Methods of Ethical Analysis

Between Theology, History, and Literature

The book is about showing different ways of doing ethics, highlighting a kind of methodological pluralism. This book attempts to relate the difference in methodology and perspective to difference in identity, focal point of analysis, or projects of persuasion. Difference matters ultimately because pluralism matters. This book is a tutorial in ethical analysis and reasoning. Seminarians and graduate students will be brought into the finer points of ethical analysis, of mastering the ins and outs of ethical methodology, by immersing themselves in critical social-ethical analyses of prominent scholars in the American academy. Students will be guided toward how to develop their own voice in social issues, hone their capability in social analysis, and critically engage the social sciences, history, philosophy, and literature as they embark on ethical analyses. There is no single way of teaching the methodology of social ethics and no single theory of ethics that satisfies all; therefore ethics and its methodology are better understood by enabling students to view the field through multiple windows. Simultaneously they will learn to view social reality from different perspectives. The seven chapters of this book explore the different ways American ethicists have interrogated their nation's moral systems or crafted methods for understanding them.