282 - Comparative Religious Ethics: A New Method

Comparative Religious Ethics: A New Method
By David Little and Sumner B Twiss
New York, Harper & Row, 1978. 266 pp. $10.95

The challenge for those engaged in the relatively new area of the comparative study of ethics is to avoid advocating one particular moral position above another. The task is to present moral codes other than one's own without devitalizing them or making them appear inferior in cross-cultural comparisons. Little (professor of religion and sociology at the University of Virginia) and Twiss (Professor of religion at Brown) successfully complete this task. The boon they present us in Comparative Religious Ethics is an analysis of three very different religious

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traditions-Navajo, Matthew's Gospel, and Theravada Buddhism-in terms of their key concepts, the content of their moral codes, and the patterns of practical justification (vindication and validation) of that moral code.

Before making application to these three case studies, the authors methodically develop their own language of moral, religious, and legal action-guides. These action-guides attempt to resolve the problem of cooperation among a group's members. The moral action-guide thus claims a distinctive sort of superiority based on a characteristic type of legitimacy that satisfies certain conditions for justifiability and for other-regardingness.

Similarly, the religious action-guide focuses on acceptance of a set of beliefs, attitudes, and practices based on the notion of sacred authority that functions to resolve certain problems of interpretability. These problems concern the inexplicability of the natural world, the presence of suffering and death, and the ambiguities in human conduct. The legal action-guide deals with superiority that claims to be legitimate in that it is justifiable and invokes a notion of sovereign authority that is both normative and effective.

The authors describe k'e and hozhq in Navajo ideology-the positive aspects in kinship solidarity (the kindness, peacefulness, and cooperation which advance the welfare of self and others) and the harmonious, blessed relation with the sacred powers of the Navajo universe. They show how the Navajo moral code is grounded in religious premises concerning taboos, ceremonials (and chantways), and imitation of mythic hero behavior patterns.

From Matthew's Gospel they set forth how, Christians willingly, submit themselves to the authority of God and the law of the kingdom, thereby achieving their welfare as well as the welfare of their ruler. The principle of neighbor-love (in several forms, including the Golden Rule) is studied in relation to the love and service of God and applied to the parable of the unforgiving servant as a clear example of the formalistic pattern of validation.

In Theravada Buddhism, the authors portray how practical teaching centers around Nirvana as a sacred authority, and an especially distinctive scope of reality systematically set apart from "this world. " The attainment or realization of this peaceful state of Nirvana, whether through techniques of meditation or one's other-impinging duties as a householder, is the only escape from an otherwise closed circle of repeated births and deaths.

Specialists in any of these three religious traditions undoubtedly may find points to criticize. For example, the authors rely on anthropological accounts from Navajo religion, and one wonders what mythic warrants or concealed beliefs they might have discovered by consulting Navajos themselves. Likewise, biblical experts might suggest that Matthew presents an interpretation of early Christianity that seems pale beside Paul and John. Though it would be too broad to situate Matthew's

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Gospel within the context of two thousand years of Christian tradition, the authors might have at least placed it within its entire New Testament context. By contrast, their interpretation of Theravada Buddhism does draw on several sources from the Buddhist canon, covering several centuries, and seems to incorporate some of the qualities of the bodhisattva (for example, sympathy) which are more proper to Mahayana Buddhism.

Still, Little and Twiss do succeed in presenting a new method for objectively investigating material from highly disparate ethical traditions. While they recognize that there is a likely discrepancy between the ideal beliefs of a tradition and the day-by-day operational beliefs of practitioners, they convincingly call attention to the tendency of cultures to posit a sacred realm as the source of solutions to the problems of interpretability, point to the diverse types of practical justification for moral codes, and highlight the central importance of other impinging attitudes and acts, no matter what circumstantial variations may exist among cultures in their articulation.

The book makes a valuable contribution to graduate, college, and seminary libraries, indeed, wherever courses are offered in religious ethics. This work might even encourage others to adapt a similar methodology for studying even more timely traditions, such as the Islamic world, where religious belief is the center not only of individual conduct but also of politics.

Leonard J. Biallas
Quincy College
Quincy, Illinois