This thesis investigates the topic of natural law in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions by utilizing the methodology of comparative religious ethics. Approaches to the method such as ethical formalism, ethical naturalism, and narrative ethics are assessed with the author opting for a multidimensional approach that is religious and ethical. This multidimensional approach, as defined by William Schweiker, conducts natural law inquiry from a hermeneutical standpoint of moral diversity and democratic pluralism. The hermeneutical standpoint warrants a historicizing of natural law ethics that is compatible with modern secularity instead of a classicist metaphysical worldview. To achieve this task, the thought of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and Jewish theologian David Novak is used to formulate a concept of a natural law tradition. Three normative features define the natural law traditions in question: rationality as tradition- constituted, revelation as a historical phenomenon, and natural law as a cultural construct that is both comparative and ontological. The central claim of this thesis is that the Theravāda and Thomistic traditions provide a similar conceptual apparatus for rational discourse that can locate ethical commonalities and respect differences across traditions. The commonality between traditions is secured in natural law ethics because these traditions adhere to a constitutive truth that is the objective ground of all truths and of nature which designates a shared humanity. On the other hand, these natural law traditions are able to at least respect difference because they recognize the autonomy of other traditions outside of and pre- existing their own. Natural law ethics in these religious traditions therefore avoids the ethical challenges of relativism and authoritarianism. Both traditions define a concept of "nature" with a proper teleological orientation for the moral life. "Nature" is an open category in these traditions that can never be fully defined. This demonstrates how these natural law traditions avoid ontological violence. The overall claim is that natural law ethics, which are evident in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions, offer something essential to a pluralistic secular democracy: an unconditioned view of human dignity that protects inalienable rights because it is secured by a higher law than civil laws.

This dissertation analyzes the shape and scope of the virtuous life as it is made possible by and oriented toward God in the thought of two of the most consequential philosophical and theological thinkers in Christianity and Islam, Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) and Abu Hamid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), respectively. My analysis reveals that they share a commitment to the importance and reality of divine agency in shaping human moral action but sharply diverge in their vision of what constitutes a good human life. I argue that attending to these convergences and divergences in their ethics presents contemporary scholars and practitioners with a wide set of resources to theorize or navigate questions and challenges related to loving God, living well, and making moral decisions. This dissertation is a work of comparative theological ethics and engages in historical and rational reconstruction alike. I analyze Aquinas’s and al-Ghazālī’s central arguments on their own terms before extending them into contemporary conversations about divine agency, human happiness, and love. I clarify ongoing disputes about virtue in Aquinas scholarship by arguing for the compatibility of the acquired and infused moral virtues through a more robust appreciation of his account of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the beatitudes. I also contribute to burgeoning analyses of al-Ghazālī’s neglected account of virtue by arguing that his varied use of terms like good character traits (khulq), states of the soul (aḥwāl), and stations (maqāmāt) are united by his commitments to habituation and to his conception of happiness as grounded in the love of God alone. I argue that al-Ghazālī’s insights regarding eternal happiness can inform ongoing debates about the compatibility of acquired and infused moral virtues in Aquinas scholarship and can help Christian theologians and practitioners better appreciate the necessity of the presence of both kinds of virtue in the Christian moral life. I utilize Aquinas’s well-developed account of the infused theological virtue of charity (caritas) to illumine al-Ghazālī’s station of love (maḥabba) as a virtuous activity that can structure a moral way of life oriented toward the end of knowing and loving God. Aside from its contributions to our understanding of these figures and these dimensions of moral thought and life, this dissertation also demonstrates the value of comparison more generally as a tool to clarify debated and neglected concepts in moral philosophy and theology, to enrich ethical deliberation, and to deepen love of God and neighbor. / 2026-05-16T00:00:00Z

