Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach

by Darrell J. Fasching, Dell Dechant

Comparative Religious Ethics breaks with the assumption that there is a uniquely "Christian" or "Buddhist" solution to an ethical issue, and reflects instead the way in which ancient stories from diverse religions have influenced contemporary ethical issues.
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Genres: Textbooks, Religion

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 2001

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book. I read it for a class with the same name.

[Sasha Wolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Narrative approaches to ethics start from the principle that our understanding of right and wrong is shaped by the stories we tell - both the ones we consciously write, watch, read to our children etc and the less conscious ones we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it. I think this is an important thing to recognise, but I haven't read much narrative philosophy yet; given my interest in religion, this seemed an interesting place to start. The authors set out to ask how the stories of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam shape the "ethical imagination" of their adherents and how people can draw on the stories of religions other than their own to gain new ethical insights. The latter question is approached through the life stories of Socrates, Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abraham Heschel, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Joanna Macy and Rosemary Ruether.

I enjoyed the early chapters of the book, which were describing how religion and ethics changed with urbanisation, but ultimately there was not enough detail to convince me that the explanation given was correct. The fact that some stray references in later chapters seem to subscribe to the myth of a prehistoric Goddess-worshipping matriarchy did nothing to increase my confidence.

I also found it unhelpful that the authors chose to create what they admitted was a new distinction between "the sacred" and "the holy", assigning the former to mean forms of spirituality that think in terms of moral purity or pollution (and thus easily become hostile to outsiders) and the latter to mean forms that call purity rules into question for the sake of seeking justice toward strangers. As the authors acknowledge, it is only the terminology that is new; the conceptual distinction itself is the one scholars often draw between the priestly and prophetic traditions in the Hebrew scriptures. I understand why it might not be a good idea to apply that terminology to the other religions covered in this book, but I would have thought some neutral terminology could have been found without trying to polarise words that are usually regarded as synonymous. Subsuming philosophers like Kant, who wrote largely secular philosophy with an occasional whiff of deism, into the "holiness" model also struck me as deeply unhelpful, especially as there is otherwise no sustained exploration of the stories atheists and agnostics tell about ethics and how these might correspond to or differ from those told by religious people.

Unusually among the academic texts I read, Fasching and deChant make no pretence at objectivity; they want to persuade people to adopt what they describe as an "ethic of interdependence and audacity", the latter meaning a willingness to challenge authority on behalf of those who suffer injustice. That in itself is not a particularly controversial conclusion, but often they seem to presuppose it rather than arguing for it, as when they describe the Bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism as "an ethical failure" because it aims at helping others achieve enlightenment rather than social justice. Along the way I felt they were often unfairly dismissive of key aspects of the spiritualities they were describing, in ways that revealed a privileging of certain aspects of the Christian moral tradition - quite likely unconscious, given how prevalent Christian moral concepts are in Western culture; I don't know either author's personal religious affiliation, if any. The most egregious example is the statement that an ethic that does not include love of one's enemy "falls short of the full vision" - some of my Asatru and Feri friends would have a lot to say about that!

They do criticise other aspects of Christianity, particularly its emphasis on self-sacrifice, which they see as an ethic of "life through death" that lends itself too easily to justifying killing in the name of healing; this seems to me to elide the difference between a spirituality that is prepared to sacrifice the self and a spirituality that is prepared to sacrifice others. I think it is possible to question whether an ethic based on self-sacrifice is fair to the self, and therefore whether or with what caveats it should be taught to others as a philosophy to follow for themselves - but I think Fasching and deChant overstate the risk it poses to others who do not themselves subscribe to it.

I did learn quite a bit about some of the figures featured in the book, particularly Socrates and Malcolm X. I had not appreciated quite how strong a religious motivation Socrates had for his vocation as a philosopher, but the book quotes a long series of extracts from Plato's account of his trial according to which he was largely driven by a series of intense religious experiences, complete with the regular appearance of a voice which tells him when he is about to do something against the wishes of his deity (such as going into politics). But overall, I found the book disappointing.

[Michael Welch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fasching, Dechant, and Lantigua present their comparison of religious ethics through comparing myths, rituals, and the lives of religious leaders from the 20th century. Largely this perspective works. A major criticism of the relegation of feminist ethics and environmental to the back of the book specifically the last two chapters, while the myths and lives looked at were from the perspective of men. Religious ethics also deal with women and their bodies so there should have been a larger focus on the role of women and other gender and queer people have in the shaping of religious ethics.

[Margie Dorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I will read it again before long, because there is so much to absorb. I recommend it to everyone, and now have a new listing on my personal "top ten." I now re-read it every year, because I have my EfM students read it as well. It is a very powerful book.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some sound information about religion, but too many gaps in the argumentation.