It likely does not come as a surprise that there has been more than one way normative
ethical theory has been construed. There’s no shortage of diversity that one encounters in a survey of ethical theories that exists along with latter day proponents. However, it may come as a surprise that there is a diversity of opinion even among Christians of almost every theological and philosophic stripe as to how ethical theorizing and defining ethical terms is properly done.
So a good strategy at this point (assuming we’re starting at near zero) would be to understand what traditions have come down to us and then survey the extant theories out there. But that’s not all. At the same time a Christian scholar who wishes to engage in apologetics will be thinking through how these theories fit into their understanding of Christianity...and there are different ways Christian scholars have attempted to do it. The point of doing this homework is to ensure that your apologetic stances reflect a sophisticated understanding of these issues, which will allow you to maintain an ethical consistency in your apologetic argumentation. That doesn’t mean, for instance, that to maintain ethical theory consistency you must apply one theory to all cases, but rather one can maintain ethical theory consistency by having worked out a principled approach to how theories apply to various cases.
Here are some tools to get at these issues:
- Ethics in the Larger Perspective of Philosophy
- Philosopical Ethics
- Survey of Some Normative Ethical Systems
- Christian Ethics: an Integrative Task
- On Biblical Ethics
- Moral Reasoning
- Moral Statements Schema
See also Resources on Level 3 and Resources in Faith & Philosophy Moral Theory Podcast.
Recommended Reading:
Rae, S. B. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995.
A very good introduction that explains and defends the reason for studying academic ethics for the benefit of gaining insights into Christian ethics. It does a good job of communicating parts of the received tradition, what systems of ethics look like, moral reasoning categories and developing a blend of arataic (being) and principled (action oriented or doing) Christian biblical ethics for personal and social ethics.