This course will consider the perennial division between eudaimonistic and law-centered theories of the moral life. Is reconciliation possible for these seemingly diverse avenues for understanding the meaning of human action and goodness? Can revelation and an adequate sense of creation and the Christian state(s) of life help to arrive at a higher synthesis? Readings will be drawn from Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Spaemann, de Lubac, and von Balthasar.
Selected Texts
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason.
Robert Spaemann, Happiness and Benevolence.
Faculty
David S. Crawford
Dean
Associate Professor of Moral Theology and Family Law
Dr. Crawford’s teaching spans the areas of moral theology and philosophical ethics, the theological and philosophical anthropology of marriage and family, and legal and political philosophy. His publications address human action, natural law, homosexuality, “gender identity,” and the anthropological implications of modern civil law.
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