Normativity and Solidarity

What methodologies should characterize religious ethics? How should religious ethics relate (or not relate) to religious studies? These questions have long confronted religious ethicists. But in the last decade, debates about what is and isn’t religious ethics have expanded and intensified, including not only disciplinary relationships and methodological commitments but also what the meaning and goals of religious ethics ought to be. In this chapter, I first briefly rehearse recent debates concerning whether and how religious ethics ought to be practiced. Second, I offer my own constructive proposal. Drawing from Richard B. Miller and David Hollenbach, my proposal argues that religious ethicists should use normative methodologies and by informed by a sense of intellectual solidarity. Given that we live in increasingly diverse and interconnected communities and are confronted by ever more pressing moral and political issues, however, demands that we move further to employ methodologies that are normative and solidaristic.