Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics

This first book-length treatment of Thomas Aquinasstheory of the body presents a Catholic understanding of the body and its implications for social and political philosophy. Making a fundamental contribution to antitotalitarian theory, McAleer argues that a sexual politics reliant upon Aquinass theory of the body is better (because less violent) than other commonly available theories. He contrasts this theory with those of four other groups of thinkers: the continental tradition represented by Kant, Schopenhauer, Merleau-Ponty, Nancy, Levinas, and Deleuze; feminism, in the work of Donna Haraway; an alternative Catholic theory to be found in Karl Rahner; and the Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank.