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To Flourish or Destruct: A Personalist Theory of Human Goods, Motivations, Failure, and Evil
Contributor(s): Smith, Christian (Author)
ISBN: 022623195X     ISBN-13: 9780226231952
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
OUR PRICE:   $98.01  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: March 2015
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Sociology - General
- Religion | Philosophy
- Philosophy | Religious
Dewey: 153.8
LCCN: 2014025470
Physical Information: 1.1" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (1.30 lbs) 384 pages
 
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Publisher Description:

In his 2010 book What Is a Person?, Christian Smith argued that sociology had for too long neglected this fundamental question. Prevailing social theories, he wrote, do not adequately "capture our deep subjective experience as persons, crucial dimensions of the richness of our own lived lives, what thinkers in previous ages might have called our 'souls' or 'hearts.'" Building on Smith's previous work, To Flourish or Destruct examines the motivations intrinsic to this subjective experience: Why do people do what they do? How can we explain the activity that gives rise to all human social life and social structures?

Smith argues that our actions stem from a motivation to realize what he calls natural human goods: ends that are, by nature, constitutionally good for all human beings. He goes on to explore the ways we can and do fail to realize these ends--a failure that can result in varying gradations of evil. Rooted in critical realism and informed by work in philosophy, psychology, and other fields, Smith's ambitious book situates the idea of personhood at the center of our attempts to understand how we might shape good human lives and societies.

Contributor Bio(s): Smith, Christian: - Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Sociology, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society, and director of the Center for Social Research at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers and Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture.