| 1. |
- Andersson, Kerstin, 1968-
(author)
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Människan, naturen och Gud : En studie av miljöetiken i nutida kristen teologi
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study has three aims. The first aim is to analyse and clarify three models of theological environmental ethics. A second aim is to critically examine and compare the environmental ethical models of the three theologians. The third aim is to present a reasonable model of a theological environmental ethic. The overall problem of the study is how an acceptable theological environmental ethic can be constructed.The method used in the study is a content analysis of ideas, allowing the author to reconstruct a model of theological environmental ethics and clarify some important problems which a reasonable theological ethics must relate to. It is argued that a view of life perspective in environmental ethics gives an important complement to philosophical environmental ethics when analysing and constructing environmental ethical models.The theologians analysed in this study represent three different models of theological environmental ethics. Larry Rasmussen provides a communitarian virtue ethical and biocentric model with community, love and justice as central values. Leonardo Boff provides an ecocentric model characterised by his liberation theological standpoint combined with ecology. Boff’s model holds justice as a central value and argues for a responsibility for creating fair relations between humans and between humans and nature. Rosemary Radford Ruether’s model is characterised by ecofeminist theory and feminist theology. Ruether’s model is ecocentric and based on the idea that distorted gender relations are primary causes of the ecological crisis. All theologians in the study use the Bible and the Christian tradition as well as resources from natural and social science when constructing their models.The author of the study proposes her own biocentric model of theological environmental ethics grounded in an awareness of the existential vulnerability of human beings, a principle of ecological justice, a critique of hierarchical relations and the Christian idea of loving your neighbour.
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| 2. |
- Bóasdóttir, Sólveig Anna
(author)
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Violence, power, and justice : A feminist contribution to Christian sexual ethics
- 1998
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study discusses how male battering of women can be understood through due attention to contemporary psychological and sociological interpretations and concludes that a critical feminist perspective offers the most adequate explanation of the problem. Feminist theories on the function of male violence in patriarchal societies coupled with theories on power and the social construction of sexuality as well as feminist theories about the institution of heterosexual marriage are then discussed; the result is a serious critique of marriage as an institution which is not safe with regard to women, reproducing and reaffirming as it does the patriarchal power relations of the sexes. Based on this analysis the author formulates four criteria to measure what constitutes an adequate Christian sexual ethics for intimate relationships. Holding Christian sexual ethics to fair account, the study then goes on to examine theories of Christian sexual ethics in intimate relationships as represented in the thinking of theologians Helmut Thielicke, Bernard Häring and James Nelson. The evaluation of these works in light of the criteria of experience, equality, tradition and integration concludes that some of them have serious inadequacies. An important shift in emphasis and direction for Christian sexual ethics is then proposed. The author suggests that Christian sexual ethics must approach intimate relationships from a justice perspective. It must start with the realities of injustice in current intimate relationships and from there criticize male power, the social construction of sexuality as well as male battering. Such an approach is necessary if Christian sexual ethics is to be able to offer a moral protection for women.
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| 3. |
- Boris, Kapustin
(author)
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Evil and freedom : Reflections regarding Kant’s ”Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason”
- 2017
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Book (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The book aspires to show the inherent paradoxes of the “pure idea” of freedom and its foreignness, and possible contrariety, revealed in and by some specific historical-political contexts, to freedom as practice of human liberation. This theme is looked at mainly through the prism of Kant’s moral and political philosophy, which—by way of critical engagement with it—offers a particularly propitious vantage point for its exploration and elaboration. Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, with its dramatic juxtaposition and conjoining of freedom with evil, along with its emphasis on “radical evil” and, at the same time, its dismissal of “diabolic evil” (as something applicable to and practicable by humans) is particularly seminal in this respect. The book furnishes a political-philosophical reading of the paradoxes of Kant’s account of freedom and culminates in showing what they reveal and allow us to come to grips with politics in “real life”, in particular the politics of great revolutions.
