A journal of academic theology

Fostering a Catholic Commitment to the Common Good: An Approach Rooted in Virtue Ethics

The author argues that virtue ethics offers a potentially fruitful framework for approaching Catholic social thought. A virtue-based approach provides a means of connecting a Catholic understanding of social justice to issues of personal morality and moral formation. Three overlapping virtues are proposed as foundational to this approach: solidarity, compassion, and hospitality. The cultivation of these three virtues involves developing habits of thinking, feeling, and acting that concretely express a vision of Catholic social teaching.

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