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| Preface | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Starting Points | |
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| Some Decisions Are Easier Than Others | |
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| Easy Decisions | |
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| More Difficult Decisions | |
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| Moral Dilemmas | |
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| The Deep Basis of the Moral Life | |
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| Practical Decision-Making | |
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| Why Ethics Is Ultimately Religious | |
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| Acceptable and Unacceptable Forms of Revelation | |
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| The Useful Incompleteness of Religious Tradition | |
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| Moral Virtue and Character | |
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| Intuition and Deliberation in Moral Decision-Making | |
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| The Absolute and the Relative in Moral Life | |
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| Have We Become Too Relativistic? | |
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| The Natural-Law Approach | |
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| God as the Absolute | |
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| Facts and Values | |
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| Individual Integrity and Communal Authority | |
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| The Transcendent Absolute | |
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| Rules and Relationships | |
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| The Moral Burden of Proof | |
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| A Legal Analogy | |
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| Applying the Idea of "Presumption" to Ethical Decision-Making | |
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| Moral Presumptions as a Common Starting Point | |
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| Basic Moral Presumptions | |
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| Uses of Scripture | |
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| Positive Christian Value Presumptions | |
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| The Limits and Flaws in Human Nature | |
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| Presumptions That Preserve Balance | |
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| A Presumption for Scripture and Tradition | |
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| When Presumptions Are in Conflict | |
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| Applications and Illustrations | |
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| Difficult Personal Decisions | |
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| Sexual Intimacy and Family Life | |
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| Contraception and Abortion | |
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| Choosing a Spouse | |
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| Divorce | |
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| Vocational Choices | |
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| The Uses of Our Money | |
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| Political Choices | |
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| Hard Choices in the Public Arena | |
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| Abortion | |
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| Homosexuality | |
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| The Dilemma of "Affirmative Action" | |
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| Securing Economic Justice | |
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| Environmental Policies | |
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| Criminal Justice | |
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| Uses of Military Power | |
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| Hard Choices at the Global Level | |
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| International Institution Building | |
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| International Security and Policing | |
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| Nuclear Disarmament | |
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| Economic Globalization | |
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| Global Warming | |
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| Hard Choices in Communities of Faith | |
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| Appendix: Avoiding Pitfalls in Moral Argument | |
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| Notes | |
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| Index | |