A major work in moral philosophy by the Puritan who was the most modern man of his age. Edwards at his very greatest . . . he speaks with an insight into science and psychology so much ahead of his time that our own can hardly be said to have caught up with him. Perry Miller, 'Jonathan Edwards' Like the great speculators Augustine, Aquinas, and Pascal, Jonathan Edwards treated religious ideas as problems not of dogma, but of life. His exploration of self-love disguised as true virtue is grounded in the hard facts of human behavior. More than a hellfire preacher, more than a theologian, Edwards was a bold and independent philosopher. Nowhere is his force of mind more evident than in this book. He speaks as powerfully to us today as he did to the keenest minds of the eighteenth century.

What does it mean to be virtuous? How is virtue connected to the love of God? These are the questions Jonathan Edwards sets out to answer in his dissertation on the nature of true virtue. With relentless logic, Edwards argues from common experience to general principles. He distinguishes between primary and secondary forms of virtue and shows that the highest human actions must necessarily arise from a clear sense of God's purpose. "The general nature of true virtue," he says, "is love."

A major work in moral philosophy by the Puritan who was the most modern man of his age. "Edwards at his very greatest . . . he speaks with an insight into science and psychology so much ahead of his time that our own can hardly be said to have caught up with him." Perry Miller, 'Jonathan Edwards' Like the great speculators Augustine, Aquinas, and Pascal, Jonathan Edwards treated religious ideas as problems not of dogma, but of life. His exploration of self-love disguised as "true virtue" is grounded in the hard facts of human behavior. More than a hellfire preacher, more than a theologian, Edwards was a bold and independent philosopher. Nowhere is his force of mind more evident than in this book. He speaks as powerfully to us today as he did to the keenest minds of the eighteenth century.

This study details the compatibility of ideas between Jonathan Edwards and Emanuel Swedenborg that helped forge the theological socialism of Henry James Sr. Duban demonstrates how a forgotten newspaper exchange between the elder James and Unitarian minister Henry Whitney Bellows clarified the Puritan foundations of the elder James's philosophy. Henry James Jr., in turn, transformed the phenomenalistic and Edwardsian foundations of his father's philosophy into the psychological dramas of major novels, although deeming the father's political radicalism destructive of aesthetic valuation.

What make someone a good human being? Is there an objective answer to this question, an answer that can be given in naturalistic terms? For ages philosophers have attempted to develop some sort of naturalistic ethics. Against ethical naturalism, however, notable philosophers have contended that such projects are impossible, due to the existence of some sort of 'gap' between facts and values. Others have suggested that teleology, upon which many forms of ethical naturalism depend, is an outdated metaphysical concept. This book argues that a good human being is one who has those traits the possession of which enables someone to achieve those ends natural to beings like us. Thus, the answer to the question of what makes a good human being is given in terms both objective and naturalistic. The author shows that neither 'is-ought' gaps, nor objections concerning teleology pose insurmountable problems for naturalistic virtue ethics. This work is a much needed contribution to the ongoing debate about ethical theory and ethical virtue.