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Augustine famously claimed that the virtues of pagan Rome were nothing more than splendid vices. This critique reinvented itself as a suspicion of acquired virtue as such, and true Christian virtue has, ever since, been set against a false, hypocritical virtue alleged merely to conceal pride. Putting On Virtue reveals how a distrust of learned and habituated virtue shaped both early modern Christian moral reflection and secular forms of ethical thought. Jennifer Herdt develops her claims through an argument of broad historical sweep, which brings together the Aristotelian tradition as taken up by Thomas Aquinas with the early modern thinkers who shaped modern liberalism. In chapters on Luther, Bunyan, the Jansenists, Mandeville, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant, she argues that efforts to make a radical distinction between true Christian virtue and its tainted imitations actually created an autonomous natural ethics separate from Christianity. This secular value system valorized pride and authenticity, while rendering graced human agency less meaningful. Ultimately, Putting On Virtue traces a path from suspicion of virtue to its secular inversion, from confession of dependence to assertion of independence.

Virtue. --- Imitation. --- Christian ethics. --- Ethics. --- Deontology --- Ethics, Primitive --- Ethology --- Moral philosophy --- Morality --- Morals --- Philosophy, Moral --- Science, Moral --- Philosophy --- Values --- Ethical theology --- Moral theology --- Theology, Ethical --- Theology, Moral --- Christian life --- Christian philosophy --- Religious ethics --- Mimicry --- Influence (Psychology) --- Social influence --- Conduct of life --- Ethics --- Human acts --- rome, roman, ancient, history, historical, italy, critique, analysis, critical, augustine, pagan, religion, faith, belief, vice, virtue, virtuous, taboo, early modern, christian, christianity, religious studies, secular, ethics, ethical, liberalism, luther, bunyan, jansenist, mandeville, hume, rousseau, philosophy, philosophical, kant.

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sociology --- NRMs --- norms --- spirituality --- faith --- alternative religion and young people --- new religious paradigms and European youth --- modernity --- Western Europe --- theory of materialism --- theory of postmaterialism --- New Age --- enchantment and magic --- esoteric practices --- consequences of new esotericism --- image of God --- prayer --- new religious movements and youth culture in Great Britain --- ecstasy --- salvation --- the techno youth scene --- symbolic structural differentiation --- new religious phenomena in Eastern Europe --- neo-pagan religion --- symbolic practices --- validating symbolized identity --- church religiosity --- alternative religiosity --- family problems --- blind alley situations --- conflict of values --- the generation gap --- Iceland --- Nyall --- Asatru