<p>OK, here ya go. The syllabus for as hotly political a course as you could ever get: religious ethics as applied to every current hot button political issue.</p>
<p>Take a look at the readings and decide for yourself. I sent this syllabus to a buddy of mine who publishes right-wing books (and a big fan of Hillsdale College). He pronounced it "fair and balanced". By the time any student finishes this course, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" will be nothing but superficial buzzwords. Every one of these issues is far more complex and nuanced.</p>
<p>Enjoy:</p>
<hr>
<p>*Religious Ethics in the Modern World: *
Love, Law, and Justice</p>
<p>Religion 55
Spring Semester 2007
Trotter Room 301 11:30-12:20
Instructor: Elliot Ratzman</p>
<p>Office Hours: Wednesdays 2-4pm Pearson 205 and always by appointment.<br>
Contact me at my cel phone: 609-240-6699</p>
<p>The Purpose of this Course:
This course will introduce you to a limited number of debates within contemporary Christian (and Jewish) ethics. It is my hope that you will leave the course with a sense of the rich intellectual tradition of Christian and Jewish moral reasoning and a sense of how it has (or does) translate into political action. </p>
<p>Goals:
By the end of this course, you should be conversant in the major themes, figures, and language of contemporary Christian (and some Jewish) ethics. You should be able to rehearse some major arguments and identify the positions of the major players. You should also be able to write a good letter to the editor, and an insightful op-ed piece.</p>
<p>Ideology:
Religious commitment is not a prerequisite for this course, and is not required to succeed. We will be listening in on debates within contemporary religious ethics. The field is huge, so I have narrowed it down to a taste of mostly American and Christian positions. I have chosen materials that are interesting and off-beat. With such a short semester, I couldnt fit everything in. If there is an issue you want to learn about I will help provide materials, even lead an extra session. My position on the material is not relevant for your grade. My positions on the issues, if you can figure them out, will not serve as an ideological measuring stick for grading. I do, however, expect that the language of the assignments be responsible. The life and work of Paul Farmer will serve as our backdrop and we will be referring to him throughout the semester. </p>
<p>Writing:
This will be an exercise in public writing. Most of the assigned readings are primary sources, academic articles, or religious academics writing about ethics. Your writing, however, should be geared towards a public. It should aim for clarity, accuracy, insight, wit, and brevity. Your letters to the editor will be addressed to the various articles, chapters, and books we are reading. Letters should be posted, with name, on the Blackboard site by the assigned day and time. Within the next few class sessions, I will provide more information on writing op-eds, letters to the editor, etc.</p>
<p>** Letters to the editor should be posted on blackboard by Thursday evening, giving everyone a chance to view the letters and comment on them by Fridays class. **</p>
<p>Classroom Experience:
This course will also be an exercise in civil discourse. The instructor will be taking on a variety of voices, playing the ventriloquist, in order to provoke learning. This means that offense should be expected, greeted as a challenge, and worked with creatively. Between students, however, you will be expected to speak with the highest forms of civility and grace to each other and with each other. This may mean saying things like well, if one holds that abortion is murder, than one etc. etc. Though these issues should provoke your passionate engagement, your flesh-and-blood fellow students and fellow citizens deserve civility and respect. </p>
<p>Class time will be partially lecture I will discuss some of the intellectual and historical background that I didnt have you read and partially discussion and debate. These issues are hot so I expect lively discussions. </p>
<p>Extra
For Those students who are up for the challenge, I will be offering an optional reading session of Jeffrey Stouts Democracy and Tradition. This is a difficult, but rewarding book by a secular commentator on Christian ethics and culture. Sometime near the end of the semester, we will have a session with Stout on his book. </p>
<p>Grading:
Participation/Attendance: 15%<br>
Weekly letters to the editor: 20%
First Op-Ed (750 words): 20%
Second Op-Ed (750 words): 20%
Final Comprehensive Exam: 25%</p>
<p>Required Texts</p>
<p>Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains.
Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics.
Dionne, Elshtain, Drogosz (eds), Is the Market Moral? A Dialogue on Religion, Economics, and Justice.
Michael Walzer (ed) Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism.
Wiegel, The Cube and the Cathedral.
Dionne, Elshtain, Drogosz (eds) Liberty and Power: A Dialogue on Religion US Foreign Policy in an Unjust World.
Portmann (ed) In Defense of Sin.</p>
<p>SCHEDULE OF READINGS</p>
<p>Readings subject to change. Topics of the last sessions will be announced mid-way through the course to accommodate students interests.</p>
<p>Week 1 Introduction: Christian and Jewish Ethics</p>
<p>Jan 22 Introduction MLK Letter from a Birmingham Jail (excerpt), Op-ed on Clarence Thomas. Randy Cohen The Ethicist Question about Orthodox Jews </p>
<p>Jan 24 Making Moral Decisions Rowan Williams, Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, 3-15; Ron Green Christian Ethics: A Jewish Perspective Cambridge Companion. 138-153; Cover, Stone in Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism. </p>
<p>Jan 26 Religion Gertrude Himmelfarb Two Cultures, One Nation. Richard John Neuhaus, Can Atheists be Good Citizens? ; Stephen L. Carter. Liberalisms Religion Problem Mario Cuomo, Religious Belief and Public Morality: A Catholic Governors Perspective</p>
<p>Week 2 Paul Farmer, A Case Study in Moral Excellence? </p>
<p>Jan 29 Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains
Jan 31 Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains
Feb 2 Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains; Orwell Reflections on Gandhi</p>
<p>Recommended: Susan Wolf's "Moral Saints"; Robert Adams' rejoinder, "Saints." </p>
<p>Week 3 Abortion</p>
<p>Feb 5 Jonathan Glover Abortion in Causing Deaths and Saving Lives.
