Theological Ethics and Global Development

3 credits

This course aims to: 1) familiarize students with the state of the conversation on the ethics of global development within economics and related fields, and 2) enable them to theologically engage this debate. Topics addressed include secular and theological conceptions of poverty and growth; the foreign aid effectiveness debate; the capabilities approach and feminist and postcolonial critiques of development theory; the relation of the prosperity gospel to development; and evolving approaches to development within Catholic social thought and liberation theology. Throughout we will ask how economic arguments stand to challenge and enrich theological reflection on solidarity, the path to integral human development, and what it means to bear Christs love for and to the world from different social locations. In turn, we will also ask whether and how theological analyses shed new light on philosophical and social scientific debates over global justice, how to combat poverty, and our obligations to distant others.