Spirituality and the Good Life

David McPherson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Creighton University, Omaha. His research focuses on ethics and philosophy of religion, and has appeared in philosophical journals including Philosophy, Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, and American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.

'… the combination of theoretically and practically focused essays creates a rich and productive hermeneutic tension for the reader. Some chapters invite the thought that spirituality aims to draw us into religious identities in which fledgling spiritual yearnings are trained and fulfilled by very specific types of communal belonging. Others invite us to wonder whether religious identities aim at spiritual transformation, providing a workshop of time-tested communal and individual practices that are knit together by historical and doctrinal identification, but find their deepest fulfillment in transformed adherents working together toward authenticity and justice in the world. There are different senses, perhaps, in which both insights are wise and potentially transformative, especially when held in tension.' Matthew C. Halteman, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

• Introduction David McPherson; 1. Philosophy, religion, and spirituality John Cottingham; 2. The problem of impiety Cora Diamond; 3. The virtue of piety Robert C. Roberts; 4. Homo religiosus: does spirituality have a place in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics? David McPherson; 5. Desire and the spiritual life Fiona Ellis; 6. Between heaven and earth: sensory experience and the goods of the spiritual life Mark R. Wynn; 7. The Jewish Sabbath as a spiritual practice Samuel Fleischacker; 8. The power of the spoken word: prayer, invocation, and supplication in Islam Mukhtar H. Ali; 9. Aristotelian friendship and Ignatian companionship Karen Stohr; 10. Starting with compassion Richard White; 11. Identifying with the Confucian heaven: immanent and transcendent Dao May Sim; 12. Agnostic spirituality John Houston.