Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity

Love's Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity

by Ryan Hanley (Author)

Synopsis

A number of prominent moral philosophers and political theorists have recently called for a recovery of love. But what do we mean when we speak of love today? Love's Enlightenment examines four key conceptions of other-directedness that transformed the meaning of love and helped to shape the way we understand love today: Hume's theory of humanity, Rousseau's theory of pity, Smith's theory of sympathy, and Kant's theory of love. It argues that these four Enlightenment theories are united by a shared effort to develop a moral psychology that can provide both justificatory and motivational grounds for concern for others in the absence of recourse to theological or transcendental categories. In this sense, each theory represents an effort to redefine the love of others that used to be known as caritas or agape - a redefinition that came with benefits and costs that have yet to be fully appreciated.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 20 Dec 2018

ISBN 10: 110751245X
ISBN 13: 9781107512450

Media Reviews
'Hanley's in-depth analysis of ancient and early modern conceptions of love adds significantly to the literature on the ethical and political dimensions of love and scholarship regarding the role that other-directed capacities such as empathy, sympathy, and charity could play in tempering the egocentricism that characterizes political, economic, and social relations.' Choice
'Ryan Patrick Hanley's book offers a carefully researched, interesting, and original survey of how four enlightenment philosophers transformed the traditional Christian ideal of what is variously called agape, caritas, or neighborly love.' Deborah Boyle, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews