Ethical Formation

Ethical Formation
Author: Sabina Lovibond
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2009-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780674040342

Sabina Lovibond invites her readers to see how the practical reason view of ethics can survive challenges from within philosophy and from the antirationalist postmodern critique of reason. She elaborates and defends a modern practical-reason view of ethics by focusing on virtue or ideal states of character that involve sensitivity to the objective reasons circumstances bring into play. At the heart of her argument is the Aristotelian idea of the formation of character through upbringing; these ancient ideas can be made contemporary if one understands them in a naturalized way. She then explores the implications that arise from the naturalization of the classical view, weaving into her theory ideas of Jacques Derrida and J. L. Austin. The book also discusses two modes of resistance to an existing ethical culture--one committed to the critical employment of shared norms of rationality, the other aspiring to a more radical attitude, grounded in hostility to the universal. Lovibond tries to determine what may be correct in this second, admittedly paradoxical, tendency. This is a timely and valuable effort to connect the most advanced forms of thinking in the analytic tradition and in the Continental tradition, and to extend our understanding of the intimacies and resistances between these two prominent strands of contemporary philosophy.

The Ethical Formation of Economists

The Ethical Formation of Economists
Author: Wilfred Dolfsma
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2019-06-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 135104379X

Economists' role in society has always been an uneasy one, and in recent years the ethicality of the profession and its practitioners has been questioned more than ever. This collection of essays is the first to investigate the multifaceted nature of what forms economists' ethical and economic views. Bringing together work from international contributors, The Ethical Formation of Economists explores the ways in which economists are influenced in their training and career, examining how this can explain their individual ethical stances as economists. The book suggests that if we can better understand what is making economists think and act as they do, considering ethicality in the process, we might all be better placed to implement changes. The intent is not to exonerate economists from personal responsibility, but to highlight how considering the circumstances that have helped shape economists' views can help to address issues. It is argued that it is important to understand these influences, as without such insights, the demonization of economists is too easily adapted as a stance by society as well as too easily dismissed by economists. This book will be of great interest to those studying and researching in the fields of economics, ethics, philosophy and sociology. It also seeks to bring an ethical debate within and about economics and to cause change in the practical reasoning of economists.

Sites of the Ascetic Self

Sites of the Ascetic Self
Author: Niki Kasumi Clements
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2020-05-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268107874

Sites of the Ascetic Self reconsiders contemporary debates about ethics and subjectivity in an extended engagement with the works of John Cassian (ca. 360–ca. 435), whose stories of extreme asceticism and transformative religious experience by desert elders helped to establish Christian monastic forms of life. Cassian’s late ancient texts, written in the context of social, cultural, political, doctrinal, and environmental change, contribute to an ethics for fractured selves in uncertain times. In response to this environment, Cassian’s practical asceticism provides a uniquely frank picture of human struggle in a world of contingency while also affirming human agency in ways that signaled a challenge to followers of his contemporary, Augustine of Hippo. Niki Kasumi Clements brings these historical and textual analyses of Cassian’s monastic works into conversation with contemporary debates at the intersection of the philosophy of religion and queer and feminist theories. Rather than focusing on interiority and renunciation of self, as scholars such as Michel Foucault read Cassian, Clements analyzes Cassian’s texts by foregrounding practices of the body, the emotions, and the community. By focusing on lived experience in the practical ethics of Cassian, Clements demonstrates the importance of analyzing constructions of ethics in terms of cultivation alongside critical constructions of power. By challenging modern assumptions about Cassian’s asceticism, Sites of the Ascetic Self contributes to questions of ethics, subjectivity, and agency in the study of religion today.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Formation

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Formation
Author: Ryan Huber
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2020-05-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978701721

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is many things to many people—committed pacifist, reluctant revolutionary, Protestant saint but in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics of Formation, Ryan Huber argues that Bonhoeffer should be engaged as a Christian ethicist of formation. Huber demonstrates that formation lies at the heart of Bonhoeffer’s ethical project and personal story, providing a third way between virtue and character ethics in contemporary Christian thought concerned with moral growth.

Political Formation

Political Formation
Author: Jenny Leith
Publisher: SCM Press
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0334063035

What might it mean us to be formed as disciples not only by the church but also by the world? In Political Formation: Being Formed by the Spirit in Church and World, Jenny Leith argues that ethical and political formation of Christians takes place through the work of the Spirit both in the church and in civic life, and the church, too, has something to learn from wider political practices and movements. This account of formation places centre stage a reckoning with the forms of exclusion and marginalisation that mar the church, and yields an understanding of the church as not only ethically formative but also in constant need of being formed itself. Offering a fresh vision for ecclesiology, which grapples with the ethical failings of the church and takes seriously the need for the church to keep on recognising and repenting of its sins, the book offers a major new contribution to discussions around Christian formation and the relationship between discipleship and ethics.

