Augustine and Ethics

Augustine and Ethics examines the topic of ethics in the life and works of Augustine of Hippo. Adopting a global perspective on ethics as a field of philosophical and theological investigation, this volume includes reflections on virtue and vice, love and sin, and the political outcomes to which certain ethical stances tend to give rise. For Augustine himself, ethics was never merely theoretical. Ethical concerns are concrete; and ethical solutions should be practical. Accordingly, this volume gives Augustinian ethical arguments realization by connecting them to modern anxieties about ministry, health care, diet, and incarceration.

Divided into five sections, the essays collected here highlight the ongoing relevance of Augustine’s work even in settings quite distinct from his own era and context. The first section lays down the groundwork for Augustinian ethics by examining the foundations of his thoughts on morality, self-formation, domination, and abuse. The next three sections are oriented around the themes of love, sin, and politics. The final section makes clear the consequences of Augustinian ethical thinking today, with a view to how pastors preach, how physicians heal, how prisoners suffer, and even how we should approach the ethics of eating.