TRS 737D Twentieth-Century Theological Ethics (MT/E Core #4)
Part I of the course will present an historical, critical study of Christian ethics (Moral Theology) in the Catholic tradition. Topics will be: the moral theology manuals; the renewal of moral theology in the light of Vatican II; the new accounts of Thomistic moral theology; situationism and the problem of relativism; the meaning of "objective" in ethics; "physicalism;" the "New natural law" theory and its critics; proportionalism and its critics; personalist ethics; the ethics of "Gift." Part II of the course will study Christian ethics in other traditions; in particular the ethics of Karl Barth and Stanley Hauerwas. In the sphere of secular ethics, "discourse ethics" and procedural ethics will be explained and critiqued. Finally the search for a "common ethics" will be discussed.