What Makes Us Moral?
Science, Religion and the Shaping of the Moral Landscape: A Christian Response to Sam Harris
by Craig Hovey
Imprint: Cascade Books
144 Pages, 5.50 x 8.50 x 0.31 in
- Paperback
- 9781620327074
- Published: October 2012
$22.00 / £20.00
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Is science all we need to make us moral?
In his recent book, The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris presents his vision of a world in which reason and science alone determine our values. Here, a leading Christian ethicist subjects this vision to a rigorous critique, providing general readers with a clear, concise, and compelling expose of the most serious flaws in Harris's arguments.
Craig Hovey (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor of Religion at Ashland University in Ashland, OH and is executive director of the Ashland Center for Nonviolence. He is the author of numerous books including Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in Christian Practice (2011), Nietzsche and Theology (2008), To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today's Church (2008), Speak Thus: Christian Language in Church and World (2008), and co-editor of An Eerdmans Reader in Contemporary Political Theology (2011).
"In Roman times crowds were offered the spectacle of Christians being thrown to the lions. The outcome was never in doubt: what, presumably, provided the entertainment was the manner of the Christians' demise. Craig Hovey's masterful work offers the reader a different spectacle: the prospect of a lion being thrown to the Christians. How does the lion--in this case the atheist Sam Harris, who has made of science a religion--face his slow demise? That's the fascination of Hovey's absorbing piece-by-piece dissection. Hovey's work is a tour de force of Christian practical philosophy. It turns out Harris says many new things and many true things. But the new things he says are not true and the true things are not new. You won't want to miss a mouthful."
--The Revd Canon Dr Samuel Wells, London, author of Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics
"Hovey does a fine job of refuting many of Harris's critiques of religion. . . This is a thoughtful and engaging book."
--Nancey Murphy, Fuller Theological Seminary, author of Religion and Science: God, Evolution and the Soul
"In response to the current fashion for a new atheism and its dangerously facile morality, Hovey offers a lively and robust defence--not of religion, as one might expect--but of faith and of how it is that faith makes us moral. Informed by a deep love of truth, this is an admirable and compelling apologetic."
--Susan F. Parsons, editor of Studies in Christian Ethics
"Craig Hovey's new book is exceptionally clear and jargon-free. He offers a robust and lively critique of the strident claims of Sam Harris and concludes with a welcome account of how Christian ethics is still relevant to science and to the modern world."
--Robin Gill, University of Kent, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics