Friends and Other Strangers

Richard B. Miller is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and the author of Terror, Religion, and Liberal Thought (Columbia, 2010).

The work of one of the leading religious ethicists of his generation, Friends and Other Strangers could revolutionize the field of religious ethics. Richard B. Miller calls for a revitalized field of inquiry that will adopt new methodological strategies while masterfully crossing disciplinary boundaries and demonstrating what first-rate work in ethics should look like. -- Paul Lauritzen, author of The Ethics of Interrogation: Professional Responsibility in an Age of Terror Friends and Other Strangers is a beautifully written and important book by a prominent scholar in the field of religious ethics. There is little existing work that does this sort of careful theoretical and acutely interdisciplinary thinking in a way that is both illuminating to specialists and accessible to undergraduates. -- Elizabeth Bucar, author of Creative Conformity: The Feminist Politics of U.S. Catholic and Iranian Shi'i Women Friends and Other Strangers makes a powerful and important case for a turn to culture and ordinary life in religious ethics. Exploring the implications of this turn, Richard B. Miller demonstrates that sophisticated grappling with concrete issues such as the treatment of children, friendship, the politics of memory, or just war cannot do without engaging underlying issues in moral anthropology. Based on impressively wide reading in ethnography, philosophy, and religious ethics, Miller's new book provides a timely and accessible contribution to a vibrant field. -- Thomas A. Lewis, author of Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion-and Vice Versa Recommended. CHOICE

• Acknowledgments Introduction: Friends and Other Strangers Part I: Religion, Ethics, and the Human Sciences 1. What Is Religious Ethics? 2. On Making a Cultural Turn in Religious Ethics 3. Moral Authority and Moral Criticism in an Age of Ethnocentric Anxiety Part II: Selves and Others 4. The Ethics of Empathy 5. Indignation, Empathy, and Solidarity 6. On Duties and Debts to Children 7. Evil, Friendship, and Iconic Realism in Augustine's Confessions Part III: Communities and Institutions 8. Just War, Civic Virtue, and Democratic Social Criticism: Augustinian Reflections 9. The Moral and Political Burdens of Memory 10. Religion, Public Reason, and the Morality of Democratic Authority Epilogue: Signposts of the Past and for the Future Notes Index