This article leverages the theme of friendship in Oliver O’Donovan's Entering into Rest as a locus of comparison between his earlier Resurrection and Moral Order and the Ethics as Theology trilogy. It does so by using demonstrable methodological differences between the two moral-theological projects to illumine a fundamental theological coherence. The article pursues this task in five sections. The first expounds O’Donovan's reflection on friendship in Entering into Rest. The second articulates the triadic approach adopted in these reflections. (...) The third examines a similar triad articulated by O’Donovan in Resurrection and Moral Order. The fourth uses this triadic connection to demonstrate theological coherence between Resurrection and Moral Order and the Ethics as Theology trilogy. The fifth concludes by raising a critical query about the arbitrariness of the triadic methodology employed by O’Donovan. The article’s conclusion considers more generally—in light of O’Donovan's pursuit of ethics as theology—the inherent contingency and incompleteness of theological ethics. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 2, June 2019, Page 199-201.

Christian ethics is rooted in Christian worship, community, and identity, yet must cooperate across traditions to alleviate global injustices that violate love of God and neighbor. Although practical ethical commitment may be contingent on an experience of ultimacy that is ‘outside ethics’, this experience is not limited to confessing Christians.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Renewing Moral Theology: Christian Ethics as Action, Character, and Grace by Daniel A. WestbergHoward HarrisRenewing Moral Theology: Christian Ethics as Action, Character, and Grace Daniel A. Westberg DOWNERS GROVE, IL: IVP ACADEMIC, 2015. 281 PP. $25.00Renewing Moral Theology by Daniel Westberg has two professed purposes—to be a moral theology text for seminary use and to be a book with wider public appeal. (...) Short chapters, real-life examples, simple reading lists, and unobtrusive footnotes make it accessible to that wider public. Yet the rigor and careful argument will satisfy the need in many introductory classrooms for a moral theology text that is cognizant of Aquinas, Vatican II reforms, and Anglican scholarship.Westberg sees the 1960s as a disruptive time for ethical thought in the Anglican tradition, with the "shifting and seductive winds" of situation ethics gaining sufficient sway to sweep away the prevailing systematic approach to moral theology (9). He seeks to follow an Anglican path of mutual enrichment, blending Evangelical emphases and Catholic moral philosophy. Virtue ethics, with its roots in Aristotle and Aquinas and its more recent renaissance, is at the core of the book. Part 1 deals with moral reasoning and action, while part 2 discusses the seven principal virtues: wisdom in action, justice, fortitude, self-control, faith, hope, and love.The initial focus is on practical reasoning, action, and character, acknowledging that many daily questions have a moral component yet do not require casuistry and law for resolution. Westberg puts forward a four-stage model of practical reason involving intention, deliberation, decision, and execution, sourced from Aquinas (reminiscent of James Rest's Four Component Model). The model is used to show that both intellect and will must be engaged and that the process can be iterative. The importance of the Holy Spirit in the forming of character and in the infusion of the theological virtues is made clear in Westberg's elucidation of the sequence through practical reasoning to action. Christian ethics is different, and Christians need "a new way of explaining Christian discipleship" (18).Part 2 begins with a useful introductory chapter about the development of virtues, with a focus on Christ and a caution against vagueness, against reducing morality to an undefined love that is of little relevance in either deliberation or action. In the discussion of individual virtues, Westberg brings together traditional scholarship, including Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, and Barth, with contemporary work from theology, philosophy, and psychology including Hauerwas, O'Donovan, and Veritatis splendor. Westberg questions the idea, grounded in Aristotle, that excellence in a virtue lies in a mean between extremes, wondering [End Page 203] aloud if Aristotle went too far in this (152). The treatment of love includes an examination of the nature of agape in which Westberg sets out to show that this Christian love ought not be seen as self-sacrificing but as mutual and nurturing. The Gospel basis is apparent here as the argument is grounded on "God is love" (1 John 4:16); on examples of Jesus showing preferential love for the disciples and Lazarus, Martha, and Mary; and on "a mutuality of love in the Godhead," before noting parallels to Aristotle's notions of friendship (238–40).Throughout the book difficult questions are not shunned, with diversion avoided by pointing to alternative sources of more detailed analysis; animal ethics, loving one's enemies, and whether non-Christians can be "good" are dealt with in this way, while the implications of biblical teaching on sin receives a longer treatment. Renewing Moral Theology puts Christ at the center of a discussion of how to live well. It is accessible to the Christian who has an interest in moral questions while being sufficiently tightly argued for the introductory classroom at which it is also aimed.Howard HarrisUniversity of South AustraliaCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

A key aspect of Oliver O’Donovan's approach to ethics and theology is the notion of Scripture's ‘authorisation’ of concepts. Authorisation is an organic process of concepts and Scripture illuminating each other, where Scripture has ultimate authority over concepts. That is, while concepts from various disciplines can illuminate biblical texts, the biblical texts in return shape those concepts. Here concepts are formed organically guided by the Spirit. Such a notion of authorisation lies dormant in O’Donovan's earlier political theology, (...) The Desire of the Nations, and comes to fuller expression in his relatively recent Ethics as Theology. (shrink)

