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ThD Ethics Major Exam Reading List
Students are expected to have a comprehensive understanding of the works in the following subjects by the end of the second year of advanced study. Due to the nature of the subjects with which we deal it is expected that the following list will be occasionally subject to revision.
Contents
Exam II: Religion, Social Thought, and the Social Sciences
NOTE: The ThD Ethics Minor reading list is here.
Exam I: Ethics
1) Western Sources for Ethical Reasoning
a) Basic Primary Readings
Plato, The Republic
Aristotle, Politics
Augustine, City of God (in part)
Aquinas, Summa Theologica (in part)
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Martin Luther, A Treatise on Christian Liberty (1520)
-------, Secular Authority: To What Extent it should be Obeyed (1523)
-------, Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants (1525)
John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (in part)
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (in part)
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
Immanuel Kant, The Foundations of the Metaphysic of Morals
-------, Eternal Peace
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (in part)
G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right (in part)
Karl Marx, On Religion, Introduction by Reinhold Niebuhr (1964)
-------, The Thought of Karl Marx: An Introduction, by David McLellan (1971)
b) Recommended General Introductory Readings
William Ebenstein and Alan O. Ebenstein, Great Political Thinkers: Plato to the Present (5th ed.)
Iain Hampsher-Monk, A History of Modern Political Thought
Strauss, Leo and Joseph Cropsey, History of Political Philosophy, (3rd ed.).
2) Ethical Teachings of Christianity and Other Religions
a) Theoretical Issues in the Globalization of Ethics
Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (1985)
Jeffery Stout, Ethics After Babel (1988)
Robert C. Neville, The Puritan Smile (1987)
Ronald M. Green, Religion and Moral Reason: New Method for Comparative Study (1988)
David Little and Sumner B. Twiss, Comparative Religious Ethics: A New Method (1978)
Robin W. Lovin and Frank L. Reynolds, eds., Cosmogony and Ethical Order: New Studies in Comparative Ethics (1985)
Carman, John and Mark Jurgensmeyer, eds. A Bibliographic Guide to the Comparative Study of Ethics (1991)
John Hick and Paul F. Knitter, eds. The Myth of Christian Uniqueness (1987)
John Macquarrie, Three Issues in Ethics (1970)
Joseph Runzo, Ethics, Religion, and the Good Society (1992)
Gene Outka and John P. Reeder, Jr. eds., Prospects for a Common Morality (1993)
b) Ethical Teachings of Christianity
Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (1931, 1950)
Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order (1912); or
-------, A Theology for the Social Gospel (1907)
Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932, 1960)
-------, Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935, 963, 1979)
H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (1951)
Walter G. Muelder, Moral Law in Christian Social Ethics (1966)
John C. Bennett, Christian Ethics and Social Policy (1946)
-------, Radical Imperative: From Theology to Social Ethics (1975)
Waldo Beach and H. Richard Niebuhr, eds., Christian Ethics: Sources of the Living Tradition (1955, 1973)
Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era (1948) or
-------, Love, Power, and Justice (1954)
Emil Brunner, Justice and the Social Order (1945); or
-------, The Divine Imperative (1937, 1947)
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1930, 1958)
R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926)
David J. O'Brien. and Thomas A. Shannon, eds., Catholic Social Thought (1992)
Wayne A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality (1993)
James M. Gustafson, Ethics from a Theocentric Perspective, Volume One: Theology and Ethics (1981)
c) Ethical Teachings of World Religions
Russell F. Sizemore and Donald K. Swearer, eds. Ethics, Wealth, and Salvation: A Study in Buddhist Social Ethics (1990)
Pieris Aloysius, An Asian Theology of Liberation (1988)
Lee H. Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas (1990)
Daniel Keown, The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (1992)
Max Weber, The Religion of China (1951)
-------, The Religion of India (1958)
-------, Ancient Judaism (1952)
Robert N. Bellah, Tokugawa Religion (1957)
Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985)
Wing-tsit Chan, ed., Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963)
Wolfgang Bauer, China and the Search for Happiness (1976)
Herbert Fingarette, Confucius - the Secular as Sacred (1972)
Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact (1985)
A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao (1989)
Marcel Granet, La Pensée Chinoise (1934, 1968)
Donald J. Munro, The Concept of Man in Early China (1969)
Vitaly A. Rubin, Individual and State in Ancient China (1976)
