Love and Virtue in a Secular Age

In a comprehensive meditation on freedom and reason, Ralph Hancock reveals the pressing need for renewed confidence in virtue and agency.

With an emphasis on reclaiming the moral preconditions of Christian love, Love and Virtue in a Secular Age offers a thought-provoking study on the effects of secularism on Christian morality. Ralph Hancock brings eminent scholars of the Christian Aristotelian tradition, such as Thomas Aquinas and Pierre Manent, into conversation with insights from Leo Strauss’s critique of Christianity. Love and Virtue in a Secular Age sheds light on the various ways in which the increasing prevalence of secular humanitarian sensibility has voided the idea of humanity of its natural substance.

In a probing reflection poised at the intersection of the theological and the political, Hancock outlines a new theological ethic according to which faith must redeem a certain pride and particularism on behalf of real Christian communities and the virtues they enact.

Author Biography

Ralph C. Hancock is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University, where he teaches political philosophy. He has authored, edited, or translated many books and articles on the interrelation of religion, morality, and politics, including authoring The Responsibility of Reason and translating Pierre Manent’s Natural Law and Human Rights.