The Ethics of Tainted Legacies
Human Flourishing after Traumatic Pasts

Diagnoses “tainted legacies” as a moral problem, constructing a typology of responses to compromised thinkers, traditions, and institutions.

Karen V. Guth (Author)

9781009100359, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 July 2022

300 pages
22.3 x 14.5 x 2.3 cm, 0.5 kg

'This is original work that not only benefits the field of Christian ethics, but also the larger social contexts from which these tainted legacies and any possible remedies will emerge. This book is accessible while also being challenging, both in the depth of its insight and the seriousness of the problems addressed.' Rebekah Miles, Reading Religion

What do we do when a beloved comedian known as 'America's Dad' is convicted of sexual assault? Or when we discover that the man who wrote 'all men are created equal' also enslaved hundreds of people? Or when priests are exposed as pedophiles? From the popular to the political to the profound, each day brings new revelations that respected people, traditions, and institutions are not what we thought they were. Despite the shock that these disclosures produce, this state of affairs is anything but new. Facing the concrete task of living well when our best moral resources are not only contaminated but also potentially corrupting is an enduring feature of human experience. In this book, Karen V. Guth identifies 'tainted legacies' as a pressing contemporary moral problem and ethical challenge. Constructing a typology of responses to compromised thinkers, traditions, and institutions, she demonstrates the relevance of age-old debates in Christian theology for those who confront legacies tarnished by the traumas of slavery, racism, and sexual violence.

1. Tainted legacies: morally injurious 'remainders' of traumatic pasts
2. Common responses to tainted legacies
3. 'Biblical birthright' and the #MeToo movement: feminist and womanist biblical scholarship on how to read cultural texts of terror
4. Heritage and hate: womanist ethics and the confederate monuments debate
5. Inheriting America's original sin: can our alma maters make amends for slavery?
6. Individual and institutional responses to John Howard Yoder's tainted legacy: fostering flourishing from a traumatic past.

Subject Areas: Gender studies, gender groups [JFSJ], Religious ethics [HRAM1], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]