This volume honors Lisa Cahill's 45 years of teaching Christian ethics at Boston College. With contributions from most of the doctoral students she directed during her career, it provides an interpretive overview of Cahill's specific contributions to Christian ethics.

This essay considers eighteenth-century Anglican thinker Joseph Butler's view of the role of natural emotions in moral reasoning and action. Emotions such as compassion and resentment are shown to play a positive role in the moral life by motivating action and by directing agents toward certain good objects—for example, relief of misery and justice. For Butler, moral virtue is present when these natural affections are kept in proper proportion by the "superior" principles of the moral life—conscience, self-love, and benevolence—which involve (...) the capacity for reasonable reflection. For contemporary thinkers, Butler's approach suggests that natural emotion should not be viewed as the enemy of moral reasoning; in fact, it challenges ethicists to pay attention to and account for the significant role of the emotions in the moral life. (shrink)

This essay considers eighteenth‐century Anglican thinker Joseph Butler's view of the role of natural emotions in moral reasoning and action. Emotions such as compassion and resentment are shown to play a positive role in the moral life by motivating action and by directing agents toward certain good objects—for example, relief of misery and justice. For Butler, moral virtue is present when these natural affections are kept in proper proportion by the “superior” principles of the moral life—conscience, self‐love, and benevolence—which involve (...) the capacity for reasonable reflection. For contemporary thinkers, Butler's approach suggests that natural emotion should not be viewed as the enemy of moral reasoning; in fact, it challenges ethicists to pay attention to and account for the significant role of the emotions in the moral life. (shrink)

While he was archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012, the scholar and theologian Rowan Williams faced divisive controversy over ethical issues such as human sexuality, women's ordination, and the treatment of religious minorities. This essay presents a selective retrieval of Williams's approach to communal disagreement as an important contribution of the Anglican tradition to the future of Christian ethics. Williams's concept of ethical discernment as an exercise in "recognition" offers a way for communities to approach differences as fostering constructive (...) engagement and expanding ethical insight. Kathryn Tanner's analysis of culture and tradition in Theories of Culture is used to explicate the strengths and limitations of Williams's thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Ethics of Death: Religious and Philosophical Perspectives in Dialogue by Lloyd Steffen and Dennis R. CooleySarah MosesThe Ethics of Death: Religious and Philosophical Perspectives in Dialogue Lloyd Steffen and Dennis R. Cooley MINNEAPOLIS: FORTRESS PRESS, 2014. 318 PP. $34.00In The Ethics of Death, religious studies scholar Lloyd Steffen and philosopher Dennis Cooley offer ethical analysis of a variety of topics with an approach they refer to as (...) "dialogic engagement," modeled upon their own interdisciplinary exchange with one another (4). In fact, each of the seven main chapters is explicitly structured as a dialogue: each author laying out his particular approach in two separate sections, which are then followed by a question-and-answer section where the authors pose questions to one another and provide brief responses. Intending to address death as it relates to the moral lives of the living, the chapters cover topics that are of enduring interest to students, scholars, and the general public: abortion, the death penalty, war, suicide, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia. To distinguish it from other recent titles that explore the dying experience in contemporary medical contexts, the book might be more accurately described as addressing the ethics of killing. [End Page 218]To set the stage for subsequent topical chapters, the book's first chapter provides a basic introduction to ethics, including outlining prominent ethical theories such as Kantian, utilitarian, virtue, and natural law approaches. Readers will find clear descriptions of key terms such as consequentialism, deontology, and pragmatism. In his section Steffen also addresses the contrast between religious and secular ethics, noting how religious ethical traditions are potentially distinctive (such as divine command theories or use of sacred texts) and potentially overlapping (such as similar practical judgments). In this chapter, the authors also indicate their own preferred normative approach: Steffen identifying with a "natural law hybrid ethic," a natural law approach that "allows the other ethical theories a part but says none has the final say" (22), and Cooley advocating what he calls the "Pragmatic Principle" approach, combining what he considers plausible and helpful from both deontology and consequentialism (32–33). The authors' normative approaches reveal the strengths and limitations of various ethical theories, and the practical usefulness of theoretical hybridity.Each of the topical chapters provides readers with relevant background information, such as the legal and policy history of particular issues. Given the flexible normative approaches taken by the authors, not surprisingly each chapter provides a nonabsolutist position on each form of killing (although Cooley's evaluation of war is strongly negative: "Some may be justified, whereas the vast majority cannot be" [165]). The chapters also provide balanced, thoughtful sections that outline major arguments on opposite sides of ethical debate, sometimes in the form of enumerated "for and against" lists. The chapters thus familiarize readers with important dimensions of contemporary debates, such as just war theory, pacifism, human rights theory, definitions of personhood, and the determination of medical futility. Chapters include useful references to thinkers who have shaped ethical debate such as Don Marquis and Judith Thompson on abortion and Mahatma Gandhi and Douglas Lackey on war and violence. Students of religious ethics will find the sections by Steffen particularly helpful in reviewing various ethical positions from religions such as Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.The book could certainly be effective in a topical survey course at the undergraduate or graduate level, with a major strength that the book's structure illustrates theoretical connections between philosophy and religious studies regarding ethical inquiry. The dialogue questions that conclude each chapter could be used to frame class discussion or even as prompts for student writing assignments. However, for a course focused on comparative religious ethics, instructors would want to supplement with more in-depth ethical analysis from particular religious ethical traditions. [End Page 219]Sarah MosesUniversity of MississippiCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)