Analysis and Advocacy in Comparative Religious Ethics

Comparative Religious Ethics seeks to promote multiple “encounters with difference,” but what capacities should we be developing, in ourselves and our audiences, to engage genuinely with multiple views? A careful attention to analysis, leading to appreciation though not assent, has marked many of the most interesting efforts in CRE over the past few decades. But some critics think that such efforts fail, and that the protocols of contemporary culture and scholarship turn encounter into consumerist amusement and genuine toleration into indifference, diluting subjects’ own convictions and producing “Don Juans of the myths, courting each one in turn.” This paper directly addresses these challenges, trying to appreciate their power while still proposing that constructive encounters with difference are possible, though they may require more serious self-reflection than scholars have often theorized.