The work of philosophers in business ethics has been important in providing a systematic framework to analyze moral obligations of corporations and their many stakeholders. Yet the field of ethics as defined by the philosophers of the past two centuries is too narrow to do justice to what is at stake in the business world. Ethics in the theological perspective is not primarily concerned with analyzing situations so that one can make right decisions, but rather with reflecting (...) on what is constitutive of the good life. Theological business ethics can apply a crucial corrective to the business ethics of philosophers by broadening the endeavor to include a vision of what constitutes a good life — of the kind of persons we want to be and the kind of communities we want to form. (shrink)

What might we learn if the study of ethics focused less on hard cases and more on the practices of everyday life? In Everyday Ethics, Michael Lamb and Brian Williams gathered some of the world's leading scholars and practitioners of moral theology (including some Georgetown University Press authors) to explore that question in dialogue with anthropology and the social sciences. In a field largely begun by Michael Banner, contributors engage with and extend his ideas of ethics (...) as it is practiced in daily life. Crossing disciplinary boundaries, these scholars analyze the ethics of ordinary practices--from eating, learning, and loving the neighbor to borrowing and spending, using technology, and working in a flexible economy. Along the way, they consider the moral and methodological questions that emerge from this interdisciplinary dialogue and assess the implications for the future of moral theology. (shrink)

