Priorities and Christian Ethics / Edition 1

by Garth L. Hallett

Overview

Christians have agreed, as have others, that preference should go to some extent to one's nearest, and also to some extent to the neediest. However, to what extent should we give preference to which group? And suppose these two preferences come into conflict, as they frequently do? This book provides the fullest contemporary treatment of these issues. The author brings to bear all the resources of theological and philosophical reflection on a single representative case, and from the single example, sheds light on a wide range of comparable cases, both private and public.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521623513
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/02/1998
Series:	New Studies in Christian Ethics , #12
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; 1. A thorny question; 2. Finding a focus; 3. New Testament intimations; 4. Patristic positions; 5. The Thomistic tradition; 6. Contemporary considerations; 7. Comparable conflicts; Works cited; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"This book, with an example obviously of interest to students, deserves a place in college and seminary libraries as an illustration of careful casuitry." Choice

"...the book is clearly written, impressively researched, and usually thoughtful....an admirable and challenging addition to literature on the nature and order of Christian love and deserves to be read in any graduate discussion of the subject." Paul J. Wadell, Religious Studies Review

"The book is, in the best tradition of roman Catholic casuistry, a detailed exploration of an issue...that seeks to investigate a particular moral dilemma so as to shed light on more general issues and exemplify broader moral principles." Jeph Holloway, Southwestern Journal of Theology

"This book is an exemplary piece of casuistry in the best sense of the word...wonderful...To read this book is to be invited into a world of rare moral beauty. This book has the kind of authority that arises when a thinker sympathetically entertains arguments that are contrary to his own. This makes the book a rewarding experience, a real page turner as the reader tries to follow myriad well-told arguments regarding a concrete case that, by analogy, is the story of our lives, the situation about which each of us makes decisions every day, directing our resources either toward the nearest of the neediest every time we open our wallets." The Journal of Religion

From the Publisher