Christian Formation

Christian Formation
Author: James R. Estep
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2010-05-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433671670

For Christian education professors and students, Christian Formation provides a composite view of human development and learning from integrated theory, theology, and educational practices in the church. By design, the book integrates these elements into a cohesive foundational piece for Christian education. Contributors include: • James Estep - “Christian Anthropology: Humanity as the Imago Dei,” “Developmental Theories: Foe, Friend or Folly?” “Moral Development and Christian Formation” • Jonathan Kim - “Intellectual Development and Christian Formation,” “Psychological Development and Christian Formation,” “Cultural Development and Christian Formation” • Timothy Jones and Michael Wilder - “Faith Development and Christian Formation” • Greg Carlson - “Adult Development and Christian Formation” • Mark Maddix - “Spiritual Formation and Christian Formation”

Moral Formation according to Paul

Moral Formation according to Paul
Author: James W. Thompson
Publisher: Baker Books
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2011-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441234489

This fresh treatment of Paul's ethics addresses this question: how, according to Paul, can Christian communities know how God wants them to live? Leading biblical scholar James Thompson explains that Paul offers a coherent moral vision based not only on the story of Christ but also on the norms of the law. Paul did not live with a sharp dichotomy of law and gospel and recognized the continuing importance of the law. Thompson makes a distinctive contribution by locating the roots of Paul's concrete ethical thought in Hellenistic Judaism rather than Hellenistic moral philosophy. Students of New Testament ethics and Pauline theology will value this work.

Christian Character Formation

Christian Character Formation
Author: Gifford A. Grobien
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2019-05-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191063231

Christian Character Formation investigates worship and formation in view of Christian anthropology, particularly union with Christ. Traditions which value justification by faith wrestle to some degree with how to describe and encourage ethical formation when salvation and righteousness are presented as gracious and complete. The dialectic of law and gospel has suggested to some that forgiveness and the advocacy of ethical norms contend with each other. By viewing justification and formation in light of Christ's righteousness which is both imputed and imparted, it is more readily seen that forgiveness and ethics complement each other. In justification, God converts a person, by which he grants new character. Traditional Lutheran anthropology says that this regeneration grants a new nature in mystical union with Jesus Christ. By exploring the Finnish Luther School led by Tuomo Mannermaa, Gifford A. Grobien explains how union with Christ imparts righteousness and the corresponding new character to the believer. Furthermore, as means of grace, the Word and sacraments are the means of establishing union with Christ and nurturing new character. Considering Oswald Bayer's "suffering" the word of Christ, Louis-Marie Chauvet's "symbolic order" and Bernd Wannenwetsch's understanding of worship as Christianity's unique "form of life," Grobien argues that worship practices are the foundational and determinative context in which grace is offered and in which the distinctively Christian ethos supports virtues consistent with Christian character. This understanding is also coordinated with Stanley Hauerwas's narrative ethics and Luther's teaching of virtue and good works in view of the Ten Commandments.

Membership and Moral Formation

Membership and Moral Formation
Author: John F. Covaleskie
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2013-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1623961947

This book is an attempt to relate moral formation to democratic life and to the emotional emotion of shame. The argument is that shame is essential to moral formation, that it tells us when we are violating our own moral norms. Contrary to common belief, I argue that shame is neither imposed on us by others (though it is certainly a product of our communal memberships) nor necessarily harmful. In fact I argue that shame not only can be beneficial for us, but that moral formation and growth are both inextricably linked to a proper sense of shame, a properly formed conscience. The process of moral formation is an important one for any society, but perhaps most of all for a democratic society. The foundational premise of democratic life is that we have the capacity to be self-governing, the desire to do the right thing, and the wisdom to discern what the right thing is. This is unlikely to happen unless there is a conscious effort to form the conscience of the young so that they can become democratic citizens. Which brings up, then, the question of moral education. Whatever it is that a particular society or community considers to be “moral,” the question of moral education is how do members of the community come to be moral? Given that moral formation of the young is necessary, this discussion ends with a look at the practice of two exemplary democratic moral practitioners, Vivian Paley and Deborah Meier, whose pedagogy shows how formation of young consciences can be done by thoughtful adults with integrity.

Emotions, Moral Formation, and Christian Politics

Emotions, Moral Formation, and Christian Politics
Author: Jonathan M. Cahill
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2024-08-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567713504

This volume addresses the social-relational nature of moral formation, emotions, and moral agency. Drawing on Barth's theological anthropology and his relational conception of the self, Cahill argues that Barth envisions moral progress as rooted in the growth of the community. Cahill also explores Barth's view of emotion in conversation with the study of emotions in psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and philosophy. Building on Barth and these other disciplines Cahill argues for a relational and cognitive conception of emotions while highlighting emotions' critical role in regulating group and social relations. Emotions are fundamental to interpersonal interactions, to group relations, and for the reinforcement and disruption of social structures. This account of moral formation and emotion is illustrated through the example of climate change. A community shaped by love for God, solidarity with other creatures, and a concern for all of creation leads to an awareness of hegemonic forces and fosters emotions shaped by the kingdom of God that enables the struggle for climate justice.