Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-x2lbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-06T13:03:17.066Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Impeccability and perfect virtue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2016

LUKE HENDERSON
LUKE HENDERSON*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
*
e-mail: jlukehenderson@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Whatever else a theory of impeccability assumes about the moral life of heavenly agents, it seems to imply something about the type of actions possible for such agents, along with the quality of their moral characters. Regarding these characters, there are many that have argued impeccable and heavenly agents must also be perfectly virtuous agents. Michael Slote has recently argued, however, that perfect virtue is impossible. Assuming Slote's argument is successful, a theory of impeccability that relies on the possibility of perfect virtue would be greatly harmed, even to the point of incoherence. My intent here is to defend the coherence of the doctrine of impeccability, at least as it applies to the moral life of heavenly agents.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 261 - 280
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adams, R. M. (1984) ‘Saints’, Journal of Philosophy, 81, 392–401.Google Scholar
Adams, R. M. (2008) A Theory of Virtue: Excellence in Being for the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Anselm, (1998) Major Works, Davies, B. & Evans, G. (eds) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Aquinas, T. (1956) On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: Summa Contra Gentiles, Bourke, V. J. (tr.) (Garden City: Hanover House).Google Scholar
Augustine, (1998) The City of God against the Pagans, 6th edn, Dyson, R. W. (tr.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Brown, D. (1985) ‘No heaven without purgatory’, Religious Studies, 21, 447–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, W. R. (1985) ‘Impeccability revisited’, Analysis, 45, 52–55.Google Scholar
Donnelly, J. (1985) ‘Eschatological enquiry’, Sophia, 24, 16–31.Google Scholar
Doris, J. M. (2002) Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Gaine, O. P., S.F. (2003) Will There Be Free Will in Heaven? (London: T & T Clark).Google Scholar
Harman, G. (1999) ‘Moral philosophy meets social psychology: virtue ethics and the fundamental attribution error’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 99, 315–331.Google Scholar
Kamtekar, R. (2004) ‘Situationism and virtue ethics on the content of our character’, Ethics, 114, 458–491.Google Scholar
Kane, R. (1996) The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (1979) ‘Virtue and reason’, The Monist, 62, 331–350.Google Scholar
McKenna, M. (2001) ‘Source incompatibilism, ultimacy, and the transfer of non-responsibility’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 38, 37–51.Google Scholar
Morris, T. V. (1983) ‘Impeccability’, Analysis, 43, 106–112.Google Scholar
Pawl, T. & Timpe, K. (2009) ‘Incompatibilism, sin, and free will in heaven’, Faith and Philosophy, 26, 398–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2001) Living Without Free Will (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pike, N. (1969) ‘Omnipotence and God's ability to sin’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 6, 208–216.Google Scholar
Rogers, K. (2008) Anselm on Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Sennett, J. F. (1999) ‘Is there freedom in heaven?’, Faith and Philosophy, 16, 69–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slote, M. (2011) The Impossibility of Perfection: Aristotle, Feminism, and the Complexities of Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1983) ‘A theodicy of heaven and hell’, in Freddosso, A. (ed.) The Existence and Nature of God (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 37–54.Google Scholar
Timpe, K. (2013) Free Will: Sourcehood and its Alternatives, 2nd edn (New York: Bloomsbury).Google Scholar
Walker, A. D. M. (2006) ‘The incompatibility of the virtues’, Ratio, 6, 44–60.Google Scholar
Wall, G. B. (1977) ‘Heaven and a wholly good God’, Personalist, 58, 352–357.Google Scholar
Walls, J. L. (2002) Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Walls, J. L. (2012) Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Williams, B. (2006) Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Abingdon: Routledge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, S. (1982) ‘Moral saints’, The Journal of Philosophy, 79, 419–439.Google Scholar