Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: Volume 2, Shaftesbury to Hume: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660-1780

by Isabel Rivers

Overview

This volume completes Isabel Rivers' widely-acclaimed exploration of the relationship between religion and ethics from the mid-seventeenth to the later eighteenth centuries. She investigates what happened when attempts were made to separate ethics from religion, and to locate the foundation of morals in the constitution of human nature. Her book pays close attention to the movement of ideas through the British Isles, and demonstrates the enormous influence of Shaftesbury's moral thought. Meticulously researched and accessibly written, this study makes a vital contribution to our understanding of eighteenth-century thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521021357
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/20/2005
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought , #37
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	5.94(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.94(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. The true religion of nature: the freethinkers and their opponents; 2. Shaftesbury and the defence of natural affection; 3. Defining the moral faculty: Hutcheson, Butler, and Price; 4. The ethics of sentiment and the religious hypothesis: Hume and his critics; 5. The conflict of languages in the later eighteenth century.

Editorial Reviews

"Rivers does an exceptional job.... this richly detailed book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the moral philosophy and religious thought of the period." Virginia Quarterly Review

"[Rivers] has developed a refreshingly individualistic approach to the study of the language of religion and ethics." Anglican and Episcopal History

From the Publisher