Abstract

Mary Hobgood employs "structural analysis" to describe the basic causes of poverty in the United States today and to critique the current debate over welfare reform. Rhetorically, the essay is monological, asserting a point of view without attending to its critics. It would be greatly strengthened by a dialogue with perspectives in both social science and Christian ethics. Giving ear to the former, Hobgood might have avoided a number of controversial causal attributions. Engaging the latter, Hobgood might have provided a stronger argument for her "expanded" principle of distributive justice, which is both more egalitarian and less rooted in human needs than are other Christian ethical analyses of the moral claims of the poor.