In search of goodness / edited by Ruth W. Grant

Includes bibliographical references and index

The nature and nurture of morality / Philip Costanzo -- Generous to a fault: moral goodness and psychic health / Ruth W. Grant -- How are moral conversions possible? / David B. Wong -- What good is innocence? / J. Peter Euben -- God and goodness: a theological exploration / Stanley Hauerwas -- To make this emergence articulate: the beautiful, the tragic sublime, the good, and the shapes of common practice / Romand Coles -- The tragedy of the goods and the pursuit of happiness: the question of the good and the goods / Michael Allen Gillespie -- The goodness of searching: good as what? good for what? good for whom? / Amelie Oksenberg Rorty

This book is the product of a year-long conversation about goodness. The eight essays within challenge the dichotomies that usually govern how goodness has been discussed in the past: altruism versus egoism; reason versus emotion; or moral choice versus moral character. Instead, the contributors seek to expand the discussion by coming at goodness from a variety of perspectives: psychological, philosophic, literary, religious, and political. In each case, they emphasize the lived realities and particulars of moral phenomena, citing examples and illustrations from life, literature and film