Christian Ethics: A Case Method Approach

by Stivers, Laura A.; Gudord, Christine E.; Martin-Schramm, James B.

• ISBN13: 9781570759666
• ISBN10: 1570759669
• Additional ISBN(s): 9781570756214
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-01
• Publisher: Orbis Books
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

The case method approach forms the backbone of this classroom-proven work. Designed specifically for undergraduate and beginning graduate courses, this latest edition includes six revised and ten new cases, including cases on immigration, homelessness and foreclosures, water,-ethical issues in the workplace, closing hospital emergency rooms, executive pay, living together vs. marriage, same-sex marriage, and physician-assisted death. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Laura A. Stivers is associate professor and chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Dominican University of California. She is the author of Disrupting Homelessness and a co-editor of Justice in a Global Economy. Christine E. Gudorf is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Florida International University and is the author of many books, including Boundaries: A Case Book in Christian Ethics, and co-author of Ethics and World Religions: Cross-Cultural Case Studies. James B. Martin-Schramm is an associate professor of religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and the author of Climate Justice: Ethics, Energy and Public Policy and coauthor of Christian Environmental Ethics.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Christian Ethics and the Case Method	p. 1
Family
Case: Rigor and Responsibility	p. 17
A professional couple active in church and community considers the implications of building a vacation cabin in a poor and environmentally degraded world.
Commentary	p. 21
Case: What God Has Joined	p. 31
Friends and professional counselors seek to assist a couple with marital problems stemming from child abuse, heavy drinking, physical violence, and differing reactions to sexual intimacy.
Commentary	p. 37
Violence/Nonviolence
Case: A Life for a Life?	p. 51
A Florida state legislator is undecided about a bill to abolish the death penalty, wondering whether the problems with the death penalty system can be effectively reformed.
Commentary	p. 57
Case: Vietnam's Legacies	p. 67
A Vietnam veteran puzzles over what to say to his grandson about draft registration and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Commentary	p. 74
Poverty
Case: Homelessness: The How and Why of Caring	p. 93
A social worker who assists the homeless is undecided about her city's proposed anti-panhandling legislation and contemplates what approaches would best address homelessness.
Commentary	p. 100
Case: Who Cares about Haiti Anyway?	p. 109
An analysis of foreign aid and intervention in the context of the international community s failure to deliver the aid it promised Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010.
Commentary	p. 115
The Environment
Case: Oil and the Caribou People	p. 127
A teacher visits a Native American clan gathering in Northeastern Alaska where options are being considered to protect the Porcupine Caribou Herd threatened by oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Commentary	p. 134
Case: Whose Water?	p. 149
A rural county commissioner is faced with the need to find millions to build an up-to-date county water plant, a bottling company willing to foot the cost in return for access to water reserves, and environmentalists and business owners opposing the bottling plant.
Commentary	p. 158
Business
Case: Sustaining Dover	p. 167
A city council representative and small business owner grapples with the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development when Walmart asks for a zoning change so that it can construct a Supercenter in the City of Dover.
Commentary	p. 175
Case: Executive Pay: Reward or Excess?	p. 189
A corporate board of directors struggles with approving annual compensation packages for the executive team when the companyÆs profits suffer due to the weakened economy and when the wages of other employees are frozen.
Commentary	p. 195
Health
Case: How Many Children?	p. 207
A community college class on bioethics discusses the Octomom case, in which a woman gave birth to octuplets following embryo transfer, thus bringing the number of her children to fourteen.
Commentary	p. 213
Case: Keeping the Doors Open	p. 223
A newly hired public hospital CEO discovers a huge operating deficit and attempts to decide whose interests take priority in choosing what should be cut.
Commentary	p. 231
Sexuality
Case: What Makes a Marriage?	p. 243
Middle-aged siblings gathered for their parents' anniversary discuss premarital sex in their own and their children s lives.
Commentary	p. 250
Case: Mixed Blessing?	p. 263
Faced with a request by two recent graduates, administrators of a church-related college debate the wisdom of allowing the blessing of same-sex unions on campus.
Commentary	p. 271
Life and Death
Case: A Matter of Life or Death	p. 287
An eighteen-year-old single woman must come to a decision during her first year of college about an unwanted pregnancy in the early stages of gestation.
Commentary	p. 290
Case: Death, Duty, and Dignity	p. 305
A seminary professor invited to give a public address on Care for the Dying wrestles with what to say ethically about an upcoming state referendum that would legalize physician-assisted death.
Commentary	p. 310
Appendix: Teaching Ethics by the Case Method	p. 327
List of Authors and Contributors	p. 337
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