4) proposer une nouvelle définition de la vérisimilarité (...) qui apparaisse non seulement logiquement fondée, mais plus intuitivement acceptable et davantage liée à la méthodologie poppérienne que la définition originelle. (shrink)

An extensive scholarly literature, written in the past century holds that in ancient Greek and Roman thought history is understood as circular and repetitive - a consequence of their anti-temporal metaphysics - in contrast with Judaeo-Christian thought, which sees history as linear and unique - a consequence of their messianic and hence radically temporal theology. Gerald Press presents a more general view - that the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian cultures were fundamentally alien and opposed cultural forces and that, therefore, Christianity's (...) victory over paganism included the replacement or supersession of one intellectual world by another - and then shows that, contrary to this view, there was substantial continuity between "pagan" and Christian ideas of history in antiquity, rather than a striking opposition between cyclic and linear patterns. He finds that the foundation of the Christian view of history as goal-directed lies in the rhetorical rather than the theological motives of early Christian writers. (shrink)

Once considered inimical to ethics, Karl Barth's theology is now rightly recognized for the central role ethics plays in it. But can Barth be safely placed in the mainstream tradition of Christian moral theology or does he offer a challenge to the latter? Gerald McKenny argues that the claim that God not only establishes the good from eternity but also brings it about in time is of fundamental importance to Barth's mature ethics. The good confronts us from the site (...) of its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, who has accomplished it in our place. The result is a vision of the moral life as a human analogy to God's grace, a vision which contrasts with the bourgeois vision of the moral life as an expression of human capability. Barth's moral theology is presented here as the attempt to reorder ethical thought and practice in light of this fundamental claim. This lucid and well-argued study is the most comprehensive treatment of Barth's ethics to date, offering a thorough account of the development of Barth's ethical thought and a wide-ranging analysis of its chief concepts and arguments. McKenny explains why certain widespread assumptions about Barth's moral theology are mistaken and explores the rich, complex, and often surprising ways in which Barth's position engages the traditions of Christian ethics and modern continental moral thought. Above all, McKenny shows why Barth's moral theology deserves our attention in spite of, or rather because of, its uneasy fit in the mainstream tradition of Christian moral theology. (shrink)