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Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions
Arthur F. Holmes outlines a Christian ethic, contrasts it with other ethical systems, and applies it to contemporary moral problems. A Contours of Christian Philosophy book.
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First published March 1, 1984
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About the author
Arthur F. Holmes
24 books15 followersArthur Frank Holmes (March 15, 1924 – October 8, 2011) was Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College, Illinois (1951–1994). Before his retirement in 1994, he had served for several decades as Chairman of Wheaton's Department of Philosophy. Thereafter, he held the title of Professor Emeritus. After his retirement, he returned and taught half of the yearlong history of philosophy sequence, particularly the medieval (Augustine to Ockham) and the modern (Descartes to Quine) quarters in 2000-2001.
He became widely known for his body of work on topics related to philosophy, including ethics, philosophy applied to Christian higher education, and historical interactions between Christianity and philosophy. Holmes also has served as a guest lecturer at many colleges, universities, and conferences on these topics.
Holmes was a graduate of Wheaton College, where he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy. He earned the Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University in Chicago. Reportedly, before he immigrated to the United States in 1947, he had flown for the Royal Air Force in England during World War II.
Holmes died in Wheaton, Illinois, on October 8, 2011, at age 87.
He became widely known for his body of work on topics related to philosophy, including ethics, philosophy applied to Christian higher education, and historical interactions between Christianity and philosophy. Holmes also has served as a guest lecturer at many colleges, universities, and conferences on these topics.
Holmes was a graduate of Wheaton College, where he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy. He earned the Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University in Chicago. Reportedly, before he immigrated to the United States in 1947, he had flown for the Royal Air Force in England during World War II.
Holmes died in Wheaton, Illinois, on October 8, 2011, at age 87.
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February 6, 2024
It's saying something to us when there are over 60,000 copies in print, and I concur. This book ought to be mandatory reading for every college student in America. So it is that the word ought reflects a transcendent ideal, which makes it harmonious with natural law and Christianity. Students ought to read this book, and we ought to love and embrace virtue. But, will we? What we do is another matter, yet our actions don't negate the ought and our conscience informs us of our failings.
Holmes lucid writing makes the role of ethics in Christianity crystal clear. The Bible does not comment on every conceivable dilemma, leaving the duty to apply moral reasoning to us. To be very transparent, another reason I liked Holme's book so much was that I couldn't help but notice how my book, Knowledge unto Relationship, resonates with his arguments. We are relational beings more so than irrational, yet there is a path in keeping with Aristotle that starts with reason, finds virtue, and manifests in love. Love, exalting the very essence of moral virtue, functions in relationships.
Holmes lucid writing makes the role of ethics in Christianity crystal clear. The Bible does not comment on every conceivable dilemma, leaving the duty to apply moral reasoning to us. To be very transparent, another reason I liked Holme's book so much was that I couldn't help but notice how my book, Knowledge unto Relationship, resonates with his arguments. We are relational beings more so than irrational, yet there is a path in keeping with Aristotle that starts with reason, finds virtue, and manifests in love. Love, exalting the very essence of moral virtue, functions in relationships.
September 3, 2023
This short book changed me (kind of an overstatement.. but you get the point). I especially appreciated his chapters on moral obligation and virtue ethics. I will be reading more from the “Contours of Christian Philosophy” series. This book was just plain excellent.
March 16, 2018
Sometimes this book was great. There were a few chapters in the beginning I loved. Yet when it got to Christian based ethics it kind of went all over the place. I'm not sure philosophy is where you should develop christian ethics, it may apply in how you decide to choose what might be the better of two ills, but I think scripture may provide better insight to many of the specifics. However, this book does a great job in pointing out the shortcomings in other ethics based approaches and I do like it's virtue ethics approach as it is close to the Christian ethic in many ways.
August 25, 2025
The overview of alternatives was fine, but then he started talking about natural rights, and it only went downhill from there.
June 8, 2017
Ch 2
Ethical relativism: Homura is the measure of all things.
The diversity thesis: The cult's belief that Homura did nothing wrong is based on a diverse causes, because might makes right. [Truth does not enter into the equation.]
The Dependency thesis: The cult's belief that Homura did nothing wrong is developed and modified at a pre-reflective level. [But plenty of people do reflection.]
Ethnocentrism: The cult's belief that Homura did nothing wrong is based on cultural relativism, so it accepts Homura's actions. [But the cult also has limitations to its ethical toleration, because it tolerates selectively.]
Ch 3
Emotivist ethics: The cultist's expression that Homura is the most beautiful creature is an expression of the cultist's sublime feelings about Homura, not about Homura herself. Right and wrong have no cognitive meaning. "'Homura did something wrong' translates into 'my strong feelings are against [Homura's actions]"(28). [This is a cognitive statement.]
Ch 4
Psychological egoism: "'[I]s' does not imply 'ought' . . . . [but] we are all psychological egoists anyway" (30).
Butler: "True self-love and unnatural or debauched self-love" (34).
11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
From
Plato: establish ruling class in which no egoism can take root.
Hobbes: Have a benevolent monarch to stop all the peasantry's egoism.
Smith: Let the market take care of everything.
Individual egoist: Do what is best for me.
Universal egoist: Each do what is best for each person.
Hobbes:^ leads to a war of all against all.
Smith: If you have a free market system, natural laws will keep our egos in check.
Locke:^
Hobbes: If you have a benevolent monarch, natural laws will keep our egos in check.
Puritans: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, not enjoying ourselves as much as we can. True self-love and neighbor-love follow from this.
Hobbes: Because the Civil war was so loving.
Puritans: It is loving to confront others with heresy. Sometimes this involves beheading the monarch. Charles I was not the most loving monarch.
Hobbes: He was learning.
Puritans: He resurrected centuries-old taxes for boats where there was no water.
Ch 5
Jeremy Bentham/Sybil system: Maximize pleasure, minimize pain, and deter criminal action.
Mill: Better a human satisfied than a pig satisfied.
Holmes: Which consequences are "good"?
Bentham: Just do calculus hedonistically.
Mill: Uh, that won't work. Quality is not reducible to quantity. You are a bundle of experiences, so the value of persons is measured entirely in terms of people's experiences, individually and collectively, and their actions are evaluated in terms of empirical consequences.
