Renowned scholar Robert Adams explores the relation between religion and ethics through a comprehensive philosophical account of a theistically-based framework for ethics. Adams’ framework begins with the good rather than the right, and with excellence rather than usefulness. He argues that loving the excellent, of which adoring God is a clear example, is the most fundamental aspect of a life well lived. Developing his original and detailed theory, Adams contends that devotion, the sacred, grace, martyrdom, worship, vocation, faith, and other concepts drawn from religious ethics have been sorely overlooked in moral philosophy and can enrich the texture of ethical thought. ~ Product Description

Table of Contents

• • Introduction    3
  • I    The Nature of the Good
  • 1    God as the Good    13
  • 2    The Transcendence of the Good    50
  • 3    Well-Being and Excellence    83
  • 4    The Sacred and the Bad    102
• II    Loving the Good
  • 5    Eros    131
  • 6    Grace    150
  • 7    Devotion    177
  • 8    Idolatry    199
  • 9    Symbolic Value    214
• III    The Good and the Right
  • 10    Obligation    231
  • 11    Divine Commands    249
  • 12    Abraham’s Dilemma    277
  • 13    Vocation    292
  • 14    Politics and the Good    318
  • IV    The Epistemology of Value
  • 15    Revelation of the Good    353
  • 16    Moral Faith    373
  • Bibliography    391
  • Index    401