This sequel to the highly acclaimed "Cosmos and Anthropos" demonstrates the impact on social, ethical, and theological doctrines of the twentieth-century scientific revolution, particularly the Anthropic Principle. Harris reviews the main arguments put forward in the Western philosophical tradition for the existence of God, as well as the critique of those arguments, and shows that the conflict between religion and science since the seventeenth century has resulted more from the implications of the Copernican-Newtonian scientific paradigm than from any insuperable divergence (...) of dogma or ultimate aim. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethics as a Work of Charity: Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue by David DecosimoTravis KroekerEthics as a Work of Charity: Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue David Decosimo stanford, ca: stanford university press, 2014. 376 pp. $65.00 / $29.95If "debeo distinguere" represents the programmatic scholarly agenda for "prophetic Thomism," over against the more mystical narrative "exitus et reditus" itinerary of Dionysian Augustinianism, David Decosmio should be considered a (...) virtuous practitioner of this Thomistic craft in the domain of political ethics. To put it more accurately, Decosimo provides a complex, lucid account of his reading of Thomas as one who tutors Christians and especially Christian ethicists through "fraternal correction" in what it means to provide a generous, charitable account of "pagan virtue" via the making of distinctions. For Decosimo the word "pagan" refers to non-Christian "outsiders"—that is, "all those without charity" (11). While that may seem to be a noncharitable way to put it, Decosimo means it to bespeak that form of charity that allows non-Christians to be and to speak as non-Christians, absent (or refusing) those virtues that Thomas calls "theological"—those habits infused supernaturally by God through the "redemptive grace" that orders and unites humans "in loving friendship with the God revealed in Jesus Christ" (11). Thomas's representative pagan is, of course, Aristotle. Decosimo insists that a correct reading of Thomas opposes both "hyper-Augustinian Thomism" (on which account non-Christians are incapable of true virtue) as well as a "public reason Thomism" (which avoids theological claims). At the same time, Decosimo claims that Thomas remains fully Augustinian in his theological account of charity and yet "unites and transforms Aristotle and Augustine alike to teach charity toward outsiders and their virtues" (1). To put it in terms of the formula Decosimo reiterates throughout the book, Aquinas "strives to be Aristotelian by being Augustinian and vice versa" (41, 70, 181 253, etc.). In so doing, he offers resources for a prophetic Thomism that more charitably navigates the church's relations to secular politics by welcoming the contributions of pagan virtue to its own Christian virtue.If "charity's scholarly work is the multiplication of distinctions" (8) then Decosimo's book is a model of charity. Decosimo works as an analytic philosopher at a high level of erudition to elucidate the linguistic and syllogistic puzzles in Thomas's accounts of virtue in a close reading of a range of works to show that, for Thomas, natural human virtue oriented toward the shared human and political good (the highest good attainable without charity) is true [End Page 199] virtue in which Christians and non-Christians, Augustinians and Aristotelians, may fully share and participate together. Indeed, the theological virtues must be devoted to the charitable interpretation of all contributions dialectically considered and ordered to the highest human good. Only by adhering to such a vision of virtue that welcomes pagan virtue will Christians practice the ethics of charity, and prophetic Thomism provides a model for how the church may engage difference in a way that honors others while being faithful to its own vision of the gift of grace.I hope it will not be taken as uncharitable or (ugh!) "hyper-Augustinian" to suggest that Decosimo's account of prophetic Thomism is more attuned to Aristotelian logic and the dialectic of definitional distinctions than it is to Augustine's more Platonic account of pagan virtue as a Dionysian erotic dialectic in which the "logos is wild." But I am in full agreement with Decosimo's claim that ethics as a work of charity ought to be open to both (and "all") in providing resources to Christian and non-Christian ethicists alike for engaging contemporary political challenges concerning otherness and difference in the service of justice.Travis KroekerMcMaster UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In this book, Daniel K. Miller articulates a new vision of human and animal relationships based on the foundational love ethic within Christianity. Framed around Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, Animal Ethics and Theologythoughtfully examines the shortcomings of utilitarian and rights-based approaches to animal ethics. By considering the question of animals within the Christian concept of neighbourly love, Miller provides an alternative narrative for understanding the complex relationships that humans have with other animals. This book addresses significant (...) theological questions such as: Does being created in the image of God present a meaningful distinction between humans and other animals? What does it mean for humans to have dominion over animals? Is meat eating a moral problem for Christians? In addition to drawing out the significance of Christian theology for field of animal ethics this book also engages environmental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. mental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the interdisciplinary character of development studies and ethics by discussing the relationship between Christian theology and development studies in general and development ethics in particular. I begin by presenting development theology, a kind of theology that critically reflects on the meaning and implications of the Christian faith with regard to improving the lives of people living in material poverty. This kind of theology is related to the better-known liberation (...) class='Hi'>theology, and I discuss the role of this kind of theology in the works of Denis Goulet, the founder of development ethics as an academic discipline. I argue there is a fruitful, critical and constructive relationship between liberation theology and development ethics in the writings of Goulet. I then turn to how development issues are addressed in contemporary theology, with an emphasis on documents produced by two faith-based development organizations, Christian Aid UK and Norwegian Church Aid. I argue that development issues have been readdressed in Christian theology, relying less on the notion of liberation, but more on the concepts of reconstruction, ?diakonia?, human dignity and human relationships. I argue that there is a need to revisit the critical and constructive connections between Christian theology and development ethics and, more broadly, the related challenges of interdisciplinary inquiries, and I conclude by showing some of the ways of undertaking this task. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Analogy of Grace: Karl Barth’s Moral Theology by Gerald McKenny, and: Christian Ethics as Witness: Barth’s Ethics for a World at Risk by David HaddorffVictor ThasiahThe Analogy of Grace: Karl Barth’s Moral Theology Gerald McKenny New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 310 pp. $120.00Christian Ethics as Witness: Barth’s Ethics for a World at Risk David Haddorff Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010. (...) 482 pp. $54.00Karl Barth’s theology remains a resource for Christian ethics. Let me suggest why. Instead of marginalizing or bracketing out consideration of divine agency, Barth presupposes God’s past, present, and future action; God’s inalienable subjectivity and indissoluble over-againstness in relationship (irreducible, for example, to ecclesial action); and God’s ongoing judgment of good and evil, and thus of moral thought and practice. These presuppositions determine the method, structure, content, and purpose of his theology and ethics. His concept of grace consists of God accomplishing the good in our place and on our behalf, a perspective more substantive than supplementary in nature. Finally, his eschatological view of human freedom involves resistance and responsibility—the freedom to resist evil (having been delivered from the determination of evil by grace) and the freedom to witness to God’s action in faith, love, and hope in the world. Barth’s work serves the field of Christian ethics well, burdened as we are by unprecedented global awareness with its challenges and uncertainties.Two new books on Barth’s theology and ethics seek to increase our understanding of his work and engage contemporary Christian moral thought and practice. Gerald McKenny’s The Analogy of Grace is now the indispensable guide to Barth’s ethics. His exposition is comprehensive, critical, and contextual as it relates Barth’s dogmatics to current academic work in Christian ethics and moral philosophy. The tradeoff, however, is that it pays insufficient attention to the ecclesial, cultural, and political contexts for embodying Barth’s ethics. McKenny makes an important contribution to our understanding of Barth’s work. By closely reading primary texts and secondary literature, McKenny shows that many of Barth’s critics and friends continue to misunderstand [End Page 192] him by resolving the unresolvable, airbrushing ambiguities and thus converting Barth’s “strange” ethics into a more conventional moral theory. McKenny argues that it is precisely the strangeness of Barth’s theology—with all its implications—that continues to challenge and contribute constructively to contemporary Christian ethics.What is so strange and significant about Barth’s work? For McKenny, it is Barth’s claim that “God resolves on the good from eternity in the determination of humanity in Jesus Christ to commission and service as active witnesses of God’s glory; fulfills it in time in the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, who performs this commission and service in place of all of humanity; and summons, empowers, and directs human beings in every time to correspond to this fulfillment in their conduct” (288). Thus, our action should be modeled on God’s action; it should be an analogy of grace. “The telos of God’s grace is realized,” McKenny concludes, “when human beings in their action become the image of God” (208). The Analogy of Grace traces the way Barth develops this ontological and analogical vision as McKenny differentiates Barth’s work from modern theories that presuppose that people are relatively capable of knowing and doing the good.McKenny suggests that there is a possible deficiency in the way Barth’s account of divine agency determines the form and content of his theology and ethics. Barth’s consistent opposition to moral theories that emphasize observable signs of moral progress in either self or society results in the “liability” of the “extraordinarily qualified affirmation he gives to visible human goodness” (223). McKenny asks if Barth “does justice to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives” and “can make sense of the participation of our action in God’s action or of the way in which the Holy Spirit accomplishes this participation” (223). In other words, Barth’s “extraordinarily qualified affirmation” might neglect the work of the Spirit in... (shrink)

