Putting on virtue : the legacy of the splendid vices / Jennifer A. Herdt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Herdt, Jennifer A., 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Virtue.

Imitation.

Christian ethics.

Ethics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (454 pags)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Augustine famously claimed that the virtues of pagan Rome were nothing more than splendid vices. This critique reinvented itself as a suspicion of acquired virtue as such, and true Christian virtue has, ever since, been set against a false, hypocritical virtue alleged merely to conceal pride. Putting On Virtue reveals how a distrust of learned and habituated virtue shaped both early modern Christian moral reflection and secular forms of ethical thought. Jennifer Herdt develops her claims through an argument of broad historical sweep, which brings together the Aristotelian tradition as taken up by Thomas Aquinas with the early modern thinkers who shaped modern liberalism. In chapters on Luther, Bunyan, the Jansenists, Mandeville, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant, she argues that efforts to make a radical distinction between true Christian virtue and its tainted imitations actually created an autonomous natural ethics separate from Christianity. This secular value system valorized pride and authenticity, while rendering graced human agency less meaningful. Ultimately, Putting On Virtue traces a path from suspicion of virtue to its secular inversion, from confession of dependence to assertion of independence.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Splendid vices and imperfect virtues

Aristotle and the puzzles of habituation

Augustine : disordered loves and the problem of pride

Aquinas : making space for pagan virtue

Part II: Mimetic virtue

Erasmus : putting on Christ

The Jesuit theatrical tradition : acting virtuous

Part III: The exodus from virtue

Luther : saved hypocrites

Bunyan and Puritan life-writing : the virtue of self-examination

Part IV: The anatomy of virtue

Jesuits and Jansenists : Gracian and Pascal

Emancipating worldly virtue : Nicole, La Rochefoucauld, and Mandeville

Part V: Pagan virtue and modern moral philosophy

Rousseau and the virtue of authenticity

Hume and the bourgeois rehabilitation of pride

Kant and the pursuit of noumenal purity.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-431) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9786612069918

9781282069916

1282069918

9780226327259

0226327256

OCLC:

435816403