The Disappearance of Ethics: The Gifford Lectures

by Oliver O’Donovan

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2024

Overview

The capstone lectures of esteemed ethicist Oliver O’Donovan

What is the future of ethics? Oliver O’Donovan addresses a discipline in crisis in The Disappearance of Ethics. Based on the 2021 Gifford Lectures, this book contends that contemporary ethics has lost its object (good), frontier (time), and agent (person).

O’Donovan traces the development of these concepts from Greek philosophy through early Christianity, the Enlightenment, and into the modern era. Engaging with a range of thinkers including Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Max Scheler, Karl Barth, and more, O’Donovan shows how ethics has lost its heart and how the field can regain its purpose. He completes his lectures by integrating theology and philosophy to recover ethics. Contemplating theological concepts such as creation, divine law, and justification undergirds ethics by generating “existential wonder.”

With characteristic warmth and scholarly precision, O’Donovan reinvigorates ethical argument with theological insight. Scholars and students of Christian ethics will find his lectures equally provocative and inspiring.

Key Features

• Contends that contemporary ethics has lost its object (good), frontier (time), and agent (person)
• Traces the development of these concepts from Greek philosophy through early Christianity, the Enlightenment, and into the modern era
• Reinvigorates ethical argument with theological insight

Contents

• Introduction
• 1. The Missing Object
• 2. The Missing Frontier
• 3. The Missing Person
• 4. Creation and the Recovery of Reality
• 5. Law and the Recovery of History
• 6. Spirit and the Recovery of Agency

Product Details

• Title: The Disappearance of Ethics: The 2021 St. Andrews Gifford Lectures
• Author: Oliver O’Donovan
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2024
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Pages: 161
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subject: Ethics › Religious aspects--Christianity
• ISBNs: 9780802883490, 0802883494
• Resource ID: LLS:DSPPRNCTHCLCTRS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-01-19T21:39:00Z

About Oliver O’Donovan

Oliver O’Donovan is a fellow of the British Academy and professor emeritus of Christian ethics and practical theology at the University of Edinburgh. Besides these several books published by Eerdmans, his other works include The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology and Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion