The Disappearance of Ethics

“Characteristically wise, perceptive and learned, Oliver O’Donovan’s Gifford Lectures make a powerful case for a renewal of moral deliberation and reasoning in our time. Generated in the midst of lockdown, his reflections make a persuasive case for an ethical vision that is both rooted in context and shaped by our theological traditions.”

David Fergusson

“This measured, magisterial and beautifully written book provides good news for those seeking a coherent understanding of the moral life which is suffused with Scriptural wisdom incisively engaged with philosophical traditions.”

Joshua Hordern

“In this challenging book, Professor Oliver O’Donovan argues that the discipline of ethics, considered as a branch of philosophy with close affinities to natural theology, depends on a theological construal of nature, history, and interpersonal agency. This is a powerful book, grounded in O’Donovan’s extensive reading in both theology and modern philosophical ethics, and informed by the distinctive theological vision that runs throughout all his writings. At the end of the day, this book offers more than a critique of contemporary ethics—it offers a starting point for a renewed discipline of moral theology, squarely grounded in a theological vision of reality, while also oriented towards the practical choices that we face.”

Jean Porter

“I read this book as a hopeful elegy for ethics as a discipline: a lament for the ways the university has let ethics die, but with the hope it might not be too late. This is vintage O’Donovan: erudite, careful, a veritable master class in how to respectfully engage the history of thought and the university as we experience it. But there is also something new here in his articulation of the relationship between theology and ethics. A very fitting consummation of a lifetime of work.”

James K. A. Smith

“Once again, Oliver O’Donovan has taken on an important and challenging topic and treated it with his customary thoroughness and incisiveness. The Disappearance of Ethics reflects the wise insights of a senior scholar that are simultaneously measured and bold. This is a must read for everyone claiming ethics as their discipline, as well as those who are interested in or concerned about the current state of ethical discourse.”

Brent Waters

“Socrates famously said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living,’ but Oliver O’Donovan argues that the everyday lives we lead are worth examining, particularly in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is a profound reflection on the mutual service theology and ethics can give to one another by the premier theological ethicist of his generation.”

Kevin J. Vanhoozer

“A compelling account of how evangelical theology learned from the resurrection yields a natural ethic. This book reads like O’Donovan’s meditation upon Luther's lyric: ‘Gar heimlich führt er sein Gewalt’ (‘How secretly he wields his strength’).”

Esther Reed

“In an age when ethics courses, ethics centers and ethics committees abound, it is tempting to imagine that the discipline of ethics must be flourishing. But if a moral theologian of the stature of Oliver O’Donovan devotes his Gifford Lectures to the concern that this may disguise a much deeper forgetfulness of the fundamental categories that make ethics possible, then we need to attend. His deeply pondered and richly furnished exploration of the grounding of practical reason revisits the themes of some of his earliest work, this time underlining the public and apologetic role of theology in restoring the credibility of moral thinking itself.”

Robert Song