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Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996. 327 pp. $49.95, $16.95 (pb).
This book is part of the New Studies in Christian Ethics series and of the Religion, Culture, and Family Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment and the University of Chicago. Lisa Sowle Cahill, a professor of Christian ethics at Boston College, has produced the fitting scholarly work.
Cahill begins with a cautionary note: The beneficial affirmation of companionship and pleasure in contemporary sexual ethics should not forget the moral meaning of parenthood and kinship, despite suspicions of a historical emphasis on procreation as the sole good of marriage. Her opening chapters consider the pitfalls of deconstructionism, especially its extreme moral relativism in the context of postmodernist thought. She asserts that social ethics proceeds on "the assumption of a shared humanity and at least a fundamentally shared moral vision," for otherwise "social criticism in the name of justice would be impossible." She identifies herself as a critical moral realist willing to generalize (with caution) from human experiences of need and flourishing. In chapter 4, Cahill turns to the...