This sequel to the highly acclaimed Cosmos and Anthropos demonstrates the impact on social, ethical, and theological doctrines of the twentieth-century scientific revolution, particularly the Anthropic Principle. Harris reviews the main arguments put forward in the Western philosophical tradition for the existence of God, as well as the critique of those arguments, and shows that the conflict between religion and science since the seventeenth century has resulted more from the implications of the Copernican-Newtonian scientific paradigm than from any insuperable divergence (...) of dogma or ultimate aim. (shrink)

The Journal of Religious Ethics (JRE) was established at a particular moment in the United States in the early 1970s. This article investigates how that moment—in the institutional milieu of academic theology and religious studies in which the (JRE) emerged—influenced its founding. It does this through attention to three main sources: (1) the original charter and bylaws of the JRE, (2) publications from the JRE and other scholarly outlets in the period, and (3) a collection of interviews with (...) scholars who occupied editorial roles in the first 10 years of the life of the journal. The article suggests that the JRE's early period was driven by three key forces: the emergence of Christian ethics as a field of academic theology, deepening engagement with academic philosophy among students of Christian ethics, and growing attention to the pedagogical requirements of increasingly pluralist tertiary educational environments. In conclusion, I describe my own place in this history, asking how the dynamics around the founding of the JRE shape my participation in the practice enacted in its pages. (shrink)

This article argues for the dogmatic rather than just ethical significance of the biotechnological enhancement of human beings. It begins by reflecting on the close theological connections between salvation, sanctification, and affective and bodily transformation in light of the fact that affects and desires are in principle manipulable through biotechnological enhancement. It then examines the implications of this observation for questions of moral responsibility, asking whether biotechnological enhancement can be viewed as a kind of means of grace. The conclusion argues (...) that theological reflection on the relationship between affects, soteriology and bioenhancement reveals limitations of the emphasis on embodiment in recent Christian theology. (shrink)

In the last few decades, religious and secular thinkers have tackled the world's escalating environmental crisis by attempting to develop an ecological ethic that is both scientifically accurate and free of human-centered preconceptions. This groundbreaking study shows that many of these environmental ethicists continue to model their positions on romantic, pre-Darwinian concepts that disregard the predatory and cruelly competitive realities of the natural world. Examining the work of such influential thinkers as James Gustafson, Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Ruether, John Cobb, (...) Peter Singer, and Holmes Rolston, Sideris proposes a more realistic ethic that combines evolutionary theory with theological insight, advocates a minimally interventionist stance toward nature, and values the processes over the products of the natural world. (shrink)

This book is at once a deeply learned and original reading of Heidegger and a primary text in its own right. It demonstrates the relevance of Heidegger’s thought in responding to the moral and religious challenges of 21st century existence. It shows that Heidegger’s project can be defended against many criticisms once its existential character is taken seriously. What emerges is a powerful exercise in thinking, not about Heidegger, but with and against him. As such, Atkins engages Heidegger as a (...) means of advancing a defense of spirituality in the modern world that holds spirituality itself accountable for its lapses into the mundane. Addressing the most influential figures in recent Continental philosophy, such as Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, this is a work that will be of timely use to philosophers, theologians, artists, and seekers. (shrink)

In the last decade there has been a pragmatic turn in the work of those doing Christian ethics, especially as represented by the work of Jeffrey Stout and Franklin Gamwell. The pragmatic turn represents a critique of the highly influential work of Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre, which argues for a strongly intra-church ethics. The pragmatists are correct in arguing that Christian ethics must engage the public sphere. However, I argue that they are deeply mistaken in their (...) claim that this engagement must rest on a weak or non-existent theology. I show that the claim that robust theology adds nothing to ethics, and that we can get along without it, is unsustainable. (shrink)