Ch 6
Paley: virtue is doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.
Mill: Utilize unto others as you would have others utilize unto you.
Puritans: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, not enjoying ourselves as much as we can. True self-love and neighbor-love follow from this.
Mill: That's consequentialist.
Puritans: No, because God is an independent principle of justice.
Mill: >pretending there is such a thing as a soul.
Schwartz: Quantum mechanics suggests evidence for the soul.
Puritans:Besides, Util leans heavily toward ethical relativism. Situation ethics shuns moral rules as a form of legalism.
Homura has passed out in your house. Beastmen are asking if you are hiding any magical girls in your house. Do you lie, or betray Homura?
Ethics come from God (51).
Structure of mosaic law (53).
Ch 7
Kant: only a good will is good without qualification. Good will excludes willing something either because of its desirable consequences or because of our own inclinations. We must act out of regard for duty and respect for moral law. We should always act from maxims that can without self-contradiction be universalized.
Freud: Good luck with your self-deception.
Locke: We can deduce moral law from the nature of the human person as a rational and self-determining being.
Aristotle:^
Aquinas:^
The apostle Paul: "Nature." Look for creational indicators of what is inherent and essential.
God protects sinful people from the worst in themselves, bearing witness still to his creative wisdom and power (64).
CH 8
Plato: the ultimate reality is an ideal that exists independently of any person, human or divine.
Jesus: The ultimate reality is a personal God. It is persons, not ideals, who command.
Kant: A heteronomous will is ruled by something other than onself, by objects of desire or pressures of circumstance, and therefore it cannot act freely out of respect for duty, but an autonomous will is self-governed.
Sartre: Three is no universal reason or moral law. My freedom is absolute. You are bound by the shadow of a Christian ethic.
Jesus: I made you. You owe me your allegiance. I impose the ought. (75) I am the Creator and Lord of the universe, who as such commands final authority over every creature, and am perfect love and perfect justice, by my very nature setting all moral standards for others. By virtue of my own character, I would not create a rock too heavy for me to lift. That is a nonsense statement. My will cannot be separated from my nature. Asking whether what is morally good is commanded by God because it is morally good, or whether it is morally good because it is commanded by God is pointless.
(77) What is commanded by me is morally good because I command it, and I command it because it is morally good. You cannot separate my will from my nature in the dichotomic fashion that Plato did. That way leads to the French revolution, and Homura's head being guillotined. Moral ideals do not exist independently.
77 best of all worlds
Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?
Ch 9John Locke: natural rights are not just legal rights given us by the state or by a constitution. You can't just take away Madoka's rights. Government is not the master but a servant of the people in the natural exercise of their rights.
Mill: We grant rights for the benefit of society rather than their being in some sense inherent in individual persons.
Jesus: If human rights exists only for utilitarian ends, might they not also be suspended or even denied altogether if greater utility were thereby served?
Mill: Who do you think you are?
Jesus: I AM.
Cicero: We are all part of the divine, so we all have universal human citizenship.
Locke: eh
Jesus: All of this is derivative of me, because I made everything.
Melden: Rights are derived from relationships between persons beings moral agents.
Jesus: Rights are not socially accorded, but God-given. A person is more than a demographic statistic, more than a body plus a flux of experience, more even than an economic and political being and a member of those communities. Human rights are in effect the right to fulfill our God-given calling freely, without obstruction by others.
Locke: A person has three rights, to life, liberty, and property.
Homura: Madoka does not have the right to liberty in respect to self-determination of one endowed with the capacity for deliberation and free choice (86).
Aristotle: Making money out of money? Unnatural.
Aquinas: We need to live for others.
Locke: Our property is meant by God to help both others and ourselves(87). No unlimited property rights exist(88).
Hobbes: Unless you're the king.
Locke: Shut up.
Jesus: Don't confuse rights with wants. Marriage is not a contract; it is a union of two lives. Fetuses have rights, even though they have little agency. Fetus is Latin for "small baby."
Ch 10
Jesus: If you murder someone, you give up the right to life (91).
Bentham: or we could just rehabilitate prisoners…
Puritans: by public flogging.
Jesus: For murder?
Puritans: Oh, I thought you were talking about something else…
Bentham: This is what I'm talking about. The gallows is used for way too many peccadillos.
Wood: If justice is simply a distributive arrangement which maximizes social good, then what moral protection do either the guilty of the innocent really have(93)? Substituting therapy for punishment assumes that offensive behavior is determined entirely by conditions completely beyond the person's control, and depersonalizes the offender by denying him any moral responsibility for his own behavior(94). Whose norms will be imposed?
Jesus: A person is morally accountable for his actions, and guilt merits appropriate punishment. The right to be treated as a person is the right to be held accountable, and the right to be punished (95). Take an eye for an eye, but also show merciful rehabilitation when applying the punishment. Rehabilitiation must not replace punishment, and punishment must not preclude rehabilitation (97).
Ch 11
Oberlain: A perfect state of society is. . . Where what is right in theory exists in fact, where action coincides with principle, and the law of God is the law of the land.
Mill: Society may only restrict individual freedoms in order to prevent harm to others.
Homura is a paternalist legal moralist, because she wants to forbid Madoka from harming herself (101).
Aristotle: People who are not sufficiently rational to know what is good cannot rule themselves but should be governed by others, such as slaves, women, and children.
Paternalist: people often do not known what will harm them, or cannot control themselves.
Mill: laws are posed by society for utilitarian ends.
Aquinas: natural law shows that human laws are an application of eternal moral law to the social order.
Jesus: Moral good is justice, and I intend it for human society.
Aquinas: Divine moral law if for our eternal good, and the natural law is of our earthly good, and the humans laws derived from it are for the common good of society.
Schaeffer: Stop with the dichotomies.
Devlin: Private means it tends to harm neither social order and stability nor other individuals.
Wood: Liberty is an ingredient in justice. (104) If one is not free to act, one is not responsible for crime.
Devlin:
1. Preserve the maximum individual freedom consonant with the integrity of the social order, by ensuring a just cause for restricting freedom.
