COMPARATIVE RELIGIOUS ETHICS AND THE PROBLEM OF “HUMAN NATURE”

Comparative religious ethics is a complicated scholarly endeavor, striving to harmonize intellectual goals that are frequently conceived as quite different, or even intrinsically opposed. Against commonly voiced suspicions of comparative work, this essay argues that descriptive, comparative, and nor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of religious ethics
Main Author: Stalnaker, Aaron (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2005
In: Journal of religious ethics
Further subjects:B Augustine
B Moral Development
B Human Nature
B Confucian Ethics
B Person
B Xunzi
B Christian Ethics
B Mencius
B comparative ethics
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Summary:Comparative religious ethics is a complicated scholarly endeavor, striving to harmonize intellectual goals that are frequently conceived as quite different, or even intrinsically opposed. Against commonly voiced suspicions of comparative work, this essay argues that descriptive, comparative, and normative interests may support rather than conflict with each other, depending on the comparison in question, and how it is pursued. On the basis of a brief comparison of the early Christian Augustine of Hippo and the early Confucians Mencius and Xunzi on the topic of “human nature,” this paper advocates a particular account of comparative religious ethics, and argues for the complexity of the idea of “human nature.” Different elements of this family of concerns are central to religious ethics generally, and to theories and practices of moral development and personal formation specifically.
ISSN:1467-9795
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9795.2005.00193.x