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Putting on virtue : the legacy of the splendid vices / Jennifer A. Herdt.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008Description: 1 online resource (xi, 454 pages)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780226327259
  • 0226327256
Subject(s): Additional physical formats: Print version:: Putting on virtue.DDC classification:
  • 179/.9 22
LOC classification:
  • BV4633 .H47 2008eb
Other classification:
  • online - EBSCO
Online resources:
Contents:
Introduction -- Part I: Splendid vices and imperfect virtues -- Aristotle and the puzzles of habituation -- Augustine : disordered loves and the problem of pride -- Aquinas : making space for pagan virtue -- Part II: Mimetic virtue -- Erasmus : putting on Christ -- The Jesuit theatrical tradition : acting virtuous -- Part III: The exodus from virtue -- Luther : saved hypocrites -- Bunyan and Puritan life-writing : the virtue of self-examination -- Part IV: The anatomy of virtue -- Jesuits and Jansenists : Gracián and Pascal -- Emancipating worldly virtue : Nicole, La Rochefoucauld, and Mandeville -- Part V: Pagan virtue and modern moral philosophy -- Rousseau and the virtue of authenticity -- Hume and the bourgeois rehabilitation of pride -- Kant and the pursuit of noumenal purity.
Summary: Augustine famously claimed that the virtues of pagan Rome were nothing more than splendid vices. This critique has reinvented itself as a suspicion of acquired virtue as such, and true Christian virtue has, ever since, been set against a false, hypocritical virtue alleged merely to conceal pride. Putting On Virtue reveals how a distrust of learned and habituated virtue shaped both early modern Christian moral reflection and secular forms of ethical thought. Jennifer Herdt develops her claims through an argument of broad historical sweep, which brings together the Aristotelian tradition as take.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-431) and index.

Introduction -- Part I: Splendid vices and imperfect virtues -- Aristotle and the puzzles of habituation -- Augustine : disordered loves and the problem of pride -- Aquinas : making space for pagan virtue -- Part II: Mimetic virtue -- Erasmus : putting on Christ -- The Jesuit theatrical tradition : acting virtuous -- Part III: The exodus from virtue -- Luther : saved hypocrites -- Bunyan and Puritan life-writing : the virtue of self-examination -- Part IV: The anatomy of virtue -- Jesuits and Jansenists : Gracián and Pascal -- Emancipating worldly virtue : Nicole, La Rochefoucauld, and Mandeville -- Part V: Pagan virtue and modern moral philosophy -- Rousseau and the virtue of authenticity -- Hume and the bourgeois rehabilitation of pride -- Kant and the pursuit of noumenal purity.

Print version record.

Augustine famously claimed that the virtues of pagan Rome were nothing more than splendid vices. This critique has reinvented itself as a suspicion of acquired virtue as such, and true Christian virtue has, ever since, been set against a false, hypocritical virtue alleged merely to conceal pride. Putting On Virtue reveals how a distrust of learned and habituated virtue shaped both early modern Christian moral reflection and secular forms of ethical thought. Jennifer Herdt develops her claims through an argument of broad historical sweep, which brings together the Aristotelian tradition as take.