Evans, C. Stephen.2024-07-172024-07-172023-082023-08August 202https://hdl.handle.net/2104/12786This dissertation provides a Kierkegaard-inspired framework for a characteristically “neighborly” understanding of special loves—that is, of special loves thoroughly integrated with, and thus transformed by, neighbor-love, or the agape of the New Testament. When spelled out, I claim, Kierkegaard’s account of what it means to love the special relation as one’s neighbor serves not only as a promising and theologically robust conception of Christian special love but also as a unique response to the problem of partiality in ethics, with the potential to overcome certain stalemates in the current discussions. Kierkegaard’s response to the problem (usually framed today as the problem of how to justify a degree of partiality or special treatment given that, morally speaking, everyone matters equally) is the relatively extreme one according to which partiality is justified, not somehow despite impartiality constraints, but conditional on its being an application of impartial morality. Drawing out the full range of significance attributable to Kierkegaard’s idea of God as the middle term in love, I seek to defend the possibility—and necessity—of neighbor-love modulated across a variety of forms. I argue that this ideal of Kierkegaard’s, which has been called “agapic infusion” (Davenport 2017, 49), is coherent in that it leaves the characteristic goods of special loves intact in their natural integrity while also facilitating their fullest expression. In short, Kierkegaard’s view of love, properly conceived, integrates or harmonizes the partial and impartial in such a way that neither compromises with respect to impartiality’s transformative potential nor simply reduces special loves to something inappropriately universal or abstract.application/pdfEnglishThesisNo access – contact librarywebmaster@baylor.edu2024-07-17