DESCRIPTION:

We shall confront some constraints and constructive directions suggested by a postmodernist and communitarian criticism of Enlightenment influences on modern ethics. We shall analyze Michael Walzer's argument for how to make ethical arguments in the postmodern context, and use him as a comparison basis for analyzing other approaches. We shall seek to develop a constructive, historically situated understanding of love and justice that gives concrete guidance to community-formation and to the presently changing global economic environment and its impact on local communities.

Church members and outsiders East and West are anxious about the impact of the global economy on their lives and on the future. Love, justice, and community are central to Biblical faith, and are pivotal to ministry to the lives of persons inside and outside the church. But in the modern cultural context, they have been either neglected, rendered vague and abstract, or set on a base that no longer holds.

Seminar discussions, in which we help each other understand, analyze, compare, and assess different understandings of love and justice in community. The seminar will meet weekly for three-hour sessions.

Bellah, Robert N., et al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Updated ed. University of California Press, 1996.

Bounds, Elizabeth. Coming Together/Coming Apart: Religion, Community, and Modernity. Routledge, 1997.

Korten, David. When Corporations Rule the World. 2nd ed. Berrett-Koehler, 2001.

Stassen, Glen. "Michael Walzer's Situated Justice." Journal of Religious Ethics (Fall 1994).

__________. "Narrative Justice as Reiteration." In Ethics Without Foundations. Edited by Mark Nation, Nancey Murphy, and Stanley Hauerwas (Abingdon, 1995).

Walzer, Michael. Interpretation and Social Criticism. Harvard University Press, 1987.

__________. Obligations. Harvard University, 1970.

__________. Revolution of the Saints. Harvard University, 1982.

__________. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. Basic Books, 1983.

__________. Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad. University of Notre Dame Press, 1994.

__________. Selected essays.

One of the following:

Okin, Susan Moller. Justice, Gender, and the Family. Basic Books, 1989.

West, Cornel. Race Matters. Beacon Press, 2001.

Selected essays on Biblical understandings of justice.

Attend all seminar sessions prepared to analyze the readings of the day, with a brief reflection paper. A seminar paper that compares the understanding of the writer you choose with the analysis we develop during the seminar. A reduction will be negotiated for students working at the 500 level.

One prior course each in Christian ethics, one in Christian philosophy, and one in either ethics, philosophy, or a topic closely related to the seminar's theme.

Elective for M.A. and M.Div. students; CATS curriculum for Ph.D./Th.M. students.

Instead of a final exam, we will meet to hear from those who are writing papers.