Reviewing major accounts in Christian ethics and theology concerning work reveals a set of assumptions that together form the field's current “common sense” regarding this central human activity: work is part of what it fundamentally means to be a human; there is an aspect of work that is intrinsically good, because it reflects God's work; and work that is degrading can be transformed into this intrinsic good. An emerging body of social thought, however, interrogates work from an anti-work (...) perspective, rejecting capitalism's demand that people be integrated as fully as possible into the profit-generating modern-day work structure. After exploring core tenets of the anti-work perspective, this essay reconsiders the assumptions often made about work in Christian ethics and theology and delineates some contours of anti-work Christian normative interpretations of work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics ed. by Christian Scharen and Anna Marie VigenJohn KiessEthnography as Christian Theology and Ethics Edited by Christian Scharen and Anna Marie Vigen New York: Continuum, 2011. 304 pp. $29.95Over the past decade, an increasing number of Christian theologians and ethicists have turned to ethnographic methodologies in order to attend more closely to the complexities of lived faith and (...) the bodily character of theological knowledge. For those wishing to get a glimpse of what this looks like in practice, what its implications might be for theology and ethics, and how one might set off and do it oneself, this book is an excellent introduction.Editors Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen organize the book into three parts. The first part orients readers to the use of ethnography in cultural anthropology and reviews the recent “ethnographic turn” in Christian theology and ethics. This is followed by a brief survey of theological critiques of social science and a defense of ethnography against these critiques. Scharen and Vigen argue that the use of ethnography, far from compromising the integrity of theology, has the potential to renew and enrich the discipline through the incorporation of long-overlooked forms of local wisdom. As a method attuned to practical, often noncognitive forms of knowledge, ethnography can help scholars move away from an exclusive focus on texts to a deeper consideration of the theological and ethical claims “embedded and embodied” in the lives and practices of everyday communities (xxii). [End Page 190]Naturally, the best argument for such an approach is exemplification. The second part of the book presents an impressive collection of ethnographic work from contexts as diverse as Chicago, Atlanta, Oregon, Chiapas, Nairobi, and Gulu. Contributors employ ethnography to compare pastoral leadership in two African American churches, track grassroots dissent on the issue of contraception among women living with HIV/AIDS, and reimagine the debate on physician-assisted suicide from the perspective of the poor and disabled. Particularly effective are Vicini’s exploration of the liturgical response of local churches to the legacy of violence in Chiapas and Whitmore’s critical examination of his own place as a white researcher in Northern Uganda, which makes hauntingly transparent the ethical complexities of the research process itself.The final part of the book offers a more practical how-to guide for those looking to do ethnography, covering such issues as institutional review board approval, interview methodology, and accountability to research subjects. This part, like the rest of the book, will be a gift for graduate students facing down a dissertation proposal or scholars contemplating the use of ethnography in their work. Admirably reflexive, vigilantly attentive to issues of power and privilege, and articulate about the ways that research can be a form of discipleship, one can only hope this book will succeed in its aim of encouraging other scholars to “go and do likewise.”Those who have already incorporated ethnographic techniques in their scholarship or who are looking for a fuller articulation of the relation between ethnography, ethics, and theology may find themselves less satisfied with the book. Its treatment of existing options (virtue ethics, Catholic social ethics) and thinkers (David Ford, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Milbank) is thin, and a number of key figures in the broader story of the ethnographic turn in theology (Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Hans Frei) are conspicuously missing. Their absence is felt particularly strongly in the unanswered questions the volume provokes, including how to account for God’s difference when appeals to experience become primary (Barth), and how to avoid positivism when appeals to the “reality” of the church become the point of departure for ecclesiology (Bonhoeffer).Such provocations, however, are reminders that we are still at the very early stages of the ethnographic turn in Christian theology and ethics. If this volume is any indication, the future of this exciting intersection of thought and practice looks very promising indeed. [End Page 191]John KiessLoyola University MarylandCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Thomas Taylor’s interpretation of Plato’s works in 1804 was condemned as guilty by association immediately after its publication. Taylor’s 1804 and 1809 reviewer thus made a hasty generalisation in which the qualities of Neoplatonism, assumed to be negative, were transferred to Taylor’s own interpretation, which made use of Neoplatonist thinkers. For this reason, Taylor has typically been marginalised as an interpreter of Plato. This article does not deny the association between Taylor and Neoplatonism. Instead, it examines the historical and historiographical (...) reasons for the reviewer’s assumption that Neoplatonic readings of Plato are erroneous by definition. In particular, it argues that the reviewer relied on, and tacitly accepted, ethical and theological premises going back to the historiography of philosophy developed by Jacob Brucker in his Historia critica philosophiae . These premises were an integral part of Brucker’s Lutheran religiosity and thus theologically and ethically biased. If these premises are identified, articulated and discussed critically—which they have not been so far in connection with Taylor’s reception—it becomes less obvious that the reviewer was justified in his assumption that the Neoplatonic reading was erroneous by definition. This, in turn, leaves Taylor’s Plato interpretation in a more respectable position. (shrink)

Philosophers have constituted business ethics as a field by providing a systematic overview that interrelates its problems and concepts and that supplies the basis for building on attained results. Is there a properly theological task in business ethics? The religious/theological literature on business ethics falls into four classes: (1) the application of religious morality to business practices; (2) the use of encyclical teachings about capitalism; (3) the interpretation of business relations in agapa-istic terms; and (4) the critique (...) of business from a liberation theological point of view. Theologians have not adequately addressed the questions of whether there are particular theological tasks in the field as they define it, and whether, if they define it, the theological definition is different from the philosophical. (shrink)

