Wicked Pleasures

By Robert C. Solomon

Book Overview

The seven deadly sins have provided gossip, amusement, and the plots of morality plays for nearly fifteen hundred years. In Wicked Pleasures, well-known philosopher, business ethicist, and admitted sinner Robert C. Solomon brings together a varied group of contributors for a new look at the old catalogue of sins. Solomon introduces the sins as a group, noting their popularity and pervasiveness. From the formation of the canon by Pope Gregory the Great, the seven have survived the sermonizing of the Reformation, the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the brief French reign of supreme reason, the apotheoses of capitalism, communism, secular humanism and postmodernism, the writings of numerous rabbis and evangelical moralists, two series in the New York Times, and several bad movies. Taking their cue from this remarkable history, the contributors, including Thomas Pynchon, allowed one sin apiece, provide a non-sermonizing and relatively light-hearted romp through the domain of the deadly seven.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0742508455
• ISBN13: 9780742508453
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Makes You Think...

The authors of those passages made me think deeper into the so-called-sins and about the most-probable history that sins were not bad in God's eyes. But merely man-made ideas planted into history to make themselves feel more powerful. I highly recommend this book to anyone. Give it a try.

Wicked Pleasures turned my notions of vice/versa.

I am enjoying some of the seven deadly sins more but questioning what I once thought of as my virtues. Thanks, Robert Solomon, I needed that.

Well written. Well edited. A pleasure to read.

Wicked Pleasures is a collection of well-informed, sometimes irreverant essays that reflect upon the so-called seven deadly sins-- lust, anger, envy, gluttony, greed, pride, sloth-- and in that process explain the hold they have on the moral imagination of Western Christendom for a millennium. Well written. Well edited. A pleasure to read.