The problems of moral philosophy were a central preoccupation of literate people in eighteenth-century America and Britain. It is not surprising, then, that Jonathan Edwards was drawn into a colloquy with some of the major ethicists of the age. Moral philosophy in this era was so all-encompassing in its claims that it encroached seriously on traditional religion. In response, Edwards presented a detailed analysis and criticism of secular moral philosophy in order to demonstrate its inadequacy, and he formulated a system that he believed was demonstrably superior to the existing secular systems. In this comprehensive study, Norman Fiering skillfully integrates Edwards's work on ethics into seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British and Continental philosophy and isolates Edwards's particular contributions to the ethical thought of his time. In addition, Fiering traces the chronological development of Edwards's thought, showing the relationship between his wide reading and his writing.

Author - Norman Fiering
Foreword - Oliver D. Crisp

(series blurb)
The Jonathan Edwards Classic Studies Series consists of the finest monographs on the life and thought of Jonathan Edwards which have up to now had limited availability. With the publication of this series, the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University hopes to afford Edwards scholars everywhere the opportunity to readily engage these masterful studies at a reasonable price.  

In this most penetrating study of Jonathan Edwards' mind, Norman Fiering contextualizes Edwards' thought in the transatlantic philosophical community of British and, ultimately, Continental thought. Essentially a genetic study, Fiering's analysis deconstructs key elements of Edwards' metaphysical universe through a series of sharply focused inquiries, culminating in a richly nuanced delineation of Edwards' moral vision. In course, Fiering challenges long-dominant assumptions concerning Edwards' intellectual orientation and prepares the way for new appreciations of his intellectual growth.

Wilson H. Kimnach, University of Bridgeport

An American Augustinian by Oliver D. Crisp

Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement by Joseph A. Conforti
Jonathan Edwards by Alexander V. G. Allen
Religion and the American Mind by Alan Heimert
Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context by Norman Fiering
Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards by Roland Delattre
The Young Jonathan Edwards by William S. Morris
Edwards on the Will by Allen C. Guelzo
Jonathan Edwards, Pastor by Patricia Tracy