Charles McCoy’s Christian theology and ethics are based in a covenantal understanding that provides a way for Christians to engage the many views in the modern university. McCoy’s approach has both openness and commitment; it is akin to and supported by the fiduciary thought of Johannes Cocceius, H. R. Niebuhr, and Michael Polanyi. By seeing the way faith as trust operates in human beings, McCoy has laid foundations for Christian theology in a muticultural and pluralistic age. Most (...) important is McCoy’s argument that there are many theologies, even Christian theologies, and the life of Chrisitian faith is always one of growth and of exploration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sexual Ethics: A Theological Introduction by Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, and: Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times by Marvin M. EllisonDarryl W. StephensReview of Sexual Ethics: A Theological Introduction TODD A. SALZMAN and MICHAEL G. LAWLER Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012. 280 pp. $26.95Review of Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times MARVIN M. ELLISON Minneapolis: Fortress (...) Press, 2012. 176 pp. $18.00Intended for “the general educated Catholic population” (xiii), Sexual Ethics: A Theological Introduction (SE) is a masterfully abridged version of the authors’ award-winning 2008 book, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (TSP). Nearly all of the text of Sexual Ethics is common to both volumes, much of it edited for a broader audience. Omitted in Sexual Ethics are about seventy pages presenting contemporary debates between the methods and anthropologies of traditionalists and revisionists (most of TSP chapters 2 and 3). New in Sexual Ethics are “Questions for Reflection” at the end of each chapter and a brief discussion of “conscience” (xxv–xxvi).In both books, the authors offer a “historically conscious and revisionist approach” to Catholic sexual morality (SE, 221). Beginning with “two magisterial principles” in “Catholic moral, sexual tradition”—procreation and the confines of marriage—the authors note different theological bases for these principles—nature and reason, respectively (xiii–xiv)—and propose a significant shift in focus from the “‘nature’ of the act” to “the meaning of the act for the human person” (xvii). Chapter 1, which could stand on its own, provides a helpful, “brief history” of “sexual morality in the Catholic tradition,” undergirding the authors’ historical (in contrast with a classicist) approach. In chapter 2, the theological crux of the argument, Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler proceed to explore methodological developments and tensions in magisterial teaching, choosing “the principle of the human person adequately considered,” theologically articulated in Gaudium et spes, as the basis for their proposal of a “unitive sexual anthropology” (47). This holistic anthropological approach to the sexual person attempts to shift the magisterium’s “focus on acts and absolute norms” in sexual ethics to a method more akin to its social ethics, focusing on general principles, interrelationships, and the common good (59). Central to their [End Page 226] argument is a reworking of the concept of complementarity purged “of every suggestion of either gender or sexual inequality” (63). The remainder of the book illustrates “how these principles apply in real, concrete, particular human relationships” (87).To critique the argument of Sexual Ethics necessarily implicates The Sexual Person, which is beyond the scope of this review. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask whether the same argument presented as a “renewed Catholic anthropology” (in TSP) for professional theologians functions equally well as a “theological introduction” to sexual ethics (in SE) for a lay (nonscholarly) audience. Chapter 6, “Artificial Reproductive Technologies,” is the most successful in this regard, exploring a range of ethical concerns (e.g., means versus ends, burden of proof, presumptions against, appropriate cautions, and consideration of the common good) to arrive at a qualified expansion of magisterial teaching, which becomes a guide to personal discernment. Other topics in Sexual Ethics include marriage and contraception (chapter 3), cohabitation and premarital sexuality (chapter 4), and homosexuality (chapter 5).Overall, Sexual Ethics functions better as an introduction to Catholic sexual teaching and moral anthropology than as an introduction to sexual ethics. For example, reworking the concept of “complementarity”—despite the authors’ inclination “to abandon both the word and the idea” (63)—may be necessary for reconstructing Catholic tradition, but is not necessarily the most helpful starting point for sexual ethics. Sexual Ethics will be challenging for readers lacking theological training and will be of most interest to those already committed to and invested in magisterial teaching. My recommendation would be to use The Sexual Person as a teacher’s guide when assigning Sexual Ethics. By any measure, these books present a brilliant, careful, and sophisticated scholarly argument that revises Catholic sexual teaching in important and faithful ways.In Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times (MLJ), Marvin Ellison provides an accessible, engaging introduction to sexual ethics for... (shrink)

Philosophers have constituted business ethics as a field by providing a systematic overview that interrelates its problems and concepts and that supplies the basis for building on attained results. Is there a properly theological task in business ethics? The religious/theological literature on business ethics falls into four classes: (1) the application of religious morality to business practices; (2) the use of encyclical teachings about capitalism; (3) the interpretation of business relations in agapa-istic terms; and (4) the critique (...) of business from a liberation theological point of view. Theologians have not adequately addressed the questions of whether there are particular theological tasks in the field as they define it, and whether, if they define it, the theological definition is different from the philosophical. (shrink)

After an initially sympathetic reading of Maimonides, Levinas develops an ambivalent attitude toward the Great Eagle, whom he views as a champion of intellectualist Judaism. Nevertheless, insights from the early engagement with Maimonides are carried forth into the central claims of Totality and Infinity regarding freedom, creation, particularity and transcendence. Levinas' arguments are directed at Heidegger but can also be seen as a phenomenological repetition of the medieval dispute about the eternity of the world. Later, Levinas continues this engagement with (...) Maimonides by transforming the latter's negative theology into what I call ethical negative theology. (shrink)

