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Altruism and Christian ethics / Colin Grant.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Grant, Colin, 1942- author.
- Series:
- New studies in Christian ethics. ; 18.
- New studies in Christian ethics ; 18
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Altruism.
- Christian ethics.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (xix, 266 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Other Title:
- Altruism & Christian Ethics
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- 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.
- Contents:
- Alien Altruism
- Explanations for altruism
- Evidence of altruism
- The elusiveness of altruism
- Ideal Altruism
- Contract altruism
- Constructed altruism
- Collegial altruism
- Real Altruism
- Acute altruism: Agape
- Absolute altruism
- Actual altruism.
- Notes:
- Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 251-262) and index.
- ISBN:
- 1-107-12151-5
- 0-521-09361-9
- 0-511-15364-3
- 0-511-04679-0
- 0-511-48835-1
- 1-280-43277-2
- 0-511-17408-X
- 0-511-32799-4
- OCLC:
- 437063142
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