Phillipa Foot, The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect;
JJ Thomson A Defense of Abortion</p>
<p>Feb 7 Sidney Callahan, Abortion and the Sexual Agenda: A Case for Prolife Feminism; Hauerwas Abortion: Why the Arguments Fail</p>
<p>Feb 9 (TBA); In Defense of Murder in In Defense of Sin</p>
<p>Week 4 Medical Ethics and Method: Euthanasia, Stem Cells and Abomination</p>
<p>Feb 12 Euthanasia; In Defense of Euthanasia in In Defense of Sin
Feb 14 Stem Cells
Feb 15 Leon Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance; Preventing a Brave New World The New Republic. Jeff Stout Moral Abominations.</p>
<p>*Week 5 Just War and Pacifism *</p>
<p>Feb 21 Elizabeth Anscombe, "The Justice of the Present War Examined", War and Murder Ethics, Religion, and Politics; Paul Ramsey Ethics and War in The Essential Paul Ramsey. H. Richard Niebuhr and Reinhold Niebuhr, The Grace of Doing Nothing </p>
<p>Feb 23 George Weigel Moral Clarity in a Time of War First Things 128 (January 2003): 20-27; War & Statecraft: An Exchange. Rowan Williams, George Weigel, First Things 141 (March 2004): 14-22.</p>
<p>Feb 25 Walzer, Exodus 32 the history of a citation, Walzer, Ravitzsky, and Levey in Law, Politics and Morality in Judaism. Reuven Firestone, Holy War in Modern Judaism?</p>
<p>Week 6 International Politics</p>
<p>Feb 26 Liberty and Power
Feb 28 Liberty and Power
March 2 Liberty and Power; Irving Greenberg, The Ethics of Jewish Power </p>
<p>Week 7 Nature and the Environment/Natural Law</p>
<p>March 5 Wendell Berry, Christianity and the Survival of Creation; Lynn White The Theological Roots of the Ecological Crisis;
March 7 Schwarzschild, An Unnatural Jew, Wyschogrod Judaism and the Sanctification of Nature
March 9 Stout Truth, Natural Law, and Ethical Theory<br>
March 9 First op-ed due</p>
<p>March 12 spring break
March 14 xx
March 16 xx</p>
<p>*Week 8 Gender and Sexuality * </p>
<p>March 19 Rowan Williams, The Bodys Grace; Jeffrey Stout, How Charity Transcends the Culture War: Eugene Rogers and Others on Same-Sex Marriage Rudy, Towards a Progressive Sexual Ethic Sex and the Church, 108-130. In Defense of Promiscuity; In Defense of Prostitution in In Defense of Sin.</p>
<p>March 21 Statement by the Ramsey Colloquium First Things (on-line) Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mark Jordan, Andrew Sullivan in Theology and Sexuality 249-289. Hauerwas, Why Gays (as a group) are Morally Superior to Christians (as a group)Dispatches from the Front.153-155.</p>
<p>March 23 Case Study: The Anglican Church Controversy, the Conservative Jewish Movement</p>
<p>Week 9 Pluralism and Secularism
March 26 Wiegel, The Cube and the Cathedral
March 28 Wiegel, The Cube and the Cathedral
March 30 Wiegel, The Cube and the Cathedral</p>
<p>Week 10 Capitalism and the Market
April 2 Is the Market Moral?; In Defense of Greed In Defense of Sin
April 4 Is the Market Moral?
April 6 Is the Market Moral?; In Defense of Breaking the Golden Rule In Defense of Sin</p>
<p>Week 11 Universalism and Particularism
April 9 Schwarzschild, The Question of Jewish Ethics; Wyschogrod The Particularism of Jewish Ethics
April 11 Novak (5) and Zohar in Law Politics and Morality in Judaism
April 13 Fisch, Seligman and Novak (9) in Law Politics and Morality in Judaism</p>
<p>*Week 12 The Culture Wars: Religion and Secularism *
April 16 In Defense of Blasphemy; In Defense of Idolatry in In Defense of Sin
April 18 Mark Souder, A Conservative Christians View on Public Life; Michael Kazin The Fate of the Christian Left
April 20 David Brooks How Niebuhr Helps us Kick the Secularist Habit; Susannah Heschel Protecting Religion from Politics; Stout Thoughts on Politics and Religion</p>
<p>Week 13 (TBA)
April 23
April 25
April 27
April 27 Second op-ed due</p>
<p>Week 14 (TBA)
April 30
May 2
May 4</p>