Redeeming the Enlightenment

In this probing book Bruce K. Ward reexamines four of the moral imperatives or "liberal virtues" associated with the Enlightenment -- equality, authenticity, tolerance, and compassion -- and argues that they are, in fact, based on Christian moral ideals. In the current debate surrounding post-Enlightenment secular humanism, Ward contends that we should seek not to reject or reclaim the Enlightenment but to redeem it.

Ward's study largely engages three key modern thinkers -- Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky -- yet also includes such other notables as Kant, Locke, Heidegger, Tolstoy, Kafka, René Girard, Charles Taylor, and Martha Nussbaum. The result is a lively and provocative forum for reconsidering and creatively retrieving what is most valuable in Enlightenment thought.