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Ethics as a Work of Charity

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The first comprehensive analysis of Thomas Aquinas's conception of pagan virtue, this book advances a fresh paradigm for understanding the shape and spirit of Thomas's synthesis of Christian and Ar...
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  • 01 October 2016
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Most of us wonder how to make sense of the apparent moral excellences or virtues of those who have different visions of the good life or different religious commitments than our own. Rather than flattening or ignoring the deep difference between various visions of the good life, as is so often done, this book turns to the medieval Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas to find a better way. Thomas, it argues, shows us how to welcome the outsider and her virtue as an expression rather than a betrayal of one's own distinctive vision. It shows how Thomas, driven by a Christian commitment to charity and especially informed by Augustine, synthesized Augustinian and Aristotelian elements to construct an ethics that does justice—in love—to insiders and outsiders alike. Decosimo offers the first analysis of Thomas on pagan virtue and a reinterpretation of Thomas's ethics while providing a model for our own efforts to articulate a truthful hospitality and do ethics in our pluralist, globalized world.

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Price: $38.00
Pages: 376
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Imprint: Stanford University Press
Series: Encountering Traditions
Publication Date: 01 October 2016
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781503600607
Format: Paperback
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"This book is a substantial contribution to the literature on Thomas Aquinas's understanding of acquired moral virtue and the related issue of whether unbelievers can possess moral virtue . . . The book as a whole should make Thomas's moral theology more accessible to those who have not yet been exposed to it."
David Decosimo is Assistant Professor of Theology at Boston University.