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| 4. |
- Callewaert, Teresa, 1979-
(author)
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Theologies Speak of Justice : A Study of Islamic and Christian Social Ethics
- 2017
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to investigate how religious ethics, while retaining its identity, can contribute to political debate and to the understanding of justice. The inquiry addresses these issues by focusing on theological perspectives which challenge the solutions offered to these questions by the liberal paradigm. Three kinds of challenges are studied, each of which is represented by one thinker from the Islamic tradition and one from the Christian tradition, in order to enable a comparative perspective on the contributions of religious traditions. The thinkers studied are: 1) modified liberalism, represented by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im and Duncan B. Forrester; 2) liberationism, represented by Ali Shariati and Gustavo Gutierrez; and 3) radical traditionalism, as developed by Tariq Ramadan and John Milbank.The study is organized around three main questions. First, how can innovative interpretations of religious tradition be plausibly justified? Second, what role should religious arguments and reasons play in the political sphere? Third, what can religious ethics and theological thought contribute to the understanding of social justice? The questions are engaged by means of a critical and reconstructive engagement with the six thinkers. The suggested solutions are assessed in terms of the criteria of authenticity, communicability, and potential for transformation. It is argued that a religious ethic can rely on a tradition without accepting conservative understandings of that tradition. Furthermore, it is argued that the coherence of religious ethics can be made available for public discourse but that the hospitability of the public forum to such contributions needs to be realized through a deepened democratic culture and a critique of power structures which condition perceptions of rationality. While religious ethics do not articulate complete alternative understandings of justice, they articulate contributions by relating justice to human sociality and to transcendence.
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| 5. |
- Chachine, Isaias Ezekiel, 1962-
(author)
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Community, Justice, and Freedom : Liberalism, Communitarianism, and African Contributions to Political Ethics
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study deals with theories of community, justice, and freedom within liberalism, communitarianism, African philosophy and theology. The study maintains that there are different latitudes on how to formulate and articulate theories of community, justice and freedom informed by particualr moral experiences with bearing on different views of human. People differ and their claims on moral matters are influenced by contexts in which they find themselves, which means that cultural diversity has bearing on different interpretations of what it means to be a human being. Given the importance of this diversity, of particular significance in this study is the relationship between various theories of justice and freedom and different understandings of the relationship between the individual and the community. The study endorses that any contemporary discourse on community, justice, and freedom to be adequate should take notice on the political, economic, and cultural aspirations of the people it seeks to address itself. It argues that there might be alternative theories of community, justice, and freedom which may give a fuller appreciation to the fact that there are different understandings of what community implies as well as what justice and freedom means. One such alternative is the African view of human, that of "ubuntu", which maintains that "to be" is "to belong". In this view a person is because of others, and by inference one's humanity, including one's sense of personhood, is affirmed by affirming the humanity and personhood of others. The first aim of the study is to examine how we should understand different theories of justice and freedom within Western political philosophy, and African political theory and theology. The second aim is to analyse how different theories of justice and freedom are related to different conceptions of the relationship between the individual and the community. The third and final aim is to propose an adequate theory of community, justice, and freedom from an African perspective.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Ehnberg, Jenny, 1984-
(author)
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Globalization, Justice, and Communication : A Critical Study of Global Ethics
- 2015
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to seek to an answer to the question of what constitutes a tenable model for global ethics. This is done in part by a critical engagement with four different models of global ethics; two proposals from political philosophy and two contributions from theological ethics. The models analyzed in the study are: (1) the capabilities approach as developed by Martha Nussbaum, (2) Seyla Benhabib’s discourse ethics and model of cosmopolitan federalism, (3) David Hollenbach’s model of the common good and human rights, and (4) the model for responsibility ethics and theological humanism as developed by William Schweiker. These models contain different understandings of global justice, human rights, and sustainable development.The study works with six primary problems: (1) Which are the main moral problems associated with different processes of globalization? (2) What should be the response to these problems, in the form of a normative ethical model? (3) What is the relation between global ethics and universalism? (4) What kind of institutional vision for the international arena does a tenable global ethic promote? (5) Given the human diversity and global pluralism, what would be a reasonable view of the human being included in a global ethic? (6) What kind of ethical theory is sustainable for global ethical reflection? These questions also form the basis for the analysis of the models.The study uses a set of criteria in order to assess the answers that the models offer for these questions. These criteria also constitute the framework within which the author’s contribution to the discussion of global ethics is phrased. The criteria are founded on an idea of what characterizes global ethical reflection. The contention is that a tenable global ethic should be relevant, and it should also be related to a reasonable view of human beings and a plausible ethical theory. Together these support the criterion of communicability, which argues that a global ethic should above all be communicable, i.e. capable of enabling cross-cultural communication. A central argument which this study makes is that a kind of ethical contextualism is more reasonable than an epistemological universalism.
