Moral Theology, Social Anthropology,
and the Imagination of the Human
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198722069.do
Michael Banner is Dean and Fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He has had wide involvement in ethical thinking and policy making in government and the private sector, as chair or member of committees across Whitehall Departments from Health to Defence.
His publications include Christian Ethics: A Brief History (Wiley Blackwell, 2009) and Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (CUP, 1999).
In The Ethics of Everyday Life, Michael Banner argues that moral theology must reconceive its nature and tasks if it is not only to articulate its own account of human being, but also to enter into constructive contention with other accounts. In particular, it must be willing to learn from and engage with social anthropology if it is to offer powerful and plausible portrayals of the moral life and answers to the questions which trouble modernity. Drawing in wide-ranging fashion from social anthropology and from Christian thought and practice from many periods, and influenced especially by his engagement in public policy matters including as a member of the UK's Human Tissue Authority, Banner develops the outlines of an everyday ethics, stretching from before the cradle to after the grave.
"When moral topics are discussed, we spend too much time fiercely debating controversial questions and too little time reflecting on the meanings of the relations, feelings, institutions and practices which the questions presuppose. That is one of the valuable thoughts pursued in this book. And whether you come to it as a moral philosopher, a moral theologian or a social anthropologist there is much to be learned from Michael Banner's challenging and moving reflections." - Jane Heal, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge
"Michael Banner's work long been known for its theological depth and analytic acuity. Here we have a comprehensive Christian ethics of the "everyday," inspired by his profound engagement with recent developments in anthropology, enriched by that discipline's empirical attentiveness and sharpened by its rigorous, but (for theologians) under-appreciated, theoretical self-awareness. There is no other account of Christian ethics as freshly illuminating, as intelligently displayed, or as systematically powerful as Banner's. I recommend this book to anyone wishing a more intelligent and perspicacious Christian ethics; they will not be disappointed." - Charles Mathewes, Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia
"This book is an interdisciplinary tour de force. Michael Banner is a first-rate moral philosopher and theologian who has learned to think about the intricacies of social life like a first-rate anthropologist. He has written that rare kind of work that not only can teach you new things about topics you thought you knew well, but can transform the very way you think about them. Anyone interested in socially grounded moral philosophy or in the anthropology of morality or of Christianity should read it as soon as they can." - Joel Robbins, University of Cambridge
- Reconceives the practice of moral theology, especially through a closer engagement with social anthropology
- Discusses topics of universal interest, from before the cradle to after the grave, and including the meaning and significance of having children, suffering, dying, burial, and mourning
- Questions how the representation of Christ's life in the Christian tradition relates to present-day cultural norms concerning human life, incorporating issues such as IVF, abortion, and euthanasia
- Based on Michael Banner's Bampton Lectures given at the University of Oxford in 2013
- Why do we have children and what do we raise them for?
- Does the proliferation of depictions of suffering in the media enhance, or endanger, compassion?
- How do we live and die well in the extended periods of debility which old age now threatens?
- Why and how should we grieve for the dead?
- And how should we properly remember other grief and grievances?
In The Ethics of Everyday Life, Michael Banner argues that moral theology must reconceive its nature and tasks if it is not only to articulate its own account of human being, but also to enter into constructive contention with other accounts. In particular, it must be willing to learn from and engage with social anthropology if it is to offer powerful and plausible portrayals of the moral life and answers to the questions which trouble modernity. Drawing in wide-ranging fashion from social anthropology and from Christian thought and practice from many periods, and influenced especially by his engagement in public policy matters including as a member of the UK's Human Tissue Authority, Banner develops the outlines of an everyday ethics, stretching from before the cradle to after the grave.
"When moral topics are discussed, we spend too much time fiercely debating controversial questions and too little time reflecting on the meanings of the relations, feelings, institutions and practices which the questions presuppose. That is one of the valuable thoughts pursued in this book. And whether you come to it as a moral philosopher, a moral theologian or a social anthropologist there is much to be learned from Michael Banner's challenging and moving reflections." - Jane Heal, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge
"Michael Banner's work long been known for its theological depth and analytic acuity. Here we have a comprehensive Christian ethics of the "everyday," inspired by his profound engagement with recent developments in anthropology, enriched by that discipline's empirical attentiveness and sharpened by its rigorous, but (for theologians) under-appreciated, theoretical self-awareness. There is no other account of Christian ethics as freshly illuminating, as intelligently displayed, or as systematically powerful as Banner's. I recommend this book to anyone wishing a more intelligent and perspicacious Christian ethics; they will not be disappointed." - Charles Mathewes, Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia
"This book is an interdisciplinary tour de force. Michael Banner is a first-rate moral philosopher and theologian who has learned to think about the intricacies of social life like a first-rate anthropologist. He has written that rare kind of work that not only can teach you new things about topics you thought you knew well, but can transform the very way you think about them. Anyone interested in socially grounded moral philosophy or in the anthropology of morality or of Christianity should read it as soon as they can." - Joel Robbins, University of Cambridge
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