Morality's Future and the Transcendent

This is the third and final volume of a three-part work exploring the evolution of wisdom, understood broadly to include both practical wisdom and humanity's capacity to connect with the divine. The first volume was primarily concerned with interspecies relationships and the core moral capacities of justice, compassion, and practical wisdom, arguing in the light of that analysis for the need for a different theoretical framing of the moral life, based on evolutionary, theological, and philosophical arguments. The second volume considered the darker side of human nature, the tendency for different vices and their evolutionary trajectories. This third volume focuses on humanity's capacity to reach for the transcendent within an evolutionary context and in dialogue with those moral capabilities associated with the spiritual life, including the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, alongside gratitude, wisdom, humility, grace, and joy. The evolution of compassion is now situated within the context of the development of humanity's capacity for mercy. This book weaves together and interrogates philosophical concepts, especially those inspired by the work of Paul Ricoeur, alongside moral psychology and the classic moral theology of the virtues in the work of Thomas Aquinas, considered in dialogue with the work of other theologians such as Karl Rahner. This volume is, therefore, concerned with the fundamental question of what difference the spiritual life makes to human capacities to do good in the light of what we know about our evolutionary past and current psychological theories, while also providing a critique of the latter through theological and philosophical epistemologies. It is relevant to the broader question of how change for the good might be possible in human behaviour, especially in the light of the serious global eco-social challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century.

Celia E. Deane-Drummond is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Laudato Si' Research Institute at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. She was Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame from 2011 to 2019. She holds two doctorates, one in plant physiology and one in systematic theology. Her research is at the intersection of theology, ethics, and the biological and evolutionary sciences. She is a well-established, internationally renowned speaker and leader in the field and has published hundreds of book chapters and scholarly articles as well as numerous academic books and edited volumes alongside more pedagogical materials.