Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality

Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality
Author :
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
Total Pages : 360
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1589013417
ISBN-13 : 9781589013414
Rating : 4/5 (414 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality by : Andrew Michael Flescher

Download or read book Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality written by Andrew Michael Flescher and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2003-11-25 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us are content to see ourselves as ordinary people—unique in ways, talented in others, but still among the ranks of ordinary mortals. Andrew Flescher probes our contented state by asking important questions: How should "ordinary" people respond when others need our help, whether the situation is a crisis, or something less? Do we have a responsibility, an obligation, to go that extra mile, to act above and beyond the call of duty? Or should we leave the braver responses to those who are somehow different than we are: better somehow, "heroes," or "saints?" Traditional approaches to ethics have suggested there is a sharp distinction between ordinary people and those called heroes and saints; between duties and acts of supererogation (going beyond the expected). Flescher seeks to undo these standard dichotomies by looking at the lives and actions of certain historical figures—Holocaust rescuers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, among others—who appear to be extraordinary but were, in fact, ordinary people. Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality shifts the way we regard ourselves in relationship to those we admire from afar—it asks us not only to admire, but to emulate as well—further, it challenges us to actively seek the acquisition of virtue as seen in the lives of heroes and saints, to learn from them, a dynamic aspect of ethical behavior that goes beyond the mere avoidance of wrongdoing. Andrew Flescher sets a stage where we need to think and act, calling us to lead lives of self-examination—even if that should sometimes provoke discomfort. He asks that we strive to emulate those we admire and therefore allow ourselves to grow morally, and spiritually. It is then that the individual develops a deeper altruistic sense of self—a state that allows us to respond as the heroes of our own lives, and therefore in the lives of others, when times and circumstance demand that of us.


Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality Related Books

Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality
Language: en
Pages: 360
Authors: Andrew Michael Flescher
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003-11-25 - Publisher: Georgetown University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Most of us are content to see ourselves as ordinary people—unique in ways, talented in others, but still among the ranks of ordinary mortals. Andrew Flescher
Neither Heroes Nor Saints
Language: en
Pages: 225
Authors: Rebecca Stangl
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020 - Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Most of us are far from perfect in virtue. Faced with this fact, moral philosophers can respond in two different ways. On the one hand, they might insist that
Biblical Ethics in the 21st Century: Developments, Emerging Consensus, and Future Directions
Language: en
Pages: 191
Authors: Lúcás Chan, SJ; foreword by James F. Keenan, SJ
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013 - Publisher: Paulist Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Reviews and critiques the major attempts at biblical ethics over the past twenty years by both biblical theologians and theological ethicists, focusing on New T
Family Ethics
Language: en
Pages: 273
Authors: Julie Hanlon Rubio
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-03-17 - Publisher: Georgetown University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How can ordinary Christians find moral guidance for the mundane dilemmas they confront in their daily lives? To answer this question, Julie Hanlon Rubio brings
The Possibility and Role of Supererogation in Evangelical Ethics
Language: en
Pages: 204
Authors: B. J. Condrey
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023-01-10 - Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Supererogation" is an awkward term but a useful concept. While not a term that we use every day, the concept is very familiar to most of us. It is an act that