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Redeeming the Acquired Virtues
Author(s) -
Herdt Jennifer A.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of religious ethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.306
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1467-9795
pISSN - 0384-9694
DOI - 10.1111/jore.12040
Subject(s) - virtue , deference , character (mathematics) , philosophy , economic justice , epistemology , order (exchange) , psychology , sociology , aesthetics , social psychology , law , political science , mathematics , business , finance , geometry
The probing readings of P utting O n V irtue offered by S heryl O vermyer, D arlene W eaver, and J ames F oster provide a welcome opportunity for further reflection on key questions: Was A quinas really concerned with the status of pagan virtues? Can we properly understand a thinker whose driving questions are not the same as our own without taking up a stance of pure deference? Can an inquiry into hyper‐ A ugustinian anxiety over acquired virtue assist us in arriving at an account of positive self‐regard? Can an account that stresses the graced character of all virtue formation be coherent? And can it do justice to the ways in which Christians reached for accounts of infused virtue precisely in order to affirm how grace overcomes the ways in which fortune hounds acquired virtue? I respond affirmatively to all of the above.