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| 8. |
- Elfström, Johan, 1991-
(author)
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Reconceiving Public Reason : Neutrality, Civility, and the Self-Defeat Objection
- 2024
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- How should we live together? The question is at the heart of social ethics and it is an as urgent political question as ever. In this thesis, one particularly attractive reply to this central issue is analysed—John Rawls’s theory of public reason, and three different objections that have been put against it. Rawls’s theory is an approach to democratic decision-making. According to it, the exercise of political power should be neutral. Secondly, the exercise of political power should restrict the reasons that have justificatory force in political decision-making procedures to reasons that do not rely on any particular worldview. Finally, the exercise of political power is legitimate only if it is in accordance with terms of cooperation that all reasonable and rational persons can accept.The objections each target one of these components. Cécile Laborde has challenged the conception of neutrality espoused by egalitarian liberals generally. Egalitarian liberal understandings of neutrality do not take sufficient account of all relevant dimensions of our worldviews and often confuse neutral policies with what conforms to the status quo. Jeffrey Stout, in turn, targets the constraints on public discourse and argues that imposing such constraints is unfair to religious citizens because it distributes the burdens of cooperation to their disadvantage. Finally, Steven Wall argues that the requirement that the legitimate exercise of political power be acceptable to citizens ends up defeating itself.These arguments are tested and I consider the alternative approaches that are presented by each of the three critics. I propose that neutrality should be rejected, as equality better captures the end pursued by demanding neutral treatment of different worldviews. I then go on to revise the constraints that Rawls impose. Although many of Stout’s arguments are persuasive, Rawls’s constraints on political discourse are introduced for very good reasons. Finally, I argue that Wall’s self-defeat argument fails and that Rawls’s principle of legitimacy need not be revised, but is defendable in its current form.
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| 9. |
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Etiska undersökningar : Om samhällsmoral, etisk teori och teologi
- 2010
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Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Etik är ett brett och angeläget ämne som engagerar forskare inom teologin, filosofin och samhällsdisciplinerna. Inte minst under Professor Carl-Henric Grenholms tid som ämnesföreträdare har etikforskningen i Uppsala haft en sådan bredd. Som en replik på Carl-Henric Grenholms bestående insatser har ett flertal forskare från Europa och USA bidragit med artiklar till denna hyllningsskrift.Tre områden har fått illustrera hans mångåriga engagemang som forskare och lärare: etisk teori, socialetik samt teologi och etik. Här analyseras frågor om religion och moral, människovärde, praktiskt förnuft, tolerans, sexualitet och lagring av kärnavfall. Antologin rymmer ett brett spektrum av artiklar skrivna med varje forskareseget temperament och stil. De bildar tillsammans ett smakprov på de områden som under några decennier präglat Carl-Henric Grenholms forskning.
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| 10. |
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Feminist Ethics : Perspectives, Problems and Possibilities
- 2003
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Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- One purpose of this book is to analyse and reflect critically upon various feminist contributions to ethics. Another purpose is to give a critical evaluation of these contributions of feminist ethics to ethical theory, normative reflection, and applied ethics. This means that three questions are adressed in the book. What are the main contributions of feminist theory to moral philosophy and theological ethics? What are the problems within feminist ethics of different kinds? What are the possibilities for feminist research in ethics for the future? The book includes descriptions of different sorts of feminist ethics in current theology and philosophy. Different ethical theories as well as contributions to applied ethics within feminist ethics are analysed. the book also engages with a critical evaluationof these different kinds of feminist ethics.
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