Since Socrates and his circle first tried to frame the Just City in words, discussion of a perfect communal life--a life of justice, reflection, and mutual respect--has had to come to terms with the distance between that idea and reality. Measuring this distance step by practical step is the philosophical project that Stanley Cavell has pursued on his exploratory path. Situated at the intersection of two of his longstanding interests--Emersonian philosophy and the Hollywood comedy of remarriage--Cavell's new work marks a significant advance in this project. The book--which presents a course of lectures Cavell presented several times toward the end of his teaching career at Harvard--links masterpieces of moral philosophy and classic Hollywood comedies to fashion a new way of looking at our lives and learning to live with ourselves.

This book offers philosophy in the key of life. Beginning with a rereading of Emerson's "Self-Reliance," Cavell traces the idea of perfectionism through works by Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, and Rawls, and by such artists as Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and Shakespeare. Cities of Words shows that this ever-evolving idea, brought to dramatic life in movies such as It Happened One Night, The Awful Truth, The Philadelphia Story, and The Lady Eve, has the power to reorient the perception of Western philosophy.

In the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign the word “liberal” was bandied about as though it were a term of abuse. Charges hurled from the political right and left accused liberalism of moral failing: liberalism lacks concern for good character and civic virtue; its preoccupation with private liberty and toleration is morally anemic and ultimately erodes shared public values. Against this background, philosophers and political theorists take stock of the historical varieties of liberal thought and of the present relation between liberalism and moral living.

Liberalism and the Moral Life presents the timely thoughts of twelve prominent scholars who are redrawing the map of liberalism: Richard Ashcraft, Benjamin R. Barber, Seyla Benhabib, William Galston, Amy Gutmann, Stephen Holmes, George Kateb, Steven Lukes, Susan Moller Okin, Nancy Rosenblum, Judith N. Shklar, and Charles Taylor. In essays that go beyond the conventional defense of liberalism based on moral skepticism or the possibility of discovering neutral principles, these writers consider possibilities for reinspiriting liberal thought. They offer fresh arguments for the moral status of individualism and argue that distinctively liberal virtues and practices sustain democracy, constituting a moral life that people share in common. Moving beyond theory, the authors point to a variety of institutional contexts within liberal democracy that provide moral education and opportunities for expressing commitment to substantive moral values.

The essays in this volume explore three areas in which St. Thomas Aquinas's voice has never fallen silent: sacred doctrine, the relationship of sacraments and metaphysics, and the central role of virtue in moral theology.

Although he is one of the most influential Catholic theologians in Europe, very few of Klaus Demmer's writings are available in English. This translation of his well-known work on moral theology introduces Demmer's thought to English-speaking audiences.

In an original synthesis of scholastic and continental philosophy, Demmer brings the Catholic moral tradition into conversation with contemporary philosophical schools—transcendental, hermeneutical, and analytical—to fashion a moral theology in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. He shows the richness of the neoscholastic tradition in shaping and being shaped by our contemporary self-understanding.

A complete bibliography of Demmer's works will assist readers in seeking out more of his writings.

Walking with Jesus Christ: Catholic and Evangelical Visions of the Moral Life is the collected essays and consensus statements of the second round of the National Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue. In 2021 the National Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue completed its four-year round of discussion on the moral life, at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. Sessions were held each year on the following topics. In 2017, the dialogue discussed the norms governing the moral life. In 2018, the dialogue discussed sexual ethics. In 2019, the dialogue discussed social ethics. Finally, in 2021 the dialogue discussed the relationship of the moral life to eschatology. At each of the annual meetings, members presented background papers that formed the basis of that meeting’s discussion and became starting points for constructing a common statement. These common statements and background papers make up this book. The members of the dialogue hope this book will provide a fruitful starting point for future conversations between evangelicals and Catholics. The Catholic essays begin with the contributions of Catholic theologians Daniel Keating, William Stevenson and Christian Washburn, who examine the various norms for Catholic moral theology including the role of Scripture, tradition, magisterium, and natural law (2017). David Fleischacker, Daniel Keating, and Christian Washburn examine the morality of marriage, contraception, abortion, and homosexual acts (2018). Daniel Keating and William Stevenson discuss social ethics, including Catholic social teaching and socialism (2019). David Fleischacker and Christian Washburn discuss the relationship of the moral life to our final beatific end (2020). The Evangelical essays begin with the contribution of Evangelical theologians Bruce Cromwell and Dennis Jowers who explore the norms of Protestant Ethics (2017). David Van Drunen and Luke Geraty discuss sexual ethics from different ends of the Evangelical perspective (2018). Glen Menzies and Steve Hoskins evaluate approaches to evangelical social ethics from Pentecostal and Wesleyan points of view (2019). Bruce Cromwell and Steve Hoskins discuss the notions of eschatology and ethics from a Wesleyan viewpoint (2020).