ABSTRACT
Ethics, from within a theistic construal, proceeds from and reflects a vision of a healthy God-relationship, and seeks to extend it universally. Object-relations theory at least lays down the conditions that a healthy God-relationship would have to meet and establishes the necessity of interpersonal relations for fully effective functioning in the world. Philosopher Charles Taylor has noted the importance of the 'unholy alliance' of epistemological and ontological relativism. One consequence of moral philosophy's avoidance of ontological questions is its lack of concern with a notion of the good "as the object of love or allegiance". Many modern psychologists make the same point. Joseph de Rivera has said that "true value can only be revealed by true emotion. In psychology, if one starts with the self as disengaged and non-relational, one can get no purchase on the role of emotions as revelatory of the value of the other and reciprocally, of oneself.
