Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture [Paperback]

Christian Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2009

What kind of animals are human beings? And how do our visions of the human shape our theories of social action and institutions? In Moral, Believing Animals, Christian Smith advances a creative theory of human persons and culture that offers innovative, challenging answers to these and other fundamental questions in sociological, cultural, and religious theory.

Smith suggests that human beings have a peculiar set of capacities and proclivities that distinguishes them significantly from other animals on this planet. Despite the vast differences in humanity between cultures and across history, no matter how differently people narrate their lives and histories, there remains an underlying structure of human personhood that helps to order human culture, history, and narration. Drawing on important recent insights in moral philosophy, epistemology, and narrative studies, Smith argues that humans are animals who have an inescapable moral and spiritual dimension. They cannot avoid a fundamental moral orientation in life and this, says Smith, has profound consequences for how sociology must study human beings.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Well written and clearly argued, Moral Believing Animals is both a searching critique of recent social theory and an important first step toward the articulation of a richer model of human personhood, motivation, and culture."
--INSight

"A concise book that is enjoyable and easy to read, offering a far-reaching synthesis of a variety of philosophical and sociological approaches.... Smith masterfully situates many of the key current debates while calling attention to their historical origins and implicit assumptions."
--Contemporary Sociology

"An admirable model of wide-ranging and rich yet focused scholarship."
--The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

About the Author

William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame

Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199731977
• ISBN-13: 978-0199731978
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society, and the Center for Social Research at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of many books, including What is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up (Chicago 201); Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Do Not Give Away More Money (OUP 2008); Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (OUP 2005), Winner of the 2005 "Distinguished Book Award" from Christianity Today; and Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (OUP 2003).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cutting Edge Treatment of Religion and Social Science, August 1, 2003

By 

Venerable Bede (Springfield, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (Hardcover)

Sociologists have been waiting a long time
for something like this. Though the sociology
of religion has come a long way, works that
unpack the religious and philosophical
assumptions of sociology have been few
and far between. Besides Peter Berger's Rumor
of Angels and Robert Bellah's Beyond Belief,
I'm not sure that anything comes as close as
Moral, Believing Animals in laying the groundwork
for a dialogue between religion and social science.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars insightful thoughts on personhood, April 26, 2011

By 

suburban dissident - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (Paperback)

This book represents the first attempt of one of the leading minds in the sociology of religion to address the question of what exactly are human persons - one of the central units of analysis in the study of society. With the obvious nod to Alasdair MacIntyre (and his work Moral Reasoning Animals), Smith points out how central to any concept of the human person is the recognition that we are, as the title intimates, moral (in that we have a sense of there being right and wrong things, actions, etc. -though that doesn't mean we share similar moral content!) and believing (ideas and concepts fill and shape the way we view our world). With that in mind, Smith than looks at the consequences of this for how we view motivations, narratives, culture, etc.

This thought provoking work should be viewed as an important transition point from Smith's early substantive work on religion, motivations, and action (Resisting Reagan and the Emergence of Liberation Theology) as well as his work on beliefs, culture and collective identity (American Evangelicalism) toward his most recent tome that draws a more complete and complex picture of the human person (What is a Person?).

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An understandable and interesting book, May 26, 2007

By 

S. VanCott (PA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (Hardcover)

I read this book for a Sociology capstone class and found it very interesting. Smith writes in an understandable way and presents his theory in an organized way. I really like his theory of personhood.