Beyond Universal Reason
In The Peaceable Kingdom Stanley Hauerwas claims that “to begin by asking what is the relation between theology and ethics is to have already made a mistake.” Hauerwas’s claim, and his contribution toward a socially constituted and historically embodied account of the moral life and moral reason, are often charged with sectarianism, relativism, and tribalism. Emmanuel Katongole defends Hauerwas’s dismissal of the traditional philosophical “problem” of the relation between ethics and religion. It is, he argues, part of Hauerwas’s wider attempt to set aside the dominant Kantian moral tradition. Standard fare in moral philosophy, inspired by that tradition, fosters a highly formal, ahistorical view of ethics that does not do justice to our experience of ourselves as moral agents.
Emmanuel Katongole is professor of theology and peace studies at the Kroc Institute, Keough School of Global Affairs, and Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and Extraordinary Professor of Theology and Ecclesiology at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. He is author of several books, including The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa and Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa.