Description: Ought we conceive of theological ethics as an activity
that draws from a community's vision of human goodness and that has
implications for the kind of person each of us is to be? Or, can
students of the discipline map the ethical implications of what
Christians confess about God, themselves, and the world while
remaining indifferent to these claims? Habituated by modern moral
theories such as consequentialism and deontology, Mark Ryan argues,
we too often assume that Christian ethics makes no claim on the
character of its students and teachers. It is rather like yet
another department store within the shopping mall of ideas and
ideologies to which advanced education provides access. By arguing
that theological ethics is an activity by nature ""political,"" the
author endeavors to show us that to do Christian ethics is to be
habituated into ways of talking and seeing that put us on a path
toward the good. The author thus affirms the claim that theological
ethics is a life-changing practice. But why is it so? This book
endeavors to display a philosophical basis for this claim, by
articulating the political character of practical reason. Through
rigorous conversation with G. E. M. Anscombe, Charles Taylor,
Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Jeffrey Stout, Ryan
provides an account of practical reasoning that enables us to
rightly conceive theological ethics as a discipline that ought to
change our lives. Endorsements: Drawing on Elizabeth Anscombe's
significant account of practical reason, Mark Ryan illumines not
only my work but how theologians must reason to make clear the
truthfulness of the claims we make as Christians. This is an
extremely important book, which hopefully will receive the
attention it deserves. Few are able to negotiate these
philosophical waters with such clarity."" -Stanley Hauerwas Gilbert
T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics Duke Divinity School ""This
book is as discerning as its title. By way of a critical study of
Jeffry Stout's Democracy and Tradition, author Mark Ryan offers a
surprising defense of the theopolitical thinkers Stout often
criticizes: Hauerwas and MacIntrye. The defense is surprising
because it takes its measure not from postliberal theology but from
the claim of analytic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe: that ethics
is mere speculation unless it speaks to the realities of human
desire. By this measure, argues Ryan, Hauerwas's Christian ethics
may win reason's trust and philosophic ethics may lose it."" -Peter
Ochs Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies University of
Virginia ""We have long lacked a guide for the philosophical
background of Hauerwas's thought, especially as it comes from the
work of idiosyncratic anglophone philosophers like Elizabeth
Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, and Charles Taylor. Now Mark Ryan has
offered us one such guide, and a generous and insightful one at
that. The book represents a new step into philosophical seriousness
for those of a Hauerwasian persuasion. Offering a 'non-reductive
understanding of politics' as the context in which to see how
practical reason becomes what it aims to be, Ryan shows us how
Hauerwas's ethics is actually also a politics. His provocative but
charitable critiques of Charles Taylor, Gloria Albrecht, and Jeff
Stout help flesh out how Hauerwas's work is both engaged with and
distinct from some of his sharpest interlocutors."" -Charles
Mathewes Associate Professor of Religious Studies University of
Virginia ""Mark Ryan's The Politics of Practical Reason is a
thoughtful, insightful, and timely book, patiently illuminating the
importance of formation as a central yet overlooked aspect of
ethical deliberation. Ryan highlights the virtues of Hauerwas's
embodied, storied, and social approach to ethics by reading him as
taking up Anscombe's challenge. By incisively articulating the
limitations of Stout's and Taylor's alternatives, this book deepens
the character of conversation regarding practical reason in religi
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