Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity

Over the past twenty years the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern era has received increasing attention from experts in the history of philosophy. In part, this new interest arises from claims, made in literature aimed at a less specialist readership, that this transition was responsible for the subsequent philosophical and theological problems of the Enlightenment. Philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre and theologians like John Milbank display a certain nostalgia for the medieval synthesis of Thomas Aquinas and, consequently, evaluate the period from 1300 to 1700 in rather negative terms. Other historians of philosophy writing for the general public, such as Charles Taylor, take a more positive view of the Reformation but nevertheless conclude that modernity has been shaped by 1 conflicts which stem from early modern times. Ethics and moral thought occupy a central place in these theories. It is assumed that we have lost something the concept of virtue, for instance, or the source of common morality. Yet those who put forward such notions do not treat the history of ethics in detail. From the historian's perspective, their far-reaching theoretical assumptions are based on a quite small body of textual evidence. In reality, there was a rich variety of approaches to moral thinking and ethical theories during the period from 1400 to 1600.

From the reviews:

"This is a collection of fifteen essays ... on Early Modern Thought. The editors intend the volume to reflect current, historical and philosophical scholarship about the moral thought of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The topic of rights connects these essays and they provide a fascinating background to the role of individual rights in modern thought. This is important reading for anyone interested in rights and well worth the acquisition of this volume." (Douglas Langston, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 44 (3), 2006)

Texte du rabat

This volume investigates the paradigm changes which occurred in ethics during the early modern era (1350-1600). While many general claims have been made regarding the nature of moral philosophy in the period of transition from medieval to modern thought, the rich variety of extant texts has seldom been studied and discussed in detail. The present collection attempts to do this. It provides new research on ethics in the context of Late Scholasticism, Neo-Scholasticism, Renaissance Humanism and the Reformation. It traces the fate of Aristotelianism and of Stoicism, explores specific topics such as probabilism and casuistry, and highlights the connections between Protestant theology and early modern ethics. The book also examines how the origins of human rights, as well as different views of moral agency, the will and the emotions, came into focus on the eve of modernity.

Target audience: students of medieval, Renaissance and Reformation history; students of the history of philosophy, ethics and theology; those interested in humanism, human rights and the history of law.

Contenu
Scholastics and Neo-Scholastics.- Sources and Authorities for Moral Philosophy in the Italian Renaissance: Thomas Aquinas and Jean Buridan on Aristotle's Ethics.- Action, Will and Law in Late Scholasticism.- Michael Baius (1513-89) and the Debate on 'Pure Nature': Grace and Moral Agency in Sixteenth-Century Scholasticism.- On the Anatomy of Probabilism.- Casuistry and the Early Modern Paradigm Shift in the Notion of Charity.- Theories of Human Rights and Dominion.- Poverty and Power: Franciscans in Later Medieval Political Thought.- The Franciscan Background of Early Modern Rights Discussion: Rights of Property and Subsistence.- Justification through Being: Conrad Summenhart on Natural Rights.- Ethics in Luther's Theology: The Three Orders.- The Reason of Acting: Melanchthon's Concept of Practical Philosophy and the Question of the Unity and Consistency of His Philosophy.- Natural Philosophy and Ethics in Melanchthon.- Ethics in Early Calvinism.- Aristotelianism and Anti-Stoicism in Juan Luis Vives's Conception of the Emotions.- The Humanist as Moral Philosopher: Marc-Antoine Muret's 1585 Edition of Seneca.