Week 3: The Ethics of Life

This week, we are focusing on questions of justice as it’s related to life—what counts as life, when is it ok to take a life, who gets to make those decisions, and on what criteria are they made?  This broad theme spans a number of topics, but for this week I’ve decided to focus in on debates around war, abortion, and the environment (thinking about both human and non-human life forms).  These are three areas in particular where differing conceptions of the ethics of life come into prominence in public debates.

Debates on these issues goes back to the beginnings of many foundational religious and cultural teachings, as many religions, and other comprehensive conceptions of ethics, deal explicitly with questions of what life is and how we should treat it.  While certain things seem black and white enough ("Though shalt not murder" seems to span most moral traditions), the issue becomes quite murky in other circumstances (if capital punishment prevents deadly crimes, does it create more justice overall?  if war helps topple a dictator who brutally abuses his people, is it justified?  and so on...).  

For example, while "Just War Theory" stems from a traditionally Catholic line of thought, and the Catholic Church institutionally takes a strong stance against abortion and contraception, there are also self-described Catholics who object to warentirely and who argue for a pro-choice stance based on differing understandings of how one should determine justice when it comes to questions of life and rights.  This is an example of diversity within one tradition, and in the readings for this week, you'll see a broad span of approaches to these questions coming from within a variety of religious and cultural traditions.