2. Be slow to act [with legislation], for other restraints are available
3. Respect privacy as far as possible by limiting the means of enforcement.
4. [Limit the ends of enforcement by] by legislating a minimal morality only
Wood:
1. To be enforceable, a law must have widespread public support and represent a consensual morality.
2. A law must be equitably enforceable.
3. Legislation should not be changed with every changing moral mood, since this undermines respect for the law and public order.
4. A law should avoid harmful side effects (like invasion of privacy or black mail) (105).
Aquinas: A just war has the need to resist violent aggression, is a last resort after every possible negation and compromise has failed, and may employ limited means proportionate to the limited end of restoring a just peace for all involved.
Ch 12
Wood: utilitarian stances in any age, have limited ethical significance.
To pour women into molds fashioned for a semi-literate and largely agrarian society, into roles that stifle the stewardship of their God-given gifts and opportunities is neither loving nor just.
Ch 13 doing right from a morally wrong motive (115)
Wood: Diversity does not prove that all moral standards and virtues either are or should be completely false (117)
Kant: Nothing is good without qualification other than a good will.
Plato: Wisdom is the virtue of intellect, courage is the virtue of the spirited element in us, self-control is virtue in relation to the appetites, and justice is the harmonious unity of all theses elements under the rule of reason(118).
Aristotle: Desire is the root of all evil.
Jesus: I am the ideal man. I am the warrant and the sanction. I am both love and justice.
Augustine: Virtue is perfect love for God.
Aristotle: It's all about the mean. Self-control finds a mean between self-indulgence and complete disinterest. Friendliness falls between obsequious and being grouchy (119).
Wood: Habits develop as a result of deliberation about the choices we constantly make and the ends we desire (120). . . . The virtuous act out of good habits of mind internalized by repeated reflection and decision.
Hume: Human actions spring from the passions and will rather than from reason itself. Reason alone is inert and impotent, and its civil laws derive their authority not from their rationality but from our self-interested feelings.
Augustine: We are ruled not by reason alone but what we love; in a civil society we are bound together not by the rule of reason but by agreement as to what we love. Like the factions of the different megucas. The discord server bounds its members together by their mutual love of megucas. It is the will's orientation, not reason alone, that is morally decisive.
Aristotle:^
Hume:^
Freud: pfft. Character is merely a set of inner sanctions for which we are in no way responsible.
Augustine: Your acceptance of determinism is itself determined, so that you cannot meaningfully say that it is true independently of what you may think.
Aristotle: The agency of the human will in its own choices are inseparable from moral responsibility and moral character. The will can choose to initiate happenings and has the power to make a difference (121).
Kohlberg: character development, although cognitive, is more than a cognitive process; it also involves the strengthening of will and redirecting of desire.
Augustine: virtue is the love what is just and good.
Paul:Love is the fruit that God's Spirit produces in us.
Ethical relativism: Homura is the measure of all things.
The diversity thesis: The cult's belief that Homura did nothing wrong is based on a diverse causes, because might makes right. [Truth does not enter into the equation.]
The Dependency thesis: The cult's belief that Homura did nothing wrong is developed and modified at a pre-reflective level. [But plenty of people do reflection.]
Ethnocentrism: The cult's belief that Homura did nothing wrong is based on cultural relativism, so it accepts Homura's actions. [But the cult also has limitations to its ethical toleration, because it tolerates selectively.]
Ch 3
Emotivist ethics: The cultist's expression that Homura is the most beautiful creature is an expression of the cultist's sublime feelings about Homura, not about Homura herself. Right and wrong have no cognitive meaning. "'Homura did something wrong' translates into 'my strong feelings are against [Homura's actions]"(28). [This is a cognitive statement.]
Ch 4
Psychological egoism: "'[I]s' does not imply 'ought' . . . . [but] we are all psychological egoists anyway" (30).
Butler: "True self-love and unnatural or debauched self-love" (34).
11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
From
Plato: establish ruling class in which no egoism can take root.
Hobbes: Have a benevolent monarch to stop all the peasantry's egoism.
Smith: Let the market take care of everything.
Individual egoist: Do what is best for me.
Universal egoist: Each do what is best for each person.
Hobbes:^ leads to a war of all against all.
Smith: If you have a free market system, natural laws will keep our egos in check.
Locke:^
Hobbes: If you have a benevolent monarch, natural laws will keep our egos in check.
Puritans: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, not enjoying ourselves as much as we can. True self-love and neighbor-love follow from this.
Hobbes: Because the Civil war was so loving.
Puritans: It is loving to confront others with heresy. Sometimes this involves beheading the monarch. Charles I was not the most loving monarch.
Hobbes: He was learning.
Puritans: He resurrected centuries-old taxes for boats where there was no water.
Ch 5
Jeremy Bentham/Sybil system: Maximize pleasure, minimize pain, and deter criminal action.
Mill: Better a human satisfied than a pig satisfied.
Holmes: Which consequences are "good"?
Bentham: Just do calculus hedonistically.
Mill: Uh, that won't work. Quality is not reducible to quantity. You are a bundle of experiences, so the value of persons is measured entirely in terms of people's experiences, individually and collectively, and their actions are evaluated in terms of empirical consequences.
Ch 6
Paley: virtue is doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.
Mill: Utilize unto others as you would have others utilize unto you.
Puritans: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, not enjoying ourselves as much as we can. True self-love and neighbor-love follow from this.
Mill: That's consequentialist.
Puritans: No, because God is an independent principle of justice.
Mill: >pretending there is such a thing as a soul.
Schwartz: Quantum mechanics suggests evidence for the soul.
Puritans:Besides, Util leans heavily toward ethical relativism. Situation ethics shuns moral rules as a form of legalism.
Homura has passed out in your house. Beastmen are asking if you are hiding any magical girls in your house. Do you lie, or betray Homura?
Ethics come from God (51).
Structure of mosaic law (53).
Ch 7
Kant: only a good will is good without qualification. Good will excludes willing something either because of its desirable consequences or because of our own inclinations. We must act out of regard for duty and respect for moral law. We should always act from maxims that can without self-contradiction be universalized.
Freud: Good luck with your self-deception.
Locke: We can deduce moral law from the nature of the human person as a rational and self-determining being.
Aristotle:^
Aquinas:^
The apostle Paul: "Nature." Look for creational indicators of what is inherent and essential.
