Sullivan, Ceri  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1698-7404
2024.
George Herbert and the business of practical piety: Nudging towards God.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
10.1093/9780198906841.001.0001
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Abstract
Today’s nudge theory points out that people make good choices over issues where they have had past experience of similar circumstances, where there is reliable, substantial, and relevant information about the situation, and where they will get prompt feedback about the effect of a decision. Yet none of these conditions apply to the most vital of decisions to face the early modern godly: how can one be saved? This book uses nudge theory to show how practical divinity jumps over the doleful conclusions of predestination to supply readers with suggestions on how to prepare to act, regardless of their final destiny. Such texts create cognitive niches to support cheerful, godly thought and action, in a way which is far from being despairing or compulsive. Their nudges are put into practice in the religious community created by the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Together, such prescriptions and examples highlight how George Herbert’s The Temple (1633) is a compendium of the techniques of choice architecture. Herbert’s poems are full of the humour emerging from a life of faith which is willing to guard high ideals by low cunning, stooping to use the least little things to change a self. The book initially calls on extended mind theory to ask what sort of minor physical and social structures scaffold decisions, then examines a selection of nudges used by Herbert: contracts with the self, building a mind, cleaning a heart, conversing with God, making to-do lists, and working on working well.
| Item Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Book Type: | Authored Book |
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| ISBN: | 9780198906810 |
| Last Modified: | 20 Oct 2025 14:15 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/159077 |
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