The Disappearance of Ethics
The Gifford Lectures
Author Oliver O#39;Donovan ISBN 9780802884978 Binding Trade Paper Publisher WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Publication Date June 27, 2024 Size 140 x 216 mm
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
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.
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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.
First Things
“Few will deny that The Disappearance of Ethics makes a fitting capstone to O’Donovan’s half-century of theological meditation on the moral life. It is an exemplary coda to a body of work whose range, influence, and authority may in time raise it to the status of an Anglican encyclical canon.”
“Characteristically wise, perceptive and learned, Oliver O’Donovan’s Gifford Lectures make a powerful case for a renewal of moral deliberation and reasoning in our time. Generated in the midst of lockdown, his reflections make a persuasive case for an ethical vision that is both rooted in context and shaped by our theological traditions.”
—David Fergusson, University of Cambridge
“This measured, magisterial and beautifully written book provides good news for those seeking a coherent understanding of the moral life which is suffused with Scriptural wisdom incisively engaged with philosophical traditions.”
—Joshua Hordern, University of Oxford
“In this challenging book, Professor Oliver O’Donovan argues that the discipline of ethics, considered as a branch of philosophy with close affinities to natural theology, depends on a theological construal of nature, history, and interpersonal agency. This is a powerful book, grounded in O’Donovan’s extensive reading in both theology and modern philosophical ethics, and informed by the distinctive theological vision that runs throughout all his writings. At the end of the day, this book offers more than a critique of contemporary ethics—it offers a starting point for a renewed discipline of moral theology, squarely grounded in a theological vision of reality, while also oriented towards the practical choices that we face.”
—Jean Porter, University of Notre Dame
“I read this book as a hopeful elegy for ethics as a discipline: a lament for the ways the university has let ethics die, but with the hope it might not be too late. This is vintage O’Donovan: erudite, careful, a veritable master class in how to respectfully engage the history of thought and the university as we experience it. But there is also something new here in his articulation of the relationship between theology and ethics. A very fitting consummation of a lifetime of work.”
—James K. A. Smith, Calvin University
“Once again, Oliver O’Donovan has taken on an important and challenging topic and treated it with his customary thoroughness and incisiveness. The Disappearance of Ethics reflects the wise insights of a senior scholar that are simultaneously measured and bold. This is a must read for everyone claiming ethics as their discipline, as well as those who are interested in or concerned about the current state of ethical discourse.”
—Brent Waters, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
“Socrates famously said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living,’ but Oliver O’Donovan argues that the everyday lives we lead are worth examining, particularly in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a profound reflection on the mutual service theology and ethics can give to one another by the premier theological ethicist of his generation.”
—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
“A compelling account of how evangelical theology learned from the resurrection yields a natural ethic. This book reads like O’Donovan’s meditation upon Luther's lyric: ‘Gar heimlich führt er sein Gewalt’ (‘How secretly he wields his strength’).”
—Esther Reed, University of Exeter
“In an age when ethics courses, ethics centers and ethics committees abound, it is tempting to imagine that the discipline of ethics must be flourishing. But if a moral theologian of the stature of Oliver O’Donovan devotes his Gifford Lectures to the concern that this may disguise a much deeper forgetfulness of the fundamental categories that make ethics possible, then we need to attend. His deeply pondered and richly furnished exploration of the grounding of practical reason revisits the themes of some of his earliest work, this time underlining the public and apologetic role of theology in restoring the credibility of moral thinking itself.”
—Robert Song, Durham University
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“Few will deny that The Disappearance of Ethics makes a fitting capstone to O’Donovan’s half-century of theological meditation on the moral life. It is an exemplary coda to a body of work whose range, influence, and authority may in time raise it to the status of an Anglican encyclical canon.”
“Characteristically wise, perceptive and learned, Oliver O’Donovan’s Gifford Lectures make a powerful case for a renewal of moral deliberation and reasoning in our time. Generated in the midst of lockdown, his reflections make a persuasive case for an ethical vision that is both rooted in context and shaped by our theological traditions.”
—David Fergusson, University of Cambridge
“This measured, magisterial and beautifully written book provides good news for those seeking a coherent understanding of the moral life which is suffused with Scriptural wisdom incisively engaged with philosophical traditions.”
—Joshua Hordern, University of Oxford
“In this challenging book, Professor Oliver O’Donovan argues that the discipline of ethics, considered as a branch of philosophy with close affinities to natural theology, depends on a theological construal of nature, history, and interpersonal agency. This is a powerful book, grounded in O’Donovan’s extensive reading in both theology and modern philosophical ethics, and informed by the distinctive theological vision that runs throughout all his writings. At the end of the day, this book offers more than a critique of contemporary ethics—it offers a starting point for a renewed discipline of moral theology, squarely grounded in a theological vision of reality, while also oriented towards the practical choices that we face.”
—Jean Porter, University of Notre Dame
“I read this book as a hopeful elegy for ethics as a discipline: a lament for the ways the university has let ethics die, but with the hope it might not be too late. This is vintage O’Donovan: erudite, careful, a veritable master class in how to respectfully engage the history of thought and the university as we experience it. But there is also something new here in his articulation of the relationship between theology and ethics. A very fitting consummation of a lifetime of work.”
—James K. A. Smith, Calvin University
“Once again, Oliver O’Donovan has taken on an important and challenging topic and treated it with his customary thoroughness and incisiveness. The Disappearance of Ethics reflects the wise insights of a senior scholar that are simultaneously measured and bold. This is a must read for everyone claiming ethics as their discipline, as well as those who are interested in or concerned about the current state of ethical discourse.”
—Brent Waters, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
“Socrates famously said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living,’ but Oliver O’Donovan argues that the everyday lives we lead are worth examining, particularly in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a profound reflection on the mutual service theology and ethics can give to one another by the premier theological ethicist of his generation.”
—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
“A compelling account of how evangelical theology learned from the resurrection yields a natural ethic. This book reads like O’Donovan’s meditation upon Luther's lyric: ‘Gar heimlich führt er sein Gewalt’ (‘How secretly he wields his strength’).”
—Esther Reed, University of Exeter
“In an age when ethics courses, ethics centers and ethics committees abound, it is tempting to imagine that the discipline of ethics must be flourishing. But if a moral theologian of the stature of Oliver O’Donovan devotes his Gifford Lectures to the concern that this may disguise a much deeper forgetfulness of the fundamental categories that make ethics possible, then we need to attend. His deeply pondered and richly furnished exploration of the grounding of practical reason revisits the themes of some of his earliest work, this time underlining the public and apologetic role of theology in restoring the credibility of moral thinking itself.”
—Robert Song, Durham University
Oliver O'Donovan is a fellow of the British Academy and professor emeritus of Christian ethics and practical theology at the University of Edinburgh. His other books include The Desire of the Nations, The Ways of Judgment, and Resurrection and Moral Order.
Table of Contents
Introduction: A Disappearing Discipline
1. The Missing Object
2. The Missing Frontier
3. The Missing Agent
4. Creation and the Recovery of Reality
5. Law and the Recovery of History
6. Spirit and the Justification of Agency
Conclusion: The Mutual Service of Ethics and Theology
Index