Can people ever really change? Do they ever become more ethical, and if so, how? Overcoming Our Evil focuses on the way ethical and religious commitments are conceived and nurtured through the methodical practices that Pierre Hadot has called "spiritual exercises." These practices engage thought, imagination, and sensibility, and have a significant ethical component, yet aim for a broader transformation of the whole personality. Going beyond recent philosophical and historical work that has focused on ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, Stalnaker broadens ethical inquiry into spiritual exercises by examining East Asian as well as classical Christian sources, and taking religious and seemingly "aesthetic" practices such as prayer, ritual, and music more seriously as objects of study.

More specifically, Overcoming Our Evil examines and compares the thought and practice of the early Christian Augustine of Hippo, and the early Confucian Xunzi. Both have sophisticated and insightful accounts of spiritual exercises, and both make such ethical work central to their religious thought and practice. Yet to understand the two thinkers' recommendations for cultivating virtue we must first understand some important differences. Here Stalnaker disentangles the competing aspects of Augustine and Xunxi's ideas of "human nature." His groundbreaking comparison of their ethical vocabularies also drives a substantive analysis of fundamental issues in moral psychology, especially regarding emotion and the complex idea of "the will," to examine how our dispositions to feel, think, and act might be slowly transformed over time. The comparison meticulously constructs vivid portraits of both thinkers demonstrating where they connect and where they diverge, making the case that both have been misunderstood and misinterpreted. In throwing light on these seemingly disparate ancient figures in unexpected ways, Stalnaker redirects recent debate regarding practices of personal formation, and more clearly exposes the intellectual and political issues involved in the retrieval of "classic" ethical sources in diverse contemporary societies, illuminating a path toward a contemporary understanding of difference.

Aaron Stalnaker is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University. He was awarded his PhD in Religious Studies from Brown University in 2001. From July 1992 through June 1994 he worked with Volunteers in Asia in the Peoples Republic of China, where he taught English at a technical college in Manchuria.

Introduction

Source and Citation Formats

1. Comparative Ethics Comparison in Religious Ethics Conceptual Diversity, not Conceptual Relativism Structural Choices and Productive Comparisons Bridging Religious Worlds Why Xunzi and Augustine? Notes

2. Contexts for Interpretation Xunzi and Augustine Bridge Concepts Notes 3. Ugly Impulses and a Muddy Heart Xunzi on Human Nature Xunzi's Conception of a PersonNotes

4. Broken Images of the Divine Augustine on Human Nature Augustinian PersonhoodNotes

5. Comparing Human "Natures" Revisiting Bridge Concepts Comparative Moral Psychology: Themes for Further Development "Human Nature" in the Context of Formative PracticesNotes

6. Artifice is the WayFollowing the Way Spiritual Exercises Xunzi's Theory of the Stages of Personal FormationNotes

7. Crucifying and Resurrecting the MindFrom Death into Life: The Shape of Augustinian Christianity Preconditions for Effective Practice Spiritual Exercises Augustine's Theory of the Stages of Personal FormationNotes

8. Reformations: Spiritual Exercises in Comparative Perspective Virtue and "the Will" Spiritual Exercises and the Manipulation of Inner and Outer Chastened IntellectualismNotes

9. Understanding and Neighborliness The Varieties of Moral Agency "Spoiling the Egyptians": Holism, Interpretation, and Theft Global NeighborlinessNotes

References Index