Longing for the Good Life: Virtue Ethics After Protestantism

By Pieter Vos

This book argues that Protestant theological ethics not only reveals basic virtue ethical characteristics, but also contributes significantly to a viable contemporary virtue ethics. Pieter Vos demonstrates that post-Reformation theological ethics still understands the good in terms of the good life, takes virtues as necessary for living the good life and considers human nature as a source of moral knowledge.

Vos approaches Protestant theology as an important bridge between pre-modern virtue ethics, shaped by Aristotle and transformed by Augustine of Hippo, and late modern understandings of morality. The volume covers a range of topics, going from eudaimonism and Calvinist ethics to Reformed scholastic virtue ethics and character formation in the work of S ren Kierkegaard. The author shows how Protestantism has articulated other-centered virtues from a theology of grace, affirmed ordinary life and emphasized the need of transformation of this life and its orders. Engaging with philosophy of the art of living, Neo-Aristotelianism and exemplarist ethics, he develops constructive contributions to a contemporary virtue ethics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0567696839
• ISBN13: 9780567696830
• Release Date: May 2022
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.2"