The Ethics of Tainted Legacies: Human Flourishing after Traumatic Pasts

by Karen V. Guth

Overview

What do we do when a beloved comedian known as 'America's Dad' is convicted of sexual assault? Or when we discover that the man who wrote 'all men are created equal' also enslaved hundreds of people? Or when priests are exposed as pedophiles? From the popular to the political to the profound, each day brings new revelations that respected people, traditions, and institutions are not what we thought they were. Despite the shock that these disclosures produce, this state of affairs is anything but new. Facing the concrete task of living well when our best moral resources are not only contaminated but also potentially corrupting is an enduring feature of human experience. In this book, Karen V. Guth identifies 'tainted legacies' as a pressing contemporary moral problem and ethical challenge. Constructing a typology of responses to compromised thinkers, traditions, and institutions, she demonstrates the relevance of age-old debates in Christian theology for those who confront legacies tarnished by the traumas of slavery, racism, and sexual violence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009121033
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/28/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Karen V. Guth is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is the author of Christian Ethics at the Boundary: Feminism and Theologies of Public Life (Fortress, 2015) and numerous articles in publications including the Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and the Christian Century.

Table of Contents

1. Tainted legacies: morally injurious 'remainders' of traumatic pasts; 2. Common responses to tainted legacies; 3. 'Biblical birthright' and the #MeToo movement: feminist and womanist biblical scholarship on how to read cultural texts of terror; 4. Heritage and hate: womanist ethics and the confederate monuments debate; 5. Inheriting America's original sin: can our alma maters make amends for slavery?; 6. Individual and institutional responses to John Howard Yoder's tainted legacy: fostering flourishing from a traumatic past.