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ThD Ethics Minor 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.
Note that the ThD Minor Examination in Ethics has two emphases, and the examination reading list is defined in two sections, accordingly.
Section II: Religion, Social Thought, and the Social Sciences
NOTE: The ThD Ethics Minor reading list is here.
Section 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)
John Hick and Paul F. Knitter, eds. The Myth of Christian Uniqueness (1987)
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)
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)
Max Weber, The Religion of China (1951)
-------, The Religion of India (1958)
Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (1985)
Philip Novak, The World's Wisdom: Sacred Texts of the world's Religions (1994)
Huston Smith, The World's Religions (1991)
Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights (1991)
Section 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)
2. Ideologies of Globalization: Images of World Society in Conflict
Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms, (1994)
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order (1997)
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)
Steven Lukes, Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work (1972)
Ralph Schroeder, Max Weber and the Sociology of Culture (1992)
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (1966)
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)
William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, eds. Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach (1972)
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)
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)
Robert N. Bellah et al., The Good Society (1991)
Thomas E. McCollough, The Moral Imagination and Public Life (1991)
Ian Barbour, Ethics in an Age of Technology (1993)
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