2021/07/13 by David S. Sytsma · 4 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Classical Philosophy and Thought #Medieval Philosophy and Theology #Theology and Philosophy of Evil
paper · pdf · doi:10.20935/al1650
openalex publication_date 2021/07/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The past generation has witnessed a remarkable revival of virtue ethics, and with it a renewed interest in Aristotle's classic text on the subject-Nicomachean Ethics. Despite this renewed interest, many scholars, including Protestant ethicists, are unaware of the importance of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for Protestantism historically. Indeed, we read of Protestants' "rejection of virtue ethics" (Gregory 2012: 269), or that following the Reformation, Protestants "grew increasingly wary of exhortations to practice the virtues" (DeYoung 2020: 28). One Protestant scholar believes that the adoption of something akin to "the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of virtue ethics" would require "that we abandon our tradition" (Haas 2002: 91). We also find Protestants who argue for a concept of virtue but "do so from Scripture without reference to their own heritage" (Rehnman 2012: 490). As a historical fact, however, Protestants produced an astonishingly rich corpus of ethical texts based on Nicomachean Ethics, and new historical narratives are beginning to correct the record (Vos 2020: 85-108; Svensson 2019). This essay, therefore, will introduce readers to the origin and development of Protestant ethical works in the tradition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.