Although Anders Nygren deserves a lot of the credit for launching the debate about the Christian understanding of love, his insistence on the distinctiveness of agape has been severely challenged by advocates for the sensuousness of eros and the mutuality of philia. The most serious challenge, however, may come from defenses of agape where the altruistic distinctiveness of the theological thrust is qualified by the claims of an ethical horizon. In spite of his disservice to eros and his neglect of (...) philia, Nygren deserves to be heard in his insistence that agape is a unique concept, and that this uniqueness is due particularly to its theological source and reference. (shrink)

Colin Grant ranges widely in his attempt to retrieve Anders Nygren 's depiction of agape, but the claims I examine here are that agape is distinctive, we should offer a theocentric account of it, Nygren 's altruism should be endorsed, and secular defenses of impartiality are not other-regarding enough. I accept and, reject, and deny that is our only alternative to. Neighbor-love and self-love are like and unlike each other, and the unlikenesses are of more than one kind.

Evolutionary anthropology has focused on the origins of war, or rather ethnocentricity, because it epitomizes the problem of group selection, and because war may itself have been the main agent of group selection. The neo-Darwinian synthesis in biology has explained how ethnocentricity might evolve by group selection, and the distinction between evoked culture and adopted culture, suggested by the emerging synthesis in evolutionary psychology, has explained how it might be transmitted. Ethnocentric mechanisms could have evolved by genetic selection in ancestral (...) hominids, or through the interaction of genetic and cultural selection in modern humans, or both. The existence of similar behaviors in chimpanzees and the parallel development of early human societies around the globe are arguments for such inherited mechanisms. There may have been some adaptive breakthroughs in purely cultural evolution, but this process does not seem likely to produce long-term Darwinian adaptations because of the prolificity of cultural traits. Warfare may once have been a major agent of group selection, but the rates of extinction among human groups are so slow as to render this improbable since the rise of state-level societies, whose warfare tends to become a cyclical balance-of-power situation. Perhaps the most serious implication of current evolutionary thought is that the individualistic model of culture common in the social sciences and humanities is outmoded, and should be replaced by a new model that recognizes the organismic nature of human societies. (shrink)

This article reexamines the rational choice or economic approach to human studies. Its adherents claim that its extension beyond its original domain to all human behavior can finally lead to integration of the human studies, especially social theory, and thus their elevation from what they see as a chaotic state. Specifically, they propose grounding human studies on the premise that humans are rational egoists or self-interested utility maximizers. Although this premise has been the conceptual foundation of orthodox economic theory, it (...) has been questioned, and even in part discredited in its heterodox versions. This reexamination casts serious doubts on such claims. (shrink)

Recent work on the ethics of love may be divided into norm-centered and affective-centered approaches. Norm-centered approaches, exemplified by Hallett and Outka, argue for either moral parity between self and other or for self-subordination; they regard self-love as legitimate within strict boundaries; and they sharply distinguish agape from other forms of love. Affective-centered approaches, exemplified by Vacek and Post, con- centrate on love for God as the central context for neighbor-love; they ac- cord a high status to friendship, marriage, and (...) other primary relationships; and they regard all forms of love as Christian in that they are transformed by grace and constitute cooperation with God. The re- maining agenda for both approaches is primarily theological, including especially the need to develop an extended application of the doctrines of creation and grace for the status of "special relations" in the ethics of love. (shrink)

The role of agape in Christian ethics has been a major concern for twentieth century ethicists. In America, the dominant ethical position has stressed other-regard--often pressed to the point of significant personal sacrifice--as the content of agape. Feminist ethicists are now criticizing an exclusive emphasis on other-regard. They are stressing the need for a healthy self-regard and hence they are exploring mutuality as the most appropriate image of Christian love.