Abstract

Christian theological ethics has wrestled, in one way or another, with a dilemma: can theological ethics be persuasive, relevant, and nonsectarian in public moral discourse and yet remain distinctive? Especially since the Enlightenment, Christian concern with persuasiveness has been underwritten by foundationalist assumptions. The effect was to minimize Christian distinctiveness. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine implications for an understanding of this dilemma derived from analysis of four thinkers who have challenged foundationalist epistemologies while decrying the loss of theological ethics as a distinctive contributor to pubic moral discourse. The positions I believe particularly appropriate for an analysis of this kind are represented by Alasdair MacIntyre, Jeffrey Stout, Stanley Hauerwas, and James Gustafson. I consider each thinker in turn, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of their moral epistemologies generally and their arguments regarding relativism particularly as a way of discerning implications for the place of theological ethics in broader moral discourse. My argument is that theological ethics, employing a nonfoundationalist understanding, will be supported in its dialogue with secular moral theory by a broader understanding of its relation to nontheological interlocutors; this understanding will be represented by an attempt to chart a path between the dialogical paradigms of Hauerwas and Gustafson