God protects sinful people from the worst in themselves, bearing witness still to his creative wisdom and power (64).
CH 8
Plato: the ultimate reality is an ideal that exists independently of any person, human or divine.
Jesus: The ultimate reality is a personal God. It is persons, not ideals, who command.
Kant: A heteronomous will is ruled by something other than onself, by objects of desire or pressures of circumstance, and therefore it cannot act freely out of respect for duty, but an autonomous will is self-governed.
Sartre: Three is no universal reason or moral law. My freedom is absolute. You are bound by the shadow of a Christian ethic.
Jesus: I made you. You owe me your allegiance. I impose the ought. (75) I am the Creator and Lord of the universe, who as such commands final authority over every creature, and am perfect love and perfect justice, by my very nature setting all moral standards for others. By virtue of my own character, I would not create a rock too heavy for me to lift. That is a nonsense statement. My will cannot be separated from my nature. Asking whether what is morally good is commanded by God because it is morally good, or whether it is morally good because it is commanded by God is pointless.
(77) What is commanded by me is morally good because I command it, and I command it because it is morally good. You cannot separate my will from my nature in the dichotomic fashion that Plato did. That way leads to the French revolution, and Homura's head being guillotined. Moral ideals do not exist independently.
77 best of all worlds
Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?
Ch 9John Locke: natural rights are not just legal rights given us by the state or by a constitution. You can't just take away Madoka's rights. Government is not the master but a servant of the people in the natural exercise of their rights.
Mill: We grant rights for the benefit of society rather than their being in some sense inherent in individual persons.
Jesus: If human rights exists only for utilitarian ends, might they not also be suspended or even denied altogether if greater utility were thereby served?
Mill: Who do you think you are?
Jesus: I AM.
Cicero: We are all part of the divine, so we all have universal human citizenship.
Locke: eh
Jesus: All of this is derivative of me, because I made everything.
Melden: Rights are derived from relationships between persons beings moral agents.
Jesus: Rights are not socially accorded, but God-given. A person is more than a demographic statistic, more than a body plus a flux of experience, more even than an economic and political being and a member of those communities. Human rights are in effect the right to fulfill our God-given calling freely, without obstruction by others.
Locke: A person has three rights, to life, liberty, and property.
Homura: Madoka does not have the right to liberty in respect to self-determination of one endowed with the capacity for deliberation and free choice (86).
Aristotle: Making money out of money? Unnatural.
Aquinas: We need to live for others.
Locke: Our property is meant by God to help both others and ourselves(87). No unlimited property rights exist(88).
Hobbes: Unless you're the king.
Locke: Shut up.
Jesus: Don't confuse rights with wants. Marriage is not a contract; it is a union of two lives. Fetuses have rights, even though they have little agency. Fetus is Latin for "small baby."
Ch 10
Jesus: If you murder someone, you give up the right to life (91).
Bentham: or we could just rehabilitate prisoners…
Puritans: by public flogging.
Jesus: For murder?
Puritans: Oh, I thought you were talking about something else…
Bentham: This is what I'm talking about. The gallows is used for way too many peccadillos.
Wood: If justice is simply a distributive arrangement which maximizes social good, then what moral protection do either the guilty of the innocent really have(93)? Substituting therapy for punishment assumes that offensive behavior is determined entirely by conditions completely beyond the person's control, and depersonalizes the offender by denying him any moral responsibility for his own behavior(94). Whose norms will be imposed?
Jesus: A person is morally accountable for his actions, and guilt merits appropriate punishment. The right to be treated as a person is the right to be held accountable, and the right to be punished (95). Take an eye for an eye, but also show merciful rehabilitation when applying the punishment. Rehabilitiation must not replace punishment, and punishment must not preclude rehabilitation (97).
Ch 11
Oberlain: A perfect state of society is. . . Where what is right in theory exists in fact, where action coincides with principle, and the law of God is the law of the land.
Mill: Society may only restrict individual freedoms in order to prevent harm to others.
Homura is a paternalist legal moralist, because she wants to forbid Madoka from harming herself (101).
Aristotle: People who are not sufficiently rational to know what is good cannot rule themselves but should be governed by others, such as slaves, women, and children.
Paternalist: people often do not known what will harm them, or cannot control themselves.
Mill: laws are posed by society for utilitarian ends.
Aquinas: natural law shows that human laws are an application of eternal moral law to the social order.
Jesus: Moral good is justice, and I intend it for human society.
Aquinas: Divine moral law if for our eternal good, and the natural law is of our earthly good, and the humans laws derived from it are for the common good of society.
Schaeffer: Stop with the dichotomies.
Devlin: Private means it tends to harm neither social order and stability nor other individuals.
Wood: Liberty is an ingredient in justice. (104) If one is not free to act, one is not responsible for crime.
Devlin:
1. Preserve the maximum individual freedom consonant with the integrity of the social order, by ensuring a just cause for restricting freedom.
2. Be slow to act [with legislation], for other restraints are available
3. Respect privacy as far as possible by limiting the means of enforcement.
4. [Limit the ends of enforcement by] by legislating a minimal morality only
Wood:
1. To be enforceable, a law must have widespread public support and represent a consensual morality.
2. A law must be equitably enforceable.
3. Legislation should not be changed with every changing moral mood, since this undermines respect for the law and public order.
4. A law should avoid harmful side effects (like invasion of privacy or black mail) (105).
Aquinas: A just war has the need to resist violent aggression, is a last resort after every possible negation and compromise has failed, and may employ limited means proportionate to the limited end of restoring a just peace for all involved.
Ch 12
Wood: utilitarian stances in any age, have limited ethical significance.
To pour women into molds fashioned for a semi-literate and largely agrarian society, into roles that stifle the stewardship of their God-given gifts and opportunities is neither loving nor just.
Ch 13 doing right from a morally wrong motive (115)
Wood: Diversity does not prove that all moral standards and virtues either are or should be completely false (117)
Kant: Nothing is good without qualification other than a good will.
Plato: Wisdom is the virtue of intellect, courage is the virtue of the spirited element in us, self-control is virtue in relation to the appetites, and justice is the harmonious unity of all theses elements under the rule of reason(118).
