The Best Effect: Theology and the Origins of Consequentialism

Abstract

Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part I: The Consequentialist Moral Cosmology -- 1. God and Morality in the Seventeenth Century -- 2. Virtue and the Divine Life: Henry More's Moral Theology -- 3. Teleology Transformed: Richard Cumberland's Perfectionistic Natural Law -- Epilogue to Part I -- Part II: Evil and the Divine Consequentialist -- 4. Evil and the Consequentialist Moral Cosmology: Pierre Bayle and British Ethics -- 5. The Ethics of Archbishop William King's De origine mali -- 6. Shaftesbury the Theologian: Virtue as Friendship with God -- 7. Theodicy and the Moral Affections in Francis Hutcheson -- Epilogue to Part II -- Part III: The Anglican Utilitarian Synthesis -- 8. John Gay's "Preliminary Dissertation" -- 9. Edmund Law and the Anglican Utilitarian Tradition -- Epilogue to Part III -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index.