The purpose of this study is to investigate how religious ethics, while retaining its identity, can contribute to political debate and to the understanding of justice. The inquiry addresses these issues by focusing on theological perspectives which challenge the solutions offered to these questions by the liberal paradigm. Three kinds of challenges are studied, each of which is represented by one thinker from the Islamic tradition and one from the Christian tradition, in order to enable a comparative perspective on the contributions of religious traditions. The thinkers studied are: 1) modified liberalism, represented by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im and Duncan B. Forrester; 2) liberationism, represented by Ali Shariati and Gustavo Gutierrez; and 3) radical traditionalism, as developed by Tariq Ramadan and John Milbank. The study is organized around three main questions. First, how can innovative interpretations of religious tradition be plausibly justified? Second, what role should religious arguments and reasons play in the political sphere? Third, what can religious ethics and theological thought contribute to the understanding of social justice? The questions are engaged by means of a critical and reconstructive engagement with the six thinkers. The suggested solutions are assessed in terms of the criteria of authenticity, communicability, and potential for transformation. It is argued that a religious ethic can rely on a tradition without accepting conservative understandings of that tradition. Furthermore, it is argued that the coherence of religious ethics can be made available for public discourse but that the hospitability of the public forum to such contributions needs to be realized through a deepened democratic culture and a critique of power structures which condition perceptions of rationality. While religious ethics do not articulate complete alternative understandings of justice, they articulate contributions by relating justice to human sociality and to transcendence.

This research project investigates Confucian thinker Dai Zhen (1724-1777) and Jewish thinker Emmanuel Levinas’s (1906-1995) philosophical discourses on desire from a comparative perspective. First, I look at Dai Zhen and Levinas individually each in their own philosophical contexts, while framing my readings with parallel structure that pivots on a hermeneutic strategy to examine their ideas of desire within the larger prospect of the human relation with transcendence. Then, my inquiry leads to a critical analysis of several interesting issues yielded in my interpretive readings of the two thinkers as regards transcendence and immanence and the self-other relationship. Methodologically, my study combines careful textual analysis, philosophical reflection, and historical sensitivity. We might want to say that there is in fact no correlative of the Levinasian desire in Dai Zhen’s philosophy. Dai Zhen’s notion of desire perhaps comes closer to Levinas’s concept of need. However, the disparity of their conceptual formulations does not keep us from discerning their shared ethical concern for the other, the weak, marginalized, and underprivileged group of society, which provides me the very ground for a dialogical comparison between the two thinkers. Henceforth, my writing is hinged on a comprehension of their conception of desire as an articulation of human striving for what is lying beyond themselves, as a redefinition of the being or essence of humankind in relation to the transcendent which in both philosophers’ ethical thinking is translated into a sympathetic understanding of and care for the other, particularly the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the young, the weak and the like. Through the comparative study of the two thinkers’ ideas of desire, I want to argue that “desire,” which is most readily directed to human egoism and instinctive propensity in both Confucian and Western philosophical traditions, can be at once the very driving force to open us to the other beyond ourselves and an actual moral creativity to produce ethical being out of material existence.

This research project investigates Confucian thinker Dai Zhen (1724-1777) and Jewish thinker Emmanuel Levinas’s (1906-1995) philosophical discourses on desire from a comparative perspective. First, I look at Dai Zhen and Levinas individually each in their own philosophical contexts, while framing my readings with parallel structure that pivots on a hermeneutic strategy to examine their ideas of desire within the larger prospect of the human relation with transcendence. Then, my inquiry leads to a critical analysis of several interesting issues yielded in my interpretive readings of the two thinkers as regards transcendence and immanence and the self-other relationship. Methodologically, my study combines careful textual analysis, philosophical reflection, and historical sensitivity. We might want to say that there is in fact no correlative of the Levinasian desire in Dai Zhen’s philosophy. Dai Zhen’s notion of desire perhaps comes closer to Levinas’s concept of need. However, the disparity of their conceptual formulations does not keep us from discerning their shared ethical concern for the other, the weak, marginalized, and underprivileged group of society, which provides me the very ground for a dialogical comparison between the two thinkers. Henceforth, my writing is hinged on a comprehension of their conception of desire as an articulation of human striving for what is lying beyond themselves, as a redefinition of the being or essence of humankind in relation to the transcendent which in both philosophers’ ethical thinking is translated into a sympathetic understanding of and care for the other, particularly the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the young, the weak and the like. Through the comparative study of the two thinkers’ ideas of desire, I want to argue that “desire,” which is most readily directed to human egoism and instinctive propensity in both Confucian and Western philosophical traditions, can be at once the very driving force to open us to the other beyond ourselves and an actual moral creativity to produce ethical being out of material existence.