Ordinary Vices

by Judith N. Shklar

Book Overview

The seven deadly sins of Christianity represent the abysses of character, whereas Judith Shklar's "ordinary vices"--cruelty, hypocrisy, snobbery, betrayal, and misanthropy--are merely treacherous shoals, flawing our characters with mean-spiritedness and inhumanity.

Shklar draws from a brilliant array of writers--Moli?re and Dickens on hypocrisy, Jane Austen on snobbery, Shakespeare and Montesquieu on misanthropy, Hawthorne and Nietzsche...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674641760
• ISBN13: 9780674641761
• Release Date: July 1985
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A serious look at what vices are worst.

This marvelous book takes after Montaigne and asks what vices should we avoid . She points out that if you hate all vice, you hate mankind - a vice in itself. One must then, she argues, choose which of the ordinary everyday vices are really the worst. She nominates cruelty as the vice to best avoid, but points out that this is not the same at all as avoiding hipocracy as the worst, and that working hardest at avoiding the sin of pride - which basically is the scorn of God - also will produce different priorities and results.