Aristotle: Desire is the root of all evil.
Jesus: I am the ideal man. I am the warrant and the sanction. I am both love and justice.
Augustine: Virtue is perfect love for God.
Aristotle: It's all about the mean. Self-control finds a mean between self-indulgence and complete disinterest. Friendliness falls between obsequious and being grouchy (119).
Wood: Habits develop as a result of deliberation about the choices we constantly make and the ends we desire (120). . . . The virtuous act out of good habits of mind internalized by repeated reflection and decision.
Hume: Human actions spring from the passions and will rather than from reason itself. Reason alone is inert and impotent, and its civil laws derive their authority not from their rationality but from our self-interested feelings.
Augustine: We are ruled not by reason alone but what we love; in a civil society we are bound together not by the rule of reason but by agreement as to what we love. Like the factions of the different megucas. The discord server bounds its members together by their mutual love of megucas. It is the will's orientation, not reason alone, that is morally decisive.
Aristotle:^
Hume:^
Freud: pfft. Character is merely a set of inner sanctions for which we are in no way responsible.
Augustine: Your acceptance of determinism is itself determined, so that you cannot meaningfully say that it is true independently of what you may think.
Aristotle: The agency of the human will in its own choices are inseparable from moral responsibility and moral character. The will can choose to initiate happenings and has the power to make a difference (121).
Kohlberg: character development, although cognitive, is more than a cognitive process; it also involves the strengthening of will and redirecting of desire.
Augustine: virtue is the love what is just and good.
Paul:Love is the fruit that God's Spirit produces in us.
March 11, 2016
This is a lucid, accessible systematic treatment of ethics from a moderate Reformed perspective. Like other systematic treatments (Geisler, Feinberg, Davis) Holmes surveys a number of options in ethics (egoism, relativism, etc) and finds problems. The second half of the book explores a constructive, Christian alternative.
For Holmes ethics is about the good (what virtues should we cultivate?) and about the right (what is my moral duty?) (Holmes 12).
The sections on emotivism, egoism, and utilitarianism are outstanding. His treatment is good enough for a college class, but definitely needs supplementation for graduate work.
Christian Perspective:
Holmes's pattern of moral reasoning:
(a) What essential human action spheres are involved?
(b) What essential purposes inhere in the nature of those activities?
(c) How can these purposes be be pursued with justice and love?
End: God’s kingdom.
Overall moral principle: Love as agape.
(1) Justice stresses the right, outward ordering of life; love the inner principle (54). Together they bring shalom.
( 2) Just peace (each man under his own fig tree--Micah).
(3) Liberating peace (children dancing in the streets--Zechariah).
Situation ethics problem: few have the ability to anticipate and calculate consequences in each and every situation (55). But if our world is a divinely-ordered creation, then we can expect law-spheres and creation mandates.
Holmes explores moral knowledge and the role conscience plays, yet he hesitates in affirming the role of conscience. Holmes seems to reject this idea of conscience as a faculty because it is from an outdated psychology (61-62). Holmes says we must look for “Creational indicators” for what is essential and inherent in human nature (68). I agree; I just think that is a lot closer to traditional “faculty psychologies” than he wants to allow.
Holmes' final two chapters build upon Alasdair MacIntyre's work.
The Moral Agent
Following MacIntyre, Holmes notes human nature has a capacity that aims towards a telos (128), a Christianized eudaimonia. Jesus’s “Kingdom” doesn’t exist in the abstract, but within a certain narrative (129).
Virtue Ethics
Our choices are governed by what we most love. This love gives rise to justice and the other virtues of a well ordered life (134--see also City of God Bk 19).
Conclusion:
This is a fine introductory text that covers most of the issues in reasonable depth. I have some minor criticisms. Holmes downplays the role conscience plays. And while his chapter on utilitarianism was fine, one wishes he would have devoted more space to situation ethics.
For Holmes ethics is about the good (what virtues should we cultivate?) and about the right (what is my moral duty?) (Holmes 12).
The sections on emotivism, egoism, and utilitarianism are outstanding. His treatment is good enough for a college class, but definitely needs supplementation for graduate work.
Christian Perspective:
Holmes's pattern of moral reasoning:
(a) What essential human action spheres are involved?
(b) What essential purposes inhere in the nature of those activities?
(c) How can these purposes be be pursued with justice and love?
End: God’s kingdom.
Overall moral principle: Love as agape.
(1) Justice stresses the right, outward ordering of life; love the inner principle (54). Together they bring shalom.
( 2) Just peace (each man under his own fig tree--Micah).
(3) Liberating peace (children dancing in the streets--Zechariah).
Situation ethics problem: few have the ability to anticipate and calculate consequences in each and every situation (55). But if our world is a divinely-ordered creation, then we can expect law-spheres and creation mandates.
Holmes explores moral knowledge and the role conscience plays, yet he hesitates in affirming the role of conscience. Holmes seems to reject this idea of conscience as a faculty because it is from an outdated psychology (61-62). Holmes says we must look for “Creational indicators” for what is essential and inherent in human nature (68). I agree; I just think that is a lot closer to traditional “faculty psychologies” than he wants to allow.
Holmes' final two chapters build upon Alasdair MacIntyre's work.
The Moral Agent
Following MacIntyre, Holmes notes human nature has a capacity that aims towards a telos (128), a Christianized eudaimonia. Jesus’s “Kingdom” doesn’t exist in the abstract, but within a certain narrative (129).
Virtue Ethics
Our choices are governed by what we most love. This love gives rise to justice and the other virtues of a well ordered life (134--see also City of God Bk 19).
Conclusion:
This is a fine introductory text that covers most of the issues in reasonable depth. I have some minor criticisms. Holmes downplays the role conscience plays. And while his chapter on utilitarianism was fine, one wishes he would have devoted more space to situation ethics.
February 11, 2013
More than Wright, Holmes ascribes to an ethic that involves rules as means for an external control on moral habit formation. He too, however, follows an Aristotelian emphasis on the Telos, goals in the ultimate human virtues: Courage, Self-control, Wisdom, and Justice; drawing in Aquinas's Faith, Hope and Love (which are so clearly drawn from Paul that one wonders why they are attributed to Aquinas). But Holmes leaves his "list" of virtues open mentioning the Fruit of the Spirit and even vaguer sources. He agrees with Wright that these virtues are goals that need to be cultivated through choice and habit creating a second nature.
