Religious Ethics
The Religious Ethics Area is concerned with the meaning, merits, and validity of religion for the lives of human and non-human animals and the ordering of societies and ecosystems.
Faculty: Raissa de Rande, Sarah E. Fredericks, William Schweiker, Laurie Zoloth
Associated Faculty: David Brudney, Stephen C. Meredith, Martha C. Nussbaum
The Religious Ethics Area examines questions regarding the good life, justice, virtue, moral agency, and the common good. Studying the history, methods, and theories of religious and non-religious ethics is essential for working in this area. All students are encouraged to pursue work in pertinent areas of the University outside of the Area and Divinity School. For example, the examination of specific moral problems and the study of comparative religious ethics require work in the relevant languages as well as in the social, natural, and historical sciences or in the professions.
Faculty in the Religious Ethics Area have particular expertise in the ethics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as religious and philosophical ethical theory. We welcome the collaboration with colleagues across the Divinity School and University, especially when students wish to study the religious ethics of other traditions. The faculty have particular expertise and interests in comparative religious ethics, theories and methods in the study of ethics, scriptural reasoning, the history of philosophy, virtue ethics, and pragmatism, as well as justice, political thought, bioethics, climate ethics, and the relationship of science, ethics, and religion.
** Prof. Schweiker is retiring during the 2025-2026 academic year and is not taking new doctoral students.
Information for Doctoral Students:
Doctoral students in Religious Ethics choose between two tracks, where “Track A” is particularly suitable for students interested in studying religious ethics and one or more monotheistic traditions. “Track B” is intended for students interested in exploring ethics across a larger diversity of traditions.
Second-year Progress Conference
Please see the PhD Student Handbook for more information on the second-year progress conference. It is typically held in the spring quarter of the second year. Students are required to submit a substantive research paper for discussion at the conference. The research paper may be a student's submitted work in a course or a revision thereof. The paper should provide the faculty with a clear idea of the student’s intellectual profile and possible trajectory of future research. The paper should state a thesis and advance a clear line of argument in twenty to twenty-five pages, not including bibliography, and document the primary and secondary sources on which the student has relied.
Exam Structure
The exam structure and lists were revised as of Fall 2025. Students matriculating after this date are required to use the new structure and exam lists. Students who matriculated before Summer 2025 may choose to use either the old or the new structure and lists.
Exam Structure and Lists before 2025:
RETH I : Religious and Theological Ethics (Fredericks and Schweiker)
RETH II: Moral Theory and Philosophical Ethics (Fredericks and Schweiker)
RETH III: Religion and the Political Order (Fredericks and Schweiker)
RETH IV: Religious Ethics and the Sciences (Fredericks and Zoloth)
RETH V: Religion, Society, and Culture (Fredericks and Zoloth)
RETH VI: Comparative Religious Ethics (de Rande, Fredericks, Schweiker)
Exam Structure and Lists for students matriculating during or after Fall 2025:
A student concentrating in Religious Ethics will take three written examinations in the Area, one outside of the Area, and write a paper, all of which are to be defended at the oral examination. Exams typically take place in the spring of the third year of the PhD program. Students are required to take Religious Ethics I: Religious and Theological Ethics, and Religious Ethics II: Moral Theory and Philosophical Ethics. Students may elect, in consultation with their advisor, to take exams based on the reading lists as written or, if they are focusing on another religious tradition, to substitute approximately one-half of the readings of exam I and/or II with texts from that tradition. Students are to choose one examination among the remaining four examinations in religious ethics and one examination outside the Area.
Each written examination is four hours long and closed-book. The oral examination lasts 2 hours. Successful completion of the Qualifying Examinations requires passing grades on the written examinations, the research paper, and the oral examination.
A student concentrating in Religious Ethics will submit for the Oral Examination a twenty-five to forty-page paper, which typically engages at least one major thinker, relevant primary materials, and also important secondary scholarship with respect to a question pertinent to the student’s scholarly aspirations. This paper should have a thesis in light of which the student explicates and assesses the thinker(s) chosen and should advance, through that engagement, a defense of the thesis. The paper should be distributed to examiners at least two weeks before the oral examination. Please see the Phd Handbook for additional details.
Each religious ethics exam will be drafted by two members of the Religious Ethics faculty or one member of the Religious Ethics faculty and an external member. Each exam will be read by all examiners and all full-time faculty members in the Religious Ethics area for the student’s oral defense.
Ethics Track A This path is particularly suitable for students interested in studying religious ethics and one or more monotheistic traditions. | Ethics Track B This path is particularly suitable for students interested in studying ethics across a larger diversity of traditions. | |
| All students must study foundations of ethics, taking | RETH 1a: Religious and Theological Ethics
AND RETH 2a: Philosophical Ethics and Moral Theory | RETH 1b: Religious and Theological Ethics – with up to half of the readings substituted with readings from a religious tradition not heavily featured on the list. AND RETH 2b: Philosophical Ethics and Moral Theory with up to half of the readings substituted with readings from a religious tradition not heavily featured on the list.
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| All students must study specialty material in ethics, taking | ONE of the following exams: RETH III: Religion and the Political Order (only for pre 2025 matriculants) RETH 3: Religion and the Political Order RETH IV: Religious Ethics and the Sciences (only for pre 2025 matriculants) RETH 4: Religious Ethics and the Sciences RETH V: Religion, Society, and Culture (only for pre 2025 matriculants) RETH 5: Religion, Society, and Culture RETH VI: Religious Ethics (only for pre 2025 matriculants) RETH 6: Topics in Contemporary Religious Ethics | |
| All students must study outside of ethics, taking | ONE exam outside the Area – either in the Divinity School or University at large | |
Exam Lists as of 2025:
RETH 1a&b: Religious and Theological Ethics (de Rande and Fredericks)
RETH 2a&b: Philosophical Ethics and Moral Theory (de Rande and Fredericks)
RETH 3: Religion and the Political Order (de Rande and Fredericks)
RETH 4: Religious Ethics and the Sciences (Fredericks and Zoloth)
RETH 5: Religion, Society and Culture (Fredericks and Zoloth)
RETH 6: Topics in Contemporary Religious Ethics (de Rande and Fredericks)