R. Scott Smith
Auteur de Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation
A propos de l'auteur
R. Scott Smith is Professor of Ethics and Christian Apologetics at Biola University's MA in Christian Apologetics program. He is the author of Truth and the New Kind of Christian (2005). Naturalism and Our Knowledge of Reality (2012) and In Search of Moral Knowledge (2014).
Œuvres de R. Scott Smith
Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation (2004) — Directeur de publication — 289 exemplaires
Truth and the New Kind of Christian: The Emerging Effects of Postmodernism in the Church (2005) 178 exemplaires
Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge: Philosophy of Language After Macintyre and Hauerwas (Ashgate New Critical Thinking… (2003) 8 exemplaires
The Oxford handbook of Greek and Roman mythography (2022) — Directeur de publication — 5 exemplaires
Oeuvres associées
Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (2006) — Traducteur — 92 exemplaires
Brill's Companion to Seneca: Philosopher and Dramatist (Brill's Companions in Classical Studies) (2013) — Contributeur — 3 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Sexe
- male
Membres
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 8
- Aussi par
- 3
- Membres
- 539
- Popularité
- #46,220
- Évaluation
- 3.9
- Critiques
- 6
- ISBN
- 30
Instinctively, we know that some things are just right, and some wrong. Cold-blooded murder, rape, child abuse, and genocide are just wrong. Sacrificial love of a parent for a child, or a spouse, impartial standards of justice, and marital faithfulness are just right. Yet moral theory since Kant considers moral statements to simply be assertions of value or sentiment, as opposed to statements of fact. Moral knowledge is not possible in the same sense as scientific knowledge.
R. Scott Smith believes in the possibility of religiously based moral knowledge that may afford universal moral knowledge. But before making his case he surveys the history of ethical thought on these questions. First of all, he considers classical and early Christian ethical theories, including that of great thinkers from Augustine through Aquinas that rooted ethics in the transcendent. Following the Enlightenment and the focus on human reason, Smith traces the rise of naturalism, and the fact-value dichotomy, modern moral theories of John Rawls' political liberalism and Christine Korsgaard's constructivism. He turns to post modern theorists and the efforts of Christian ethicists, Alasdair McIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas.
In the final part of this work, Smith outlines his own argument for religiously based moral knowledge, rooted in the case for the existence of the Christian God, basing this in the cumulative case for God's existence and thus the basis for universal moral knowledge in the transcendent. The veracity of historical evidences for Christian revelation justify this as a source for moral knowledge.
I think this work offers a great survey of ethical thought that makes it a valuable text for a course in ethics in a Christian college or seminary context, or a valuable "alongside" reading for the student in a similar course in a secular context. It is thorough, extensive and carefully argued. It also reveals the conundrum of modern ethical thought in making assertions about morality absent any basis for arguing for moral facts.
Given the thoroughness of the survey, the author's statement of his own theory of universal moral knowledge seemed quite brief. He does deal with some objections, but I would have liked to seen a fuller defense of the premises of his argument, particularly because the title adverts to "overcoming the fact-value dichotomy." Adding the word "toward" would probably be more accurate. This, however, is valuable in itself as a critical survey of moral thought that may be adequate for the needs of many and lay the groundwork for further reading of more extensive treatments in other works.… (plus d'informations)