Ethics in Religion Commons^™

Fratelli Tutti: Pope Francis And The Catholic Response To Human Rights, Tiffany Hunsinger

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

On October 4, 2020, Pope Francis issued a letter to the world entitled Fratelli Tutti, On Fraternity and Social Friendship.

The document served as a culmination of the Church’s response to the global pandemic, as well as the more considerable perils of throwaway culture. This presentation will explore the specific response of the Catholic Church as it attempts to counter destructive boundaries and structure of its institution.

Pope Francis continues a tradition in pastoral response to the “signs of the times.” However, can the Church respond effectively in this current world?

Or do the needed changes surpass the capability …

Pope Francis, Human Rights, And The Crises Of Our Time, John Sniegocki

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

My paper/presentation will explore the holistic understanding of human rights contained in Catholic social teaching, with a focus on how Pope Francis applies this tradition to some of the major crises of our time. Particular attention will be given to issues of economic inequality, ecological devastation, migration, violence, and the rise of neo-fascist populist movements around the world. Francis’ integrated analysis of the common roots of these problems and his proposed constructive responses will be explored and assessed. Strong emphasis will be placed upon his understanding of the critical role to be played by grassroots movements and widespread popular mobilization.

The Right To Religious Freedom And Its Political Significance: Catholic And Islamic Approaches, Matthew Bagot

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

It is generally agreed that the Catholic Church formally committed itself to modern human rights in 1963 as a result of Pope John XXIII’s encyclical, Pacem in Terris.But it was the more specific historical development regarding the right to religious freedom that took place two years later at the Second Vatican Council, which really prompted global change. As Samuel Huntington wrote, the Church’s commitment to religious liberty on the part of all persons (and to the liberty of non-religious persons) had an extraordinary impact on democracy movements around the world. Indeed, Huntington referred to these movements as a “Catholic …

The Dignity Of The Human Person: Catholic And Islamic Approaches To Human Rights, Matthew Bagot

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

At the beginning of The Global Face of Public Faith, David Hollenbach, S.J., challenges the world’s religious communities to relate their distinctive visions of the good human life with the growing awareness that all persons are linked in a web of global interdependence. Hollenbach’s work is founded on an understanding of the common good that he discerns at Vatican II and calls “dialogic universalism.” It is universal because humans are sufficiently alike when it comes to the requirements for their respective goods; it is dialogic because cultural differences necessitate deep intellectual engagement across traditions if they are to be …

Economic Rights In Catholic Social Teaching, Andrew Beauchamp, Jason Heron

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Catholic social teaching has a vision of the economy that is very closely aligned with the tradition of civil humanism, dating at least from the Italian Renaissance. In the course of contemporary discussion of economic concerns, Catholic social teaching often asserts human rights in and related to the economic sphere. However, it regards these economic imperatives not in terms of an autonomous, rights-bearing individualism, but rather within the thick web of relationships characterized by civil virtues, including reciprocity and gratuitousness.

Thus the Church conceptualizes the economy as part of a larger social ambit that includes fundamental social virtues. This vision …

Tradition-Based Rationality, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The term “tradition-based rationality” derives from the works of Alasdair MacIntyre. Human reasoning, argued MacIntyre, is both tradition-constitutive and tradition-constituted. By the first phrase, he means that all reasoning, especially moral reasoning (i.e., thinking about what “good” means), involves people sharing a conceptual language (rather than a natural language like English or Chinese).

For example, think of how widely three persons may differ on their use of the word “good” when applied to their jobs. The driver of a beer truck will claim his job is “good” because he is paid well; he is resoundingly welcomed wherever he goes; and …

The Theological Origins Of Engineering, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Knowledge of our roots can sometimes help us figure out how we ought to proceed. Many claim that engineering began in ancient antiquity with the Egyptian pyramids, Archimedes' inventions, or the Roman aqueducts. Others give contemporary engineering a more recent history, tracing its origins to the Industrial Revolution or the Enlightenment. Yet what is often overlooked is the fact that contemporary engineering owes part of its identity to medieval monasticism.

The advantage of remembering this history is the bearing it has on the questions "What is engineering for?" and "How ought engineering be practiced?"

Michael Davis makes the claim that, …

Virtue Ethics, Nikki Coffey Tousley, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Virtue ethics emphasizes the development of moral excellence in terms of character qualities called virtues. Virtue are (1) habituated dispositions involving both an affective desire for the good and the skill to both discern and act accordingly; (2) learned through practice within a tradition (i.e., a historical community with a rich account of the "good"); and (3) directed toward this tradition's particular conception of the good (making virtues "teleological"). From a Christian perspective, virtue ethics is an ethics of discipleship, which emphasizes the development of the habits, practices, and wisdom necessary to pursue the "good" exemplified by Christ. Reading Scripture …

The Master Argument Of Macintyre's 'After Virtue', Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In September of 1995 the Associated Press released a wire photo showing Russian lawmakers of both genders in a punching brawl during a session of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.' Is this behavior an ethnic idiosyncrasy? Do only government officials duke it out over matters of great importance? Or have fisticuffs suddenly become politically correct?

No, on all counts. Pick a topic, any topic -- abortion, euthanasia, welfare reform, military intervention in the Balkans -- and initiate discussion with a group of reasonable, well-educated people and observe the outcome. Chaos ensues. Of course the volume of the debate …

Dynamical Similarity And The Problem Of Evil, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Discussions of evil commonly fault God for not “doing something.” Defenders of God respond that God had good reasons for not “doing something.” Detractors observe that if a human being can snatch the toddler from the path of the oncoming bus, why does not God snatch the bus from the path of the oncoming toddler? The underlying assumption in such discussions is that God’s “doing something” is similar to humans’ “doing something.”

If human beings bear the image of their Creator as the Abrahamic faiths maintain, it is natural to suppose that divine action is similar to human action. But …

The 'P'-Word: Conversion In A Postmodern Environment, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Allow me to write frankly about the “P”-word. There is great concern about the proliferation of the “P”-word. In the past decade, over 1,500 articles and 2,000 books have come into print bearing the "P"-word in their titles. Nearly 1,000 of these books are still in print. Everywhere we turn we find that we have been inundated with the “P”-word. And so we have come to fear for our culture. The "P"-word? “Postmodernism.”

Granted, postmodernism is a slippery concept; there are many versions, many postmodernisms. But should Christians fear postmodernism? To be sure, the modern era proved to be no …

Ethics As Grammar: Changing The Postmodern Subject, Brad Kallenberg

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Wittgenstein, one of the most influential, and yet widely misunderstood, philosophers of our age, confronted his readers with aporias—linguistic puzzles—as a means of countering modern philosophical confusions over the nature of language without replicating the same confusions in his own writings. In Ethics as Grammar, Brad Kallenberg uses the writings of theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas as a foil for demonstrating how Wittgenstein’s method can become concrete within the Christian tradition. Kallenberg shows that the aesthetic, political, and grammatical strands epitomizing Hauerwas’s thought are the result of his learning to do Christian ethics by thinking through Wittgenstein.

Kallenberg argues that …