About this product: Breaking the tradition of only performing religious plays, a small England acting troupe in the fourteenth century attempts to reenact the recent murder of a young boy in town, a crime for which a deaf-mute girl has been arrested. Reprint. PW. NYT.
About this product: Some people believe that the demands of morality coincide with the requirements of an enlightened self-interest. Others believe that morality is diametrically opposed to considerations of self-interest. This book argues that there is another position, intermediate between these extremes, which makes better sense of the totality of our moral thought and practice. Scheffler elaborates this position via an examination of morality's content, scope, authority, and deliberative role. Although conflicts between morality and self-interest do arise, according to this position, nevertheless morality is fundamentally a reasonable and humane phenomenon. Moreover, the psychological bases of effective moral motivation have sources deep within the self, and morally motivated individuals try to shape their own interests so as to avoid conflict with morality. Since human practices and institutions help to determine the prevalence of these motives, and since in this and other ways they influence the degree to which conflicts between morality and self-interest actually occur, the extent of such conflict is not fixed or immutable, and is in part a social and political issue.
About this product: Moral problems do not always come in the form of great social controversies. More often, the moral decisions we make are made quietly, constantly, and within the context of everyday activities and quotidian dilemmas. Indeed, these smaller decisions are based on a moral foundation that few of us ever stop to think about but which guides our every action.
Here distinguished philosopher Bernard Gert presents a clear and concise introduction to what he calls "common morality"--the moral system that most thoughtful people implicitly use when making everyday, common sense moral decisions and judgments. Common Morality is useful in that--while not resolving every disagreement on controversial issues--it is able to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable answers to moral problems.
About this product: "Take example, all ye that this do hear or see..." The Morality Play was popular in England between 1400 and 1600. It offers moral instruction and spiritual teaching with personal abstractions representing good and evil. Surviving plays from that period number about sixty and the three in this edition were among the first ten. Mankind is a plain, honest farming man who struggles against worldly and spiritual temptation. The bawdy humour and violent action in the play serve to make the moral point and instruct by example. Everyman portrays a man's struggles in the face of death to raise himself to a state of grace so that he may experience everlasting life. It is exceptional among the Moralities for this narrow focus on the last phase of life, and conveys its message with awe-inspiring seriousness. Mundus et Infans is more typical of the Morality genre. It shows an arrogant, bullying protagonist led astray by a single evildoer into a life of debauchery, before the inevitable conversion to virtue. In showing the whole of man's life it is the antithesis of Everyman, the action of which seems to take place in a single day.
About this product: Some argue that atheism must be false, since without God, no values are possible, and thus "everything is permitted." Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that God is not only not essential to morality, but that our moral behavior should be utterly independent of religion. He attacks several core ideas: that atheists are inherently immoral people; that any society will sink into chaos if it is becomes too secular; that without morality, we have no reason to be moral; that absolute moral standards require the existence of God; and that without religion, we simply couldn't know what is wrong and what is right.
Sinnott-Armstrong brings to bear convincing examples and data, as well as a lucid, elegant, and easy to understand writing style. This book should fit well with the debates raging over issues like evolution and intelligent design, atheism, and religion and public life as an example of a pithy, tightly-constructed argument on an issue of great social importance.
America’s moral decline is no secret. An alarming number of moral and cultural problems have exploded in our country since 1960—a period when the standards of morality expressed in our laws and customs have been relaxed, abandoned, or judicially overruled.
Conventional wisdom says laws cannot stem moral decline. Anyone who raises the prospect of legislation on the hot topics of our day—abortion, family issues, gay rights, euthanasia—encounters a host of objections:
"As long as I don’t hurt anyone the government should leave me alone."
"No one should force their morals on anyone else."
"You can’t make people be good."
"Legislating morality violates the separation of church and state."
Legislating Morality advocates a moral base for America without sacrificing religious and cultural diversity, debunking the myth that "morality can’t be legislated" and amply demonstrating how liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike exploit law to promote good and curtail evil. This book boldly challenges prevailing thinking—about right and wrong and about our nation’s moral future.
About this product: A great explanation of the Church's clear moral principles. Based upon reason and the teachings of Christ. The norms of Scripture and Tradition are given in an organized manner. Topics include law, conscience, the virtues, the religious state, sin temptation, punishment, duties to God, self, neighbor, family, Church and state, doubts against the Faith, conflicts between laws, chastity, rules of charity, private property, lies and mental reservation, prayer, love and fear, the Three Theological Virtues, the Four Cardinal Virtues, Suicide (direct and indirect), etc. A sentence or paragraph from this book can answer a question a person may have had for a long time. A great presentation of Catholic moral principles.
Daniel Heimbach examines the biblical teachings on sexual morality as well as four counterfeit views that have crept into our "sexually revolutionized" society. He gives us an in-depth look at the moral relativism that has spread through our culture and opens our eyes to the effects that nonbiblical sexual choices have on individuals, the family, the church, and the culture.
About this product: This book is an evangelical revival for intellectuals. Here's a quote:
"And all great mystics declare that they have the impression of a current passing from their soul to God, and flowing back again from God to mankind. Let no one speak of material obstables to a soul thus freed!"
It might delight a religious scholar but what little I was able to penetrate left me desparate for clear meaningful statements.
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