CREATIVE TEACHING - HISTORICISM, TRUTH CLAIMS, AND THE TEACHING OF ETHICS

This article analyzes the impact of postmodernism on the meaning, trut h, and justification of claims in contemporary theology and ethics, It argues that historicist premises do not lead inexorably from a naive objectivism in ethics to ethical relativism, as Sheila Greeve Davaney and Richard Rorty suggest. Instead, as the work of Carol Christ and Je ffrey Stout has argued, theologians and ethicists are justified in mak ing indirect, web-of-belief related claims to ontological truth. Chris t's theological realism and Stout's modest pragmatism both appear able to support meaningful discussions of truth, while avoiding the relate d dangers of relativism, skepticism, and nihilism. Paying careful atte ntion to these methodological issues in a course on Religious Ethics a nd Moral Issues has proved very effective in overcoming student acquie scence to a relativist perspective, and in enabling them to propose an d defend their own moral views with greater confidence.