Based on an unfinished manuscript by the late philosopher Dallas Willard, this book makes the case that the twentieth century saw a massive shift in Western beliefs and attitudes concerning the ...possibility of moral knowledge, such that knowledge of the moral life and of its conduct is no longer routinely available from the social institutions long thought to be responsible for it. In this sense, moral knowledge-as a publicly available resource for living-has disappeared. Via a detailed survey of main developments in ethical theory from the late nineteenth through the late twentieth centuries, Willard explains philosophy's role in this shift. In pointing out the shortcomings of these developments, he shows that the shift was not the result of rational argument or discovery, but largely of arational social forces-in other words, there was no good reason for moral knowledge to have disappeared.
The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge is a unique contribution to the literature on the history of ethics and social morality. Its review of historical work on moral knowledge covers a wide range of thinkers including T. H. Green, G. E. Moore, Charles L. Stevenson, John Rawls, and Alasdair MacIntyre. But, most importantly, it concludes with a novel proposal for how we might reclaim moral knowledge that is inspired by the phenomenological approach of Knud Løgstrup and Emmanuel Levinas. Edited and eventually completed by three of Willard's former graduate students, this book marks the culmination of Willard's project to find a secure basis in knowledge for the moral life.
“Do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God ...as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:12–14)
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In response to the common assumption of perpetual moral and spiritual failure in human life, this article offers a view of personal transformation and, in particular, of the role of the human will in ...such formation, that clears a way forward in progressive conformity to the character of Christ. Drawing from St. Paul's understanding of the “flesh” and the human “spirit,” distinctions are made between the impulsive, the reflective, and the embodied will. It is the embodied/reflective will of the person that is captured by Christ through inner transformation, such that the crucifixion of the flesh and walking by the Spirit brings about routine, easy obedience to Christ, from the inside out.
I have only tried to deepen our understanding of the issues surrounding the secular assumptions of much current psychology by doing four things: One, pointing out how the drive toward secularism or ...naturalism in psychological method is supported upon much broader assumptions about cognitive authority in our intellectual culture; Two, explaining a concept of knowledge that does not start from biases about possible subject matters or methods; Three, discussing some ways in which a “hermeneutical” approach in psychological method needs to be strengthened; Four, clarifying some ways in which misunderstandings and ambiguities of “objective” and “subjective” can lead to confusions about the possibilities of a psychological method that does not assume secularism. My intent is to be supportive of the intellectual thrusts developed in the articles.
