Back to Virtue

Back to Virtue PDF

Author: Peter Kreeft

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2009-10-27

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1681490471

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"We have reduced all virtues to one: being nice. And, we measure Jesus by our standard instead of measuring our standard by Him." For the Christian, explains author Peter Kreeft, being virtuous is not a means to the end of pleasure, comfort and happiness. Virtue, he reminds us, is a word that means "manly strength." But how do we know when we are being meek--or just cowardly? When is our anger righteous--and when is it a sin? What is the difference between being virtuous--and merely ethical? Back to Virtue clears up these and countless other questions that beset Christians today. Kreeft not only summarizes scriptural and theological wisdom on leading a holy life, he contrasts Christian virtue with other ethical systems. He applies traditional moral theology to present-day dilemmas such as abortion and nuclear armament. Kreeft restores to us what was once common knowledge: the Seven Deadly Sins have an antidote in the Beatitudes. By setting up a close contrast between the two sets of behaviors, Kreeft offers proven guidance in the often bewildering process of discerning right from wrong as we move into the questionable mores of the twenty-first century. He provides a road map of virtue, a map for our earthly pilgrimage synthesized from the accumulated wisdom of centuries of Christians, from Paul and the early Church Fathers through C.S. Lewis.

Reclaiming Virtue

Reclaiming Virtue PDF

Author: John Bradshaw

Publisher: Bantam

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 0553095927

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The best-selling author of Creating Love sets out to redefine what it means to live a moral life in today's world by helping readers reclaim and cultivate their inborn moral intelligence by developing one's instincts for goodness in childhood and nurturing them through one's adult life to promote good character and moral responsibility.

A Return to Modesty

A Return to Modesty PDF

Author: Wendy Shalit

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-05-20

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1476765170

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Updated with a new introduction, this fifteenth anniversary edition of A Return to Modesty reignites Wendy Shalit’s controversial claim that we have lost our respect for an essential virtue: modesty. When A Return to Modesty was first published in 1999, its argument launched a worldwide discussion about the possibility of innocence and romantic idealism. Wendy Shalit was the first to systematically critique the "hook-up" scene and outline the harms of making sexuality so public. Today, with social media increasingly blurring the line between public and private life, and with child exploitation on the rise, the concept of modesty is more relevant than ever. Updated with a new preface that addresses the unique problems facing society now, A Return to Modesty shows why "the lost virtue" of modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct to be celebrated. A Return to Modesty is a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration into everything from seventeenth-century manners to the 1948 tune "Baby, It’s Cold Outside." Beholden neither to social conservatives nor to feminists, Shalit reminds us that modesty is not prudery, but a natural instinct—and one that may be able to save us from ourselves.

Intelligent Virtue

Intelligent Virtue PDF

Author: Julia Annas

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-04-29

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0191617229

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Intelligent Virtue presents a distinctive new account of virtue and happiness as central ethical ideas. Annas argues that exercising a virtue involves practical reasoning of a kind which can illuminatingly be compared to the kind of reasoning we find in someone exercising a practical skill. Rather than asking at the start how virtues relate to rules, principles, maximizing, or a final end, we should look at the way in which the acquisition and exercise of virtue can be seen to be in many ways like the acquisition and exercise of more mundane activities, such as farming, building or playing the piano. This helps us to see virtue as part of an agent's happiness or flourishing, and as constituting (wholly, or in part) that happiness. We are offered a better understanding of the relation between virtue as an ideal and virtue in everyday life, and the relation between being virtuous and doing the right thing.

After Virtue

After Virtue PDF

Author: Alasdair MacIntyre

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-10-21

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1623569818

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Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.

Virtue Reborn

Virtue Reborn PDF

Author: Tom Wright

Publisher: SPCK

Published: 2011-02-19

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 0281063915

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What am I here for? How should I behave? Most Christians, faced with those questions, think in terms either of 'rules' or of 'living authentically'. Both lead to problems. In this book, full of fresh biblical exploration, Bishop Tom Wright proposes instead that we inhabit the ancient tradition of virtue once again -- but from a thoroughly Christian, not just a philosophical, perspective. The virtues are the strengths we need to get to our goal. Following on from his popular best-selling books Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope, he sees the goal in terms of the whole new creation, with humans renewed to look after it.

Putting On Virtue

Putting On Virtue PDF

Author: Jennifer A. Herdt

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-05-09

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 0226327191

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This work reveals how a distrust of learned and habituated virtue shaped both early modern Christian moral reflection and secular forms of ethical thought. The author's broad historical sweep takes in the Aristotelian tradition as taken up by Thomas Aquinas and has chapters on Luther, Bunyan, the Jansenists, Hume, and others.

The Virtue Driven Life

The Virtue Driven Life PDF

Author: Benedict Groeschel

Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor

Published: 2006-09-22

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 1592767605

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Since when is being called "virtuous" an insult? It's a word that has gotten a bad rap, misused and misunderstood even by great thinkers, philosophers, and theologians, and mocked in the cynical sound bites of the media. Rediscover virtue as it should be understood in our lives. With wit, warmth, and wisdom, Father Groeschel reintroduces the seven virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope, and charity. One by one he makes them meaningful for modern men and women, shaking off the dusty mantle of pretentiousness and demonstrating how each has a real role in a whole and holy life. Father Groeschel's charming conversational style entertains even as he educates and challenges us. History, politics, an advertisement, the neighbor down the street ... all are reference points for Father Groeschel as he explores the meaning of each virtue for Christians today. By the end of the book, you will understand that being labeled virtuous is the ultimate compliment!

The Four Cardinal Virtues

The Four Cardinal Virtues PDF

Author: Josef Pieper

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 1990-03-31

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 0268089892

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In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper delivers a stimulating quartet of essays on the four cardinal virtues. He demonstrates the unsound overvaluation of moderation that has made contemporary morality a hollow convention and points out the true significance of the Christian virtues.