Bloomsbury The Single Individual and the Searcher of Hearts: A Retrieval of Conscience in the Work of Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard (T&T Clark Enquiries in Theological Ethics)

Jeff Morgan argues that both Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard conceive of conscience as an individuals moral self-awareness before God, specifically before the claim God makes upon each person. This innovative reading offers a correction to prevailing views that both figures, especially Kant, are significantly responsible for laying the grounds for the autonomous individual of modern life the atomistic individual who is accountable chiefly to themselves as their own lawmaker. The Single Individual and the Searcher of Hearts first challenges the dismissal of conscience in twentieth-century Christian ethics, often in favour of an emphasis on corporate life and corporate self-understanding. Morgan does this through a fresh engagement with major figures such as Stanley Hauerwas and Oliver ODonovan. He shows that this dismissal is based on a misinterpretation of Immanuel Kants practical philosophy and moral theology and Søren Kierkegaards second authorship. Instead, Morgan situates Kant and Kierkegaard within a broad trajectory in Christian thought in which an individuals moral self-awareness before God, as distinct from moral self-awareness before a community, is an essential feature of the Christian moral life. This volume is essential reading for students of twentieth-century Christian ethics and moral philosophy, as well as scholars specialising in the philosophy of Kant and Kierkegaard.