Altruism and Christian ethics
Separated from its anchorage in religion, ethics has followed the social sciences in seeing human beings as fundamentally characterised by self-interest, so that altruism is either naively idealistic or arrogantly self-sufficient. Colin Grant contends that, as a modern secular concept, altruism is a...
Otros Autores: | |
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Formato: | Libro electrónico |
Idioma: | Inglés |
Publicado: |
Cambridge :
Cambridge University Press
2001.
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Colección: | CUP ebooks.
New studies in Christian ethics ; 18. |
Acceso en línea: | Conectar con la versión electrónica |
Ver en Universidad de Navarra: | https://innopac.unav.es/record=b42012612*spi |
Sumario: | Separated from its anchorage in religion, ethics has followed the social sciences in seeing human beings as fundamentally characterised by self-interest, so that altruism is either naively idealistic or arrogantly self-sufficient. Colin Grant contends that, as a modern secular concept, altruism is a parody on the self-giving love of Christianity, so that its dismissal represents a social levelling that loses the depths that theology makes intelligible and religion makes possible. The Christian affirmation is that God is characterised by self-giving love (agape), then expected of Christians. Lacking this theological background, the focus on self-interest in sociobiology and economics, and on human realism in the political focus of John Rawls or the feminist sociability of Carol Gilligan, finds altruism naive or a dangerous distraction from real possibilities of mutual support. This book argues that to dispense with altruism is to dispense with God and with the divine transformation of human possibilities. |
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Notas: | Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015). |
Descripción Física: | 1 recurso electrónico (xix, 266 p.) |
Formato: | Forma de acceso: World Wide Web. |
ISBN: | 9780511488351 |