The original task of Ethics was to guide us to the most just and meaningful life possible. Today, ethicists define their discipline more narrowly, as “the rational investigation of morality.” This reduces Ethics to the examination of the Good by the True, tacitly suppressing the deep human need for the Beautiful.
In The Ethics of Beauty, Orthodox Christian theologian Timothy Patitsas first considers Beauty’s opposite, the dark events that traumatize victims of war and other ugly circumstances, and then invites us to rediscover the older Beauty-first response to moral questions and the integrity of the soul.
Covering topics ranging from creation to political theory to the Jesus Prayer, including war, psychology, trauma, chastity, healthy shame, gender, marriage, hospitality, art, architecture, theology, economics, urban planning, and complexity theory, The Ethics of Beauty lays out a worldview in which Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are each embraced as indispensable elements of the best possible human life.
This is the playbook for the End of the World. We know beauty must win, and this is it. Dr. Patitsas’ astonishing book has changed the way I talk to friends about Orthodoxy and how I talk to my children about their future.
– Julie Gould, Charleston, SC
Dr. Timothy delves deep into the hearts of the Orthodox people of the Old World, revealing their beautiful ways of knowing that have existed there since time immemorial. His writing shatters our western worldview like an earthquake. Few books have had a greater influence on my understanding of Orthodoxy and the human condition.
– Andrew Gould, Charleston, SC