Redlands California

on April 5, 2009 at 8:12 am · Edit

The Love Ethic, September 29, 2008
By William Walthall (Redlands, CA, USA) – See all my reviews

I was a philosophy minor in college and walked away with only a bunch of names, a few nuggets (“I think, therefore I am”) and absolutely no ethical anchors other than what I already believed about the Bible. One of the strengths of Terry Bell’s book is that he takes complicated ethical positions and simplifies them for average people like me. (I think this is the first time I’ve understood what the “categorical imperative” is!) Rather than take apart each ethic, Bell simply states why each is categorically inadequate. He does a particularly good job with Fletcher’s Situation Ethics. Also fascinating is his personal encounter with Viktor Frankl. Bell is extremely well read, gifted in simplifying complicated philosophy, and, in spite of his obvious erudite background, manages to bring the reader to the only conclusion a logical person can make: “…A human being exists on a much different dimension (than a highly evolved machine), empowered by the Transcendent, enlivened by the Eternal, made meaningful by Agape.” This book ought to be mandatory reading for all college students.
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