Holmes, however denies that these are exclusively products of reason but also arise out of the will, out of a nurturing responsibility, relational and deeply connected to emotion (as attributed to Gilligan). In this way Gilligan's feminist model counterpoints the traditional masculine models and, Holmes says, brings together the male and female, the rational and emotional, the objective and subjective, justice and love. He draws upon Augustine and others to support his thesis that reason alone is not enough to account for the choices people make, even the good choices.
Holmes extends his ethical base into a few practical frameworks: Human rights, criminal justice, the legislation of morality, and marriage and sexuality. These broader human concerns, he demonstrates, benefit from the kind of goal based ethic he outlines. He does, however, qualify that his social ethic is not an exclusively Christian construct, but must account for a more pluralistic model that observes the personal sphere as liberated from social scrutiny. That said, he still sees some "personal" activities such as sexual behavior as being socially significant, and therefore not necessarily exempt from legislation.
Holmes's book is not for the intellectually relaxed. Dive in expecting a grand web of classical philosophy that sometimes is confounding. Ethics is very good, but I wouldn't elevate it to the point of excellence. It lacks the wit and appeal of a truly excellent work. It is challenging, but not engaging. Even a challenge can be engaging if the author makes you want to step up. Holmes makes me want to examine my values, but he makes it seem a chore, not a priority. However, Holmes is clear about what he likes and does not like and why and winds up reconciling, to a very limited degree, even Plato and Aristotle ... but only with Aristotle being clearly preferred.
Holmes, however denies that these are exclusively products of reason but also arise out of the will, out of a nurturing responsibility, relational and deeply connected to emotion (as attributed to Gilligan). In this way Gilligan's feminist model counterpoints the traditional masculine models and, Holmes says, brings together the male and female, the rational and emotional, the objective and subjective, justice and love. He draws upon Augustine and others to support his thesis that reason alone is not enough to account for the choices people make, even the good choices.
Holmes extends his ethical base into a few practical frameworks: Human rights, criminal justice, the legislation of morality, and marriage and sexuality. These broader human concerns, he demonstrates, benefit from the kind of goal based ethic he outlines. He does, however, qualify that his social ethic is not an exclusively Christian construct, but must account for a more pluralistic model that observes the personal sphere as liberated from social scrutiny. That said, he still sees some "personal" activities such as sexual behavior as being socially significant, and therefore not necessarily exempt from legislation.
Holmes's book is not for the intellectually relaxed. Dive in expecting a grand web of classical philosophy that sometimes is confounding. Ethics is very good, but I wouldn't elevate it to the point of excellence. It lacks the wit and appeal of a truly excellent work. It is challenging, but not engaging. Even a challenge can be engaging if the author makes you want to step up. Holmes makes me want to examine my values, but he makes it seem a chore, not a priority. However, Holmes is clear about what he likes and does not like and why and winds up reconciling, to a very limited degree, even Plato and Aristotle ... but only with Aristotle being clearly preferred.
November 14, 2016
Arthur F. Holmes, who was once Chair of the Philosophy Department at Wheaton College, has written this wonderful book outlining how Christians should go about ethical problems. Whereas The Bible does not provide us answers on every question in modern ethics (i.e. in vitro fertilization) and whereas it is vague on some others, it is important for Christians to not only know how to take what The Bible does offer in terms of application but to have an overall, fluid ethic from which Christians can reason out ethical problems of all brands, not merely of the particularist types mentioned in Scripture. What Holmes comes to the conclusion to is what is known as virtue ethics, a school of moral philosophy begun by Plato and Aristotle, held in high reverence by Augustine, Aquinas, and other Medieval Christian thinkers, and revived through 20th Century Christian thinkers, notably Catholic ones such as Anscombe and MacIntyre but also through writers like Lewis or Chesterton. Virtue ethics explains moral objectivity, factors in both divine and rational inquiry, and applies not only to certain particular problems, but to any ethical problem it is presented with.
Holmes also does a magnificent job showing the flaws with relativism, emotivism, utilitarianism, and even Kantian duty ethics. Fantastic book, recommended reading for Christians or non-Christians alike.
Holmes also does a magnificent job showing the flaws with relativism, emotivism, utilitarianism, and even Kantian duty ethics. Fantastic book, recommended reading for Christians or non-Christians alike.
May 30, 2025
Summary: An introduction to ethics.
I have been on a slow exploration of discernment for several years now and I am at the point where I want to return to ethics as a contribution to how we think about discernment. One of the problems of some understandings of discernment is that it reduces discernment to purely divine intervention of information or understanding. And while I want to retain the divine as component of discernment, I also think that any true development of capacity around discernment also has to include development in areas of decision-making, ethics, conflict resolution and listening. Those are all human skills that can be developed in addition to the necessary relational/mystical connection go God.
I have dabbled with two other ethics books in the last two years, After Virtue and A Very Short Introduction to Ethics. I thought After Virtue was very helpful to my project and I intend to pick up two other Alasdair MacIntyre books at some point over the next year or so. I thought the Introduction to Ethics was less helpful. Arthur Holmes' book on Ethics was more helpful than the Very Short Intro edition, but it was still in that similar mode of introducing a very large idea and giving some illustrations and moving on. Introduction books serve a very real purpose but they have limits when you want a more thorough overview.
Arthur Holmes retired from teaching Philosophy at Wheaton College the spring before I started college, but he was on campus and a known figure. I picked up this book several years ago when it was on sale primarily because it was by Arthur Holmes and I have not previously read any of his books. The original edition was published in 1984, but the edition I read was a 2007 update. I do not know how much or what was updated, but there were parts that felt dated and parts that felt fairly current. While I have some quibbles, I think the general introduction chapters were helpful. After a broad overview opening chapter, the next chapters are about cultural relativism, and then three ethical systems that Holmes does not think rise to "Christian Ethics", emotivism, ethical egoism, and utilitarianism. These introductions were helpful and included not just descriptions but enough history to contextually understand the rise and importance of these ethical systems.
