Class: T, Th, 11:00-12:15
Fr. Linnane, S.J., and Mr. Avery-Peck
Description: Based upon a heritage of authoritative texts and community practices, religious and cultural communities develop distinctive answers to the crucial ethical questions of the day. In this way, issues faced by successive generations find answers that appear uniquely legitimate, derived, on the one hand, from the community’s sacred literature and responding, on the other, to what historical and social experience has led members of the community to perceive as right.
Taking seriously this process through which ethical systems emerge and are justified, this team-taught course has two intellectual goals: 1) to understand how and why inherited religious traditions are used to answer contemporary ethical problems and 2) to better understand the extent to which, within distinctive religious cultures, this process yields diverse ethical viewpoints.
In the end, this study of Christian and Jewish perspectives intends to broaden our perceptions of the range of approaches possible within contemporary ethical thinking and to encourage us to evaluate the nature of and foundation for our positions on critical issues of our day.
Requirements: 1) Reading of all assignments by the date on which they are to be discussed.
2) Class participation, which accounts for 15% of your grade.
3) Three papers, four to six pages in length. The first paper, due on January 29, should detail your perception of the value and purpose of comparing ethical systems. Each of the two additional papers should respond to the issues raised in one of the remaining units of the course: Sexual Ethics, Medical Ethics, or Social and Economic Ethics. While the topics for these papers are up to the discretion of the student, the papers must respond to the comparative issues raised in the pertinent unit of the course. Students are encouraged to discuss specific paper topics (as well as initial ideas, drafts, substantive questions) with the instructors. Due dates are flexible, depending upon the materials you determine to discuss. But both papers must be handed in no later than April 23, 1998. The first paper is worth 15% of the final grade. Papers #2-3 are worth 22.5% each
4) A take-home essay final, worth 25% of the final grade. Questions will be handed out during our last class; your work is due on Thursday, May 7, 1998.
Books for Purchase:
Boulton, Wayne, et al., From
Christ to the World: Introductory readings in Christian Ethics
Dorff, Elliot and Louis Newman,
Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader
Geis, Sally, and Donald Messer,
How Shall We Die: Helping Christians Debate Assisted Suicide
Haughey, John, S.J., Virtue and
Affluence: The Challenge of Wealth
Jacob, Walter and Moshe Zemer, eds.,
Death and Euthanasia in Jewish Law
Photocopied selections,
on library reserve:
Bleich, J. David, Contemporary
Halakhic Problems, vol. I
Bleich, J. David, Contemporary
Halakhic Problems, vol. IV
Borowitz, Eugene, Choosing a
Sex Ethic
Farley, Margaret, "Sexual Ethics"
Feldman, David, Marital Relations,
Birth Control and Abortion in Jewish Law
Genovesi, Vincent, S.J., In Pursuit
of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexualit
Lebacqz, Karen "Appropriate Vulnerability:
A Sexual Ethic for Singles"
Sh’ma—Issue on ethics in
Jewish communal leadership
Sh’ma—Issue on physician-assisted
suicide
Sullivan, Andrew, "Alone Again,
Naturally" and "What You Do"
Tamari, Meir, With All Your Possessions:
Jewish Ethics and Economic Life
"The Vatican Declaration on Sexual
Ethics" (1976)
Jan. 13 Introduction: Opening Concerns
Jan. 15, 20 The Conception and Sources of Ethical Thinking in Christianity
Feb. 3 Sex and Sexuality in Christianity
March 5 Discussion of Abortion and Reproductive Ethics
March 17 Christianity: Preserving Life, Permitting Death
March 26 Discussion of Biomedical Ethics
March 31 Affluence and Responsibility in Jewish Ethics
April 14 Environmental Ethics in Christianity
April 23 Source, Sanction, and Salvation
in Jewish and Christian Ethics