Philip Novak, The World's Wisdom: Sacred Texts of the world's Religions (1994)
Huston Smith, The World's Religions (1991)
Mircea Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion (1987)
Peter K. H. Lee, ed., Confucian-Christian Encounters in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (1991)
Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights (1991)
Exam II: Religion, Social Thought, and the Social Sciences
1) Social Analysis of Globalization
Peter Beyer, Religion and Globalization (1994)
Piotr Sztompka, The Sociology of Social Change (1993)
Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (1992); or
-------, Religion and Global Order, eds., Roland Robertson and William R. Garrett (1991)
Mike Featherstong, Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (1990)
Paul Kennedy, Preparing for the Twenty-first Century (1993)
Joe Holland and Peter Henriot, S. J., Social Analysis (1980)
Martin Albrow, A Global Age: State and Society Beyond Modernity (1996)
Theodore H. Von Laue, The World Revolution of Westernization (1987)
Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (1990)
Hans Haferkamp and Neil J. Smelser, eds., Social Change and Modernity (1992)
2) Ideologies of Globalization: Images of World Society in Conflict
Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms, (1994)
Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed, (1991)
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) or
Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation (1973)
Enrique Dussel, Ethics and Community (1986)
Mark Jurgensmeyer, Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (1993)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order (1997)
David Little, John Keleary, and Abdulaziz A. Sachedina, eds., Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures: Western and Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty (1988)
Hans Kung, Global Responsibility (1993); or
-------, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics (1998)
3). Religion and the Social Sciences
Robert N. Bellah, ed., Emile Durkheim On Morality and Society (1973)
Anthony Giddens, ed., Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings (1972)
Ernest Wallwork, Durkheim: Morality and Milieu (1972)
Steven Lukes, Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work (1972)
H. H. Gerth and C. W. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1958)
W. G. Runciman, ed., Weber: Selections in Translation (1978)
Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (1960)
Ralph Schroeder, Max Weber and the Sociology of Culture (1992)
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (1966)
Gibson Winter, Elements for a Social Ethic (1966); or
-------, Liberating Creation: The Foundations of Religious Social Ethics (1981)
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973)
Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (1936)
Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, 2 vols. (1965 and 1967)
Lewis A. Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought, 2nd ed. (1977)
Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (1986)
Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan, eds. Interpretive Social Science (1979)
William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, eds. Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach (1972)
Jeffrey C. Alexander, ed., Culture and Society (1990)
Robert Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order (1987)
4). Social Thought
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, ed., Human Rights in Cross-cultural Perspectives (1992)
Leroy S. Rouner, ed., Human Rights and the World's Religions (1983); or
-------, Irene Bloom, J. Paul Martin, and Wayne L., Proudfoot, eds., Religious Diversity and Human Rights (1996)
Oliver F. Williams and John W. Houck, eds., Catholic Social Thought and the New World Order (1993)
Robert C. Solomon and Mark C. Murphy, eds., What is Justice? (1990)
Martha Nussbaum and A. Sen, eds., Quality of Life (1993) (selected chapters)
Gayraud S. Wilmore and James H. Cone, eds., Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1966-1979 (1979)
-------, Black Theology: A Documentary History, 1980-1992 (1993)
Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communication Action, 2 vols. (1984 and 1987)
Alan Wolfe, Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation (1989)
Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (1982)
Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988)
-------, After Virtue (1984)
Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols. (1984 and 1987)
Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (1989, 1994)
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)
Robert N. Bellah et al., The Good Society (1991)
-------, Habits of the Heart (1985)
Thomas E. McCollough, The Moral Imagination and Public Life (1991)
Ian Barbour, Ethics in an Age of Technology (1993)
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