From these descriptive chapters, there was a movement to more constructive work with developing a Christian ethics and a chapter on moral knowledge and obligation. Again the developmental chapters I thought were helpful but felt a bit like a freshman college framing of ethics. The third section was using several areas of ethics to discuss practically how ethics can impact our lives through a discussion of Human Rights, Criminal Punishment, Government legislation and ethics, sex and marriage. I thought the sex and marriage was the weakest of the book, but it was also only 8 pages and was very introductory.
The final two chapters were the most helpful I think. Holmes discussed being a moral agent and how a feminist ethic of caring for others and the idea of working toward our "telos" of the highest good impacted ethical thinking. I am more feminist in my theological thinking precisely because of the feminist critique (and the womanist critique of feminism) than Holmes is and so I think that I would have gone in different ways than he did, but it was still a helpful discussion. The last chapter was a discussion of Virtue Ethics and primarily Alasdair MacIntyre's reinvigoration of ethical discussions because of After Virtue. I have critiques of After Virtue from my limited background but I do think that from my position of thinking about discernment and how ethics interacts with discernment, the idea of ethics as a developmental practice and not formulaic science or abstract philosophical systems makes a lot more sense of what I am trying to do.
Part of what I appreciate about Holmes' work was that he was trying to be a philosopher as a Christian and that means that he had to think through Christian implications of philosophy not just the beauty or reason of the philosophical system. This quote about how the Aristotle's ideas of virtue were adapted through Aquinas I think is a good example of that:
Again, this was written as an introduction to ethics for a college classroom or basic introduction and there are limits to what a 145 page book can cover. I also think that even with an update nearly 20 years ago, there are some realities to a discussion of ethics that was written in 1984, especially around gender and the ways that concerns about relativism were framed. It isn't that some aspects of relativism that were raised matter, but it feels like the very people that were raising concerns about cultural relativism in the 1970-90s seemed to have fully adopted it by the 2016.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/ethics-holmes/
I have been on a slow exploration of discernment for several years now and I am at the point where I want to return to ethics as a contribution to how we think about discernment. One of the problems of some understandings of discernment is that it reduces discernment to purely divine intervention of information or understanding. And while I want to retain the divine as component of discernment, I also think that any true development of capacity around discernment also has to include development in areas of decision-making, ethics, conflict resolution and listening. Those are all human skills that can be developed in addition to the necessary relational/mystical connection go God.
I have dabbled with two other ethics books in the last two years, After Virtue and A Very Short Introduction to Ethics. I thought After Virtue was very helpful to my project and I intend to pick up two other Alasdair MacIntyre books at some point over the next year or so. I thought the Introduction to Ethics was less helpful. Arthur Holmes' book on Ethics was more helpful than the Very Short Intro edition, but it was still in that similar mode of introducing a very large idea and giving some illustrations and moving on. Introduction books serve a very real purpose but they have limits when you want a more thorough overview.
Arthur Holmes retired from teaching Philosophy at Wheaton College the spring before I started college, but he was on campus and a known figure. I picked up this book several years ago when it was on sale primarily because it was by Arthur Holmes and I have not previously read any of his books. The original edition was published in 1984, but the edition I read was a 2007 update. I do not know how much or what was updated, but there were parts that felt dated and parts that felt fairly current. While I have some quibbles, I think the general introduction chapters were helpful. After a broad overview opening chapter, the next chapters are about cultural relativism, and then three ethical systems that Holmes does not think rise to "Christian Ethics", emotivism, ethical egoism, and utilitarianism. These introductions were helpful and included not just descriptions but enough history to contextually understand the rise and importance of these ethical systems.
From these descriptive chapters, there was a movement to more constructive work with developing a Christian ethics and a chapter on moral knowledge and obligation. Again the developmental chapters I thought were helpful but felt a bit like a freshman college framing of ethics. The third section was using several areas of ethics to discuss practically how ethics can impact our lives through a discussion of Human Rights, Criminal Punishment, Government legislation and ethics, sex and marriage. I thought the sex and marriage was the weakest of the book, but it was also only 8 pages and was very introductory.
The final two chapters were the most helpful I think. Holmes discussed being a moral agent and how a feminist ethic of caring for others and the idea of working toward our "telos" of the highest good impacted ethical thinking. I am more feminist in my theological thinking precisely because of the feminist critique (and the womanist critique of feminism) than Holmes is and so I think that I would have gone in different ways than he did, but it was still a helpful discussion. The last chapter was a discussion of Virtue Ethics and primarily Alasdair MacIntyre's reinvigoration of ethical discussions because of After Virtue. I have critiques of After Virtue from my limited background but I do think that from my position of thinking about discernment and how ethics interacts with discernment, the idea of ethics as a developmental practice and not formulaic science or abstract philosophical systems makes a lot more sense of what I am trying to do.
Part of what I appreciate about Holmes' work was that he was trying to be a philosopher as a Christian and that means that he had to think through Christian implications of philosophy not just the beauty or reason of the philosophical system. This quote about how the Aristotle's ideas of virtue were adapted through Aquinas I think is a good example of that:
Thomas Aquinas had followed Aristotle to this point, adding that obedience to the law’s commands could help habituate us to virtue; but he still recognized that habituation alone is not enough without “infusion.” The Holy Spirit infuses the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, which go beyond any natural potential, but he also infuses habits that strengthen already existing habits. In effect he frees us to be good. Grace does what human nature alone cannot, not grace instead of natural processes, however, but grace working in and through natural processes to the ends our Creator intended. (p139)
Again, this was written as an introduction to ethics for a college classroom or basic introduction and there are limits to what a 145 page book can cover. I also think that even with an update nearly 20 years ago, there are some realities to a discussion of ethics that was written in 1984, especially around gender and the ways that concerns about relativism were framed. It isn't that some aspects of relativism that were raised matter, but it feels like the very people that were raising concerns about cultural relativism in the 1970-90s seemed to have fully adopted it by the 2016.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/ethics-holmes/
December 19, 2015
Helpful, but it seemed overly dependent on general revelation as an adequate source of moral knowledge. The destructive effects of sin on the mind, and the subsequent need for special revelation and redemption seemed absent from this attempt at a Christian ethic.
August 26, 2017
(4.4)
A great book on ethics in Christianity.