Tariq Ramadan’s recent book, Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation, boldly proclaims the need for Muslims to completely rethink the very meaning of Islamic law, traditionally the preeminent Islamic normative discourse and a primary distinguishing feature of Islam from other religions, replacing it with a more ecumenical applied ethics. He begins the book by rejecting the moderate reformist methods adopted in his previous books as insufficient for the ‘radical reform’ of their epistemologies and mentalities which he believes contemporary (...) Muslims must undertake. It is tempting, therefore, to see this work as a radical break with Law. In this article, I offer a different interpretation. On my reading, throughout his previous works Ramadan systematically advanced and elevated a certain interpretation of Law, based on an appropriation of certain concepts taken from mainstream Islamic legal theory and crucial to the efforts of all reformist thinkers. It is these concepts, which he retains but completely recasts, which mediate his move to a post-legal Islamic ethics. I argue that Ramadan’s long-term project neither merely abandons Islamic law, nor merely reforms it, but dissolves the framework of Law through its own devices. (shrink)

A common basis for the project on which this volume is based is that one cannot understand religion and ethics without paying attention to the different contexts in, and by means of which, these cultural elements are expressed. This approach makes both religion and ethics liquid, and allows us to see them as based on specific contingencies rather than as expressions of some essential features. The changing societal and cultural conditions in late modern Western societies pose new challenges (...) for established religion, theology and ethics: Not only does religion itself appear to be in some kind of crisis, but also many of the established ways of understanding and doing religion, theology and ethics appear obsolete, inadequate or dated. Against such a backdrop, the articles in the present volume represent attempts to rethink theology and religion with regard to these late modern conditions. The volume is the result of a joint undertaking of two research groups, one based inAbo, Finland, and the other in Oslo, Norway, which have since 2006 focused on exploring the contextual character of theology in understanding both Christian belief and Christian ethics. The challenge of the idea that Christianity appears in new ways - and in "new" contexts, and of investigating what that means, is pursued in various ways. (shrink)

During the summer of 2006, over four hundred Catholic ethicists from around the world gathered for four days in Padua, Italy. About sixty of the conference papers have become available in two edited collections, Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church: The Plenary Papers from the First Cross-cultural Conference on Catholic Theological Ethics, and Applied Ethics in a World Church: The Padua Conference. As the conference was marked by a distinctive and creative tension—between the diversity which characterized (...) the nationalities and cultural identities of the participants, on the one hand, and the commonness of their religious heritage, on the other—these essays can tell us much about contemporary Catholic ethics in its response to global pluralism. The following develops four reflections. First, the conference papers pursue a style of scholarship that is at once critically creative and ecclesially rooted. Second, the conference raises new concerns about the importance that Christian formation must have in a pluralist world. Third, the participants affirm and defend the ultimate universality of moral goods while also arguing that these goods are expressed and embodied in unavoidably particular ways. Finally, the most important contribution that Catholic ethics can make to public conversations about issues of common concern is through its articulation and defense of key human values. (shrink)

Moral Struggle and Religious Ethics offers a comparative discussion of the challenges of living a moral religious life. This is illustrated with a study of two key thinkers, Bonaventure and Buddhaghosa, who influenced the development of moral thinking in Christianity and Buddhism respectively. Provides an important and original contribution to the comparative study and practice of religious ethics Moves away from a comparison of theories by discussing the shared human problem of moral weakness Offers an fresh approach with (...) a comparison of the understanding of the problem of moral weakness between the two key thinkers, Bonaventure and Buddhaghosa Written by a highly respected academic in the dynamic and fast-growing field of comparative religious ethics. (shrink)

There are many versions of naturalism as an overall position, and there are several significant and influential kinds of naturalism in ethics. The latter views may or may not be realist, and, if realist, may or may not be reductive in one or another sense. The antirealist versions include the noncognitivist view that moral claims do not ascribe genuine properties and, unlike assertions of fact, are not strictly speaking true or false. Which of these views, if any, are harmonious (...) with theism, particularly the monotheistic view that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? More broadly, which, if any, are a good basis for ethical reflection in the field of religion, conceived broadly as including nontheistic religions? One would think that, whether or not divine directives determine our obligations, the very existence of God would guarantee that there is a real distinction between right and wrong–or anyway that there are normatively authoritative standards of conduct, as there may be even in nontheistic religions. This essay will clarify naturalism in ethics, identify some major options for theologically oriented ethics, and sketch an ethical view that might capture many of the best elements in both perspectives. (shrink)

As a result of his visit to Uganda, on behalf of the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, theologian Kevin Kelly made the discovery that poverty and marginalization create windows of opportunity for the transmission of AIDS. In this book, Kelly brings together the whole of his thinking and experience as a teacher, moral theologian, and parish priest to challenge the thinking of the Church on sex and sexuality as moral issues for our time.

How can qualitative research methods be a tool for social change? Echoing the 'scandal of particularity' at the heart of the Christian tradition, theologians and ethicists involved in ethnographic research draw on the particular to seek out answers to core questions of their discipline.

