Within the domains of morality, is there a distinction that can be properly drawn by using the concepts of applied and theoretical ethics? Could not all ethics be an application of something that has no theoretical foundation - or perhaps only another kind of foundation? Or, perhaps ethics could also be a theory about something that is altogether inapplicable? Moral philosophers have not managed to rule out the possibilities indicated by questions such as these, and this fact could perhaps be taken as a reminder that a relevant moral philosophy should probably not distance itself too much from either the putatively theoretical or applied aspects of moral issues. In this volume, a number of writers wrestle with the problem concerning applied and theoretical ethics, illuminating it from different angles. (Series: Applied Philosophy / Anvendt Filosofi - Vol. 5)

This timely book aims to change the way we think about religion by putting emotion back onto the agenda. It challenges a tendency to over-emphasise rational aspects of religion, and rehabilitates its embodied, visceral and affective dimensions. Against the view that religious emotion is a purely private matter, it offers a new framework which shows how religious emotions arise in the varied interactions between human agents and religious communities, human agents and objects of devotion, and communities and sacred symbols. It presents parallels and contrasts between religious emotions in European and American history, in other cultures, and in contemporary western societies. By taking emotions seriously, A Sociology of Religious Emotion sheds new light on the power of religion to shape fundamental human orientations and motivations: hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, loves and hatreds.