Used with LU Online course: Philosophy and Contemporary Ideas.
A great book on ethics in Christianity.
Used with LU Online course: Philosophy and Contemporary Ideas.
January 29, 2026
I really enjoy this Contours of Christian Philosophy series. It is highly accessible for the amateur philosopher and is focused on key concepts for each of the core areas of philosophy. It is also a great springboard into further study, especially for the Christian.
Holmes’ book is frequently used in seminary ethics classes and I can understand why. With a brief visit to metaethics and its two primary axes of cognitivism and moral realism, he dives deeply into the normative branch of ethics consisting of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. He proceeds to the third branch of ethics, Applied Ethics, and examines the ethics of human rights, criminality, and sexuality. With the resurgence of virtue ethics over the past few decades, Holmes’ second edition explores these recent developments in the two concluding chapters.
I like that Holmes provides an accessible overview of each of these philosophical ideas as well as its weaknesses. However, he also explains a Christian ethic that many of these ideas conform nicely to, if placed in the correct order of priority. This ethic can be summarized as virtue ethics, grounded in deontology, and informed by consequentialism - in that order.
If you want to understand what the philosophical field of ethics is all about, this is a great introductory text.
Holmes’ book is frequently used in seminary ethics classes and I can understand why. With a brief visit to metaethics and its two primary axes of cognitivism and moral realism, he dives deeply into the normative branch of ethics consisting of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. He proceeds to the third branch of ethics, Applied Ethics, and examines the ethics of human rights, criminality, and sexuality. With the resurgence of virtue ethics over the past few decades, Holmes’ second edition explores these recent developments in the two concluding chapters.
I like that Holmes provides an accessible overview of each of these philosophical ideas as well as its weaknesses. However, he also explains a Christian ethic that many of these ideas conform nicely to, if placed in the correct order of priority. This ethic can be summarized as virtue ethics, grounded in deontology, and informed by consequentialism - in that order.
If you want to understand what the philosophical field of ethics is all about, this is a great introductory text.
May 14, 2022
“…these issues concern all thoughtful persons…complete neutrality in philosophy is neither possible nor desirable. Philosophical work always reflects a person’s deepest commitments. Such commitments, however, do not preclude a genuine striving for critical honesty”.
Arthur Holmes’ book “Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions” is a worthwhile read for anyone who values the importance of navigating the challenging world of ethics.
Holmes reveals topical issues such as cultural relativism, human rights, criminal punishment, sexual ethics and many more.
He looks at these topics from both a secular standpoint and a christian standpoint, evaluating the ways that various individuals and collectives have viewed them over time.
Though, at times, Holmes loves to go on tangents and his sentences can be quite complex and wordy, the chapters of his book both answered and provoked various questions in my mind and provided a helpful viewpoint from which to understand the complexities of navigating ethics within our complex world.
Arthur Holmes’ book “Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions” is a worthwhile read for anyone who values the importance of navigating the challenging world of ethics.
Holmes reveals topical issues such as cultural relativism, human rights, criminal punishment, sexual ethics and many more.
He looks at these topics from both a secular standpoint and a christian standpoint, evaluating the ways that various individuals and collectives have viewed them over time.
Though, at times, Holmes loves to go on tangents and his sentences can be quite complex and wordy, the chapters of his book both answered and provoked various questions in my mind and provided a helpful viewpoint from which to understand the complexities of navigating ethics within our complex world.
July 13, 2023
I would give this book 2.5 stars. Although Holmes provides helpful historical background into understanding Christian Ethics, it appears that he has fallen into Descartes’ two-story dualism (which Nancy Pearcey refutes in her much more helpful book, Love Thy Body). Specifically, in Chapter 9, addressing abortion, Holmes writes, “Biologically, too, any human fetus is of course human life; and even though it is not yet an actual person in the sense of a self-conscious and reflective being relating meaningfully to others, it is a potential person likely to develop all the powers adults have” (p. 93). “Potential person,” and “not yet an actual person?” Thus, he concludes, “that is not to say that an early fetus as potential person shares full human rights equally with actual persons. The justice issue here is not the same as with murder or genocide” (p. 93). It is a challenge to not let this page ruin the remainder of the book.
September 27, 2019
Sometimes the author quickly goes through another viewpoint, makes one argument about where it could be wrong, and then says "we have seen the ways in which x is inadequate for y" and you stop and think hang on you said one thing and basically always have the same answer of God is the source of goodness and the goal and model to follow. Anyone who's read the authors mentioned like Hume, Descartes, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, and some postmodern weird theory people ive never head of, this book will probably be too simple for you and not offer much.
January 17, 2021
A helpful introduction to philosophical ethics from the perspective of an eminent Christian philosopher and collegiate educator. While there are some minor omissions and the writing is a bit dense, it is a useful base text.
December 16, 2021
Meh. A few chapters were helpful as an introduction to current ethical perspectives. The best chapter was the last chapter on the priority of virtue over moral decision making. Overall, a decent introduction to philosophical ethics but weak building a robust biblical ethic.
July 21, 2018
I had to read this book for my philosophy class, if you are into this type of Phil that is in this book you should read, it
March 22, 2022
I found this difficult to comprehend, and also extremely dated with the blatant sexist and heteronormative language is used.
July 18, 2024
3.5*!!!
February 11, 2025
It's a great book on Ethics.
December 9, 2025
A good introduction to ethics.
July 15, 2023
Acceptable introduction to ethics.
March 12, 2010
By far the best book I read in my PHIL201 class, though I know that's a pretty sad endorsement. Holmes does a good job of laying out the various consequentialist and deontological theories of ethics before moving on to a discussion of virtue ethics. There are even a few jokes.
December 23, 2009
Gives in too much to the spirit of the age!
June 24, 2012
Very good book. Much deeper than I thought it would be. Rich in depth and knowledge and a well rounded exposure to various thoughts and philosophies. I highly recomend.
September 11, 2016
One of the better introductions into ethics that I've read, this series is very good.
April 5, 2020
I give it 4 stars because i didn't have to read the whole thing.
Read
May 25, 2015For my Philosophy class. Kind of confusing at times.
June 3, 2015
this book challenges one to think more about his or her principles concerning certain moral choices
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