Dietrich von Hildebrand
HILDEBRAND PROJECT
First published as Christian Ethics
New York: David McKay Company, 1953.
Second edition published as Ethics
Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1972.
Published 2020 by Hildebrand Press
1235 University Blvd., Steubenville, Ohio 43952
Copyright © 2020 Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project
All rights reserved
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Von Hildebrand, Dietrich, 1889-1977, author. | Crosby, John F., 1944–, author.
Title: Ethics / by Dietrich von Hildebrand ; introduction by John F. Crosby.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. | Steubenville, OH: Hildebrand Press, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019917180 | ISBN 9781939773159
Subjects: LCSH Ethics. | Christian ethics—Catholic authors. | Phenomenology. | Christianity—Philosophy. | Conduct of life. | BISAC PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy | PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Phenomenology | PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Realism. | RELIGION / Christian Theology / Ethics
Classification: LCC BJ1249 .V6 2019 | DDC 171.1—dc23
Cover Design by Marylouise McGraw
Cover Image: The Good Samaritan by John Adam Houston, in the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture. Image licensed from www.artuk.org
Front Cover Font: Circular Bold by Laurenz Brunner
Produced by Christopher T. Haley
Dietrich von Hildebrand
Introductory Study to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Ethics by John F. Crosby
1. The Notion of Importance in General
3. The Categories of Importance
6. The Role of Value in Man’s Life
ii. the reality of value against its detractors
7. The Categories of Importance as Properties of Beings
8. The Irreducible Character of Value
iii. fundamental aspects of the sphere of values
10. Ontological and Qualitative Values
13. The Good Tidings of Values
15. The Nature of Moral Values
16. Morality and Reasonability
21. The Two Perfections of the Will
22. Freedom and Animal Voluntariness
23. The Range of the First Dimension of Freedom
24. Direct and Indirect Freedom
The Spheres of Affective Responses
26. Indirect Influence of Man’s Freedom
iii. the sources of moral goodness
27. The Three Spheres of Morality
29. The Role of the Objective Good for the Person
31. Centers of Morality and Immorality
32. Forms of Coexistence of Good and Evil in Man
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About EthicsDietrich von Hildebrand offers here the most nuanced version we have of a value-based ethics, building on the ethics of Max Scheler, but going far beyond it. The Prolegomena of the work gives an account of Hildebrand’s understanding of phenomenology. In the first fourteen chapters Hildebrand lays out a general theory of value, in which he distinguishes himself from his predecessors by not limiting value to the sense of what is good for the human person, but instead placing at the center of his reflections what is good and worthy in itself, prior to its beneficent impact on human persons. On this basis he develops his signature concept of value-response, wherein a person gives value its due, along with his signature concept of the transcendence of the person in value-response. He re-thinks virtue theory on the basis of his value philosophy, and in doing so he places virtue at the center of his ethics long before the revival of virtue theory in Anglo-American thought. Of particular importance is his re-thinking of moral evil in its different forms, and he throws new light on the question how it is possible knowingly to do wrong. The book concludes with a probing account of the religious dimension of the moral life and the place of God in morality. |
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