Altruism and Christian Ethics
Part of New Studies in Christian Ethics
- Author: Colin Grant, University of New Brunswick
- Date Published: January 2009
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521093613
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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.
Read more- A case for a theological significance for altruism, against attacks from sociobiology, social sciences and ethics
- An indication of what the sciences, social sciences and ethics miss through dismissal of theology
- Recognition that God is characterized by eros as well as agape, in a way appropriate to God
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×Product details
- Date Published: January 2009
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521093613
- length: 288 pages
- dimensions: 216 x 140 x 16 mm
- weight: 0.37kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Part I. Alien Altruism:
1. Explanations for altruism
2. Evidence of altruism
3. The elusiveness of altruism
Part II. Ideal Altruism:
4. Contract altruism
5. Constructed altruism
6. Collegial altruism
Part III. Real Altruism:
7. Acute altruism: agape
8. Absolute altruism
9. Actual altruism.
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