This article offers a theological ethics of surveillance in its form as social sorting. The skill of visibility is deployed as an analytical device to critique the saliency of privacy rights-talk, given the focus of surveillance having shifted from a panoptic gaze to actionable intelligence. The claim is made that an ideology of normativity and the political categories of ‘evil’ and ‘risky’ persons can be addressed by the notions of relational knowledge, the resurrection of the non-person and the power (...) of the future. Three biblical vignettes illustrate visibility and offer imaginative responses. (shrink)

On 19 June 2019, Victoria's 'Voluntary Assisted Dying' Act came into effect. The Act makes legal two interventions at the end of life. In most cases, it allows a doctor to prescribe a patient who meets certain criteria with a lethal substance, which it is supposed a patient will take at a time and place of their choosing to end their life. In rarer cases, where a patient is unable to ingest the lethal substance, it also allows for a doctor (...) to administer such a substance to the same end. In the Victorian legislation these interventions have been given the umbrella term of 'Voluntary Assisted Dying'. In Catholic ethics, as in most bioethical frameworks, these acts are referred to as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. (shrink)

More particularly, the book evaluates the concept of moral exemplarity and its significance in philosophical and theological ethics as well as for ongoing research programs in the cognitive sciences.

In Theological Ethics theologian, pastor, and ethicist W. Ross Hastings gives pastors, ministry leaders, and students a guide designed to equip them to think deeply and theologically about the moral formation of persons in our communities, about ethical inquiry and action, and about the tone and content of our engagement in the public square. The book presents a biblical perspective and a gospel-centered framework for thinking about complex contemporary issues in ways are life-giving and that will lead readers into (...) greater flourishing as human persons in community. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 545 Haroutunian, would have balked at the notion that their " empiricism " could be abstracted from the christological and trinitarian confession 0£ the church. In general, it would seem that a genuinely " empirical" approach would seek to engage the actual truth claims of religious com· munities on their own terms-even when those claims conflict with historicist suppositions. Second, in so far as Dean thinks there (...) is a uniquely American reli· gious experience or style of thought, privileging that style seems a dangerous move indeed. Dean is not unaware of the dangers. He specifically denies that he is engaging in any form of " American exceptionalism " (p. 25) ; it is simply that an " appropriately American historicism, centering on American culture, would have a greater chance of suggesting practices that work for and are true for America " (p. 24). But I am skeptical that such disclaimers address the real problem. Near the very end of the book, Dean suggests that a modi· fied naturalism might lead to " a notion of God that was more genuinely American than anything earlier," culminating in the recognition that " American thought about God is really the thought of a national com· munity" (p. 144). Descriptively that may well be the case; but then the Christian theologian must seek norms elsewhere. History Making History does not show us how historicist insigh~ might be incorporated into ecumenical, trinitarian theology, but that does not mean the attempt will prove unfruitful. Meanwhile, this bit of philosophical tale-telling will hold the interest of readers theological and otherwise. JOSEPH L. MANCINA Yale University New Haven, Connecticut Medical Ethics: Sources of Catholic Teaching. By KEVIN D. O'ROURKE, O.P. and PHILIP BOYLE, O.P. St. Louis: Catholic Health Associa· tion, 1989. Medical Ethics: Common Ground for Understanding. By KEVIN D. O'RouRKE, O.P. and DENNIS BRODEUR. St. Louis: Catholic Health Association, 1989. Healthcare Ethics: A Theological Analysis. By KEVIN D. O'RouRKE, O.P. and BENEDICT ASHLEY, O.P. 3rd ed. St. Louis: Catholic Health Association, 1989. Sources of Catholic Teaching is a compendium of recent "official" statements by Roman Catholic ecclesiastical bodies on issues concern· ing medical ethics. Arranged alphabetically according to topics, this col- 546 BOOK REVIEWS lection of statements from the papacy, the Roman Congregations, and the conferences of Catholic bishops could prove to he a very helpful reference tool. It contains a brief introduction which seeks to explain the role of these statements in the Catholic moral theology and Catholic medical ethics, a table of contents of the statements included, and then the statements themselves. In most instances it does not contain the entire document or statement hut only excerpts therefrom. There are some weaknesses in this work. First, these statements are not self-explanatory; they are in need of interpretation and explanation in many instances. But the authors present only the bald text and do not offer any explanatory comments. They apparently presume that these statements are pellucid to the reader, hut this is an unwarranted pre· sumption. For example, clarifying comments should have been added to the statement from the Declaration on Euthanasia because the allocution of Pius XII about giving lethal doses of analgesia is not entirely clear. A second difficulty with this work is the brief and somewhat insubstantial introduction on conscience and the role these statements should play in the formation of conscience. This sort of work invites a substantial and extended commentary on the nature of moral judgments, the relationship of conscience to the natural law, and the authority of these statements. The authors note that not all of the official statements issued by various organs of the Church are of equal authority, hut they do not try to identify the specific authoritative status of the various statements they include in their work. The reader is thus left to his or her own devices to determine, for example, the relative weight of statements of the administrative hoard of the NCCB versus statements of state episcopal conferences. A still further problem is that some of the statements are of virtually no significant authority for Catholics. For example, the statement of the administrative hoard of the NCCB on AIDS is of questionable... (shrink)