Exemplarity Between Tradition and Critique. Issue 3 (16th August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Herdt, Jennifer A.
• Is Part Of: Journal of religious ethics. Volume 47:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 552
• Page End: 565
• Publication Date: 2019-08-16
• Subjects: Judith Butler -- critique -- democratic piety -- discipleship -- Michel Foucault -- Stanley Hauerwas -- moral exemplar -- self‐cultivation -- Jeffrey Stout -- virtue -- Linda Zagzebski; Ethics -- Periodicals; Religious ethics -- Periodicals; Morale religieuse; Religion; Théologie; 205
• DOI: 10.1111/jore.12277
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0384-9694

Abstract

Abstract: Moral exemplarism, which insists on the centrality of particular embodiments of exemplary virtue to the moral life, is currently receiving significant attention within moral philosophy as well as theological and religious ethics. This introductory essay situates the contributions made by this focus issue on moral exemplarity in relation to the history of attention to moral exemplars, the twentieth‐century turn to virtue, philosopher Linda Zagzebski's exemplarist moral theory, Stanley Hauerwas's particularist embrace of Christian discipleship, Foucauldian turns to critique and self‐cultivation, and the significance of exemplars in Jeffrey Stout's democratic piety. Arguing for the critical importance of articulating the authority of exemplars, this essay points to the ways in which the present focus can assist us to navigate between the shoals of nostalgic deference to tradition and dismissive critiques of authoritarianism.