Lisa Sowle Cahill

Biographic Data

ID1504095
NAMELisa Sowle Cahill
GIVEN NAMESLisa Sowle
FAMILY NAMECahill
SIGNATURECAHILL L S
AFFILIATIONSBoston College
ORCID0000-0001-5345-3124
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS50
TOTAL CITATIONS6
AUTHOR COUNT50
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1975
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX2

  • Moral Dilemmas and Christian Ethics

    Open AccessKate Jackson‐Meyer, Lisa Sowle CahillARTICLEJournal of Religious Ethics2025

    We take moral dilemmas to be situations where no fully “moral” resolution is possible. Even an action that is, on the whole, justified may involve an injustice against someone affected. Some philosophers and theologians rule out such dilemmas on the basis of logical incoherence, or incompatibility with the nature of a good and all‐powerful God. This essay defends the plausibility of moral dilemmas in Christian ethics, in light of Augustine's and …

  • Just War as a Theory, Just Peace as a Virtue

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEStudies in Christian Ethics2024

    Pope Francis both grants the right to use armed force in self-defense and regards all war as ‘a defeat for humanity’. This seeming paradox can be explained by the fact that what is a theoretically just use of force (according to the criteria of just war theory) inevitably results in unjust violence when carried out in practice. The undertaking, processes and practices of war are highly susceptible to what Augustine called the libido dominandi. Th…

  • Social Movements as Carriers of CST: The Challenges of Gender Justice

    Lisa Sowle Cahill, Cheryl Handel et al.ARTICLEJournal of Catholic Social Thought2023

    Catholic social teaching frames a practical, political tradition, historically embodied and directed toward the dignity of the person, solidarity, and the common good as essential to social justice. It aims not only to convert the Church but to be an agent of change in societies globally. Yet despite over 130 years of condemnations by CST of violence, exploitation, and other forms of social injustice, scourges like poverty, war, racism, and sexis…

  • Theologian, Teacher, and Friend: Tributes to James M. Gustafson

    Open AccessJames F Childress, Lisa Sowle Cahill et al.ARTICLEJournal of Religious Ethics2022

    James M. Gustafson, who died in 2021, has influenced generations of theologians and ethicists. In this article, five students, colleagues, and friends provide short reflections on what Gustafson has meant for their work as scholars of theology and religious ethics

  • L’égalité des genres et l’éthique catholique

    Lisa Sowle CahillARTICLERevue d éthique et de théologie…2020

    Le genre est un sujet important mais controversé dans l’éthique catholique. Premièrement, le genre est généralement considéré comme désignant un rôle social (masculin, féminin ou transgenre), alors que le sexe désigne les caractéristiques biologiques liées à la reproduction. Mais cela laisse ouvert le lien entre le sexe et le genre, s’il existe. Deuxièmement, les débats sur le genre sont motivés par des préoccupations sociales et éthiques, par ex…

  • Reframing Catholic Ethics: Is the Person an Integral and Adequate Starting Point

    Open AccessLisa Sowle Cahill, Lisa CahillARTICLEReligions2017Cited by: 2References: 3

    Joseph Selling rightly defines human intentions and motivations as part of human nature and an important determinant of the morality of personal actions. The thesis of this paper is that Selling's view of agency, as focused on the individual, must be expanded to include social relationships and the social constitution of selves and communities. This requires cross-cultural dialogue about human nature, the goods for persons and societies, and soci…

  • Jonathan J. Sanford, Before Virtue: Assessing Contemporary Virtue Ethics

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLETheology2016

  • The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology

    Open AccessJürgen Moltmann, Miguel A De La Torre et al.BOOKCambridge Companion to Christian…2015

    Interest in political theology has surged in recent years, and this accessible volume provides a focused overview of the field. Many are asking serious questions about religious faith in secular societies, the origin and function of democratic polities, worldwide economic challenges, the shift of Christianity's center of gravity to the global south, and anxieties related to bold and even violent assertions of theologically determined political id…

  • Renegotiating Aquinas: Catholic Feminist Ethics, Postmodernism, Realism, and Faith

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEJournal of Religious Ethics2015

    While R oman C atholic feminist ethicists typically endorse moral realism and crosscultural standards of justice, they also have been influenced by the postmodern interrogation of abstract reason and moral universalism. As theologians writing after the S econd V atican C ouncil, they are increasingly sensitive to the communal and ecclesial dimensions of morality and of C hristian ethics, and to the integral relation of C hristian faith and ethics…

  • How Should War Be Related to Christian Love

    Lisa Sowle CahillARTICLESoundings An Interdisciplinary…2014References: 2

    Nigel Biggar offers an ardent and provocative defense of the continuing validity of war as an expression of Christian faith and life, grounding his argument in Augustine's theology of love. Biggar's case takes shape in the shadow of the two world wars, whose memory, as he recounts from personal experience, has formed the identities of three or four generations of Europeans. In Defence of War stands as a vindication of all who suffered and lost th…

  • Global Justice, Christology and Christian Ethics

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillBOOKGlobal justice, Christology and…2013

    Global realities of human inequality, poverty, violence and ecological destruction call for a twenty-first-century Christian response which links cross-cultural and interreligious cooperation for change to the Gospel. This book demonstrates why just action is necessarily a criterion of authentic Christian theology, and gives grounds for Christian hope that change in violent structures is really possible. Lisa Sowle Cahill argues that theology and…

  • Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict – By William T. Cavanaugh

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEModern Theology2012

  • Theological Ethics, the Churches, and Global Politics

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEJournal of Religious Ethics2007

    Several discourses about theology, church, and politics are occurring among Christian theologians in the United States. One influential strand centers on the communitarian theology of Stanley Hauerwas, who calls on Christians to witness faithfully against liberalism in general and war in particular. Jeffrey Stout, in his widely discussed Democracy and Tradition (2004), responds that religious people ought precisely to endorse those democratic and…

  • Liberalism in Progress—From Equal Rights to Global Participation

    Lisa Sowle Cahill, Lisa CahillARTICLEPolitical Theology2006References: 3

    Michael Walzer defends a political liberalism that upholds the right to share in substantive goods as well as to enjoy civil liberties, and that supports the value and rights of particular ethnic, cultural, and religious communities. But Walzer tends to see the political sphere as one in which conflict continually threatens, and particular commitments must be suppressed or constrained. I propose what might be termed a "progressive" politics, in w…

  • Our Posthuman Future: Discussing the Consequences of Biotechnological Advances

    Susan Squier, Susan M Squier et al.ARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2005

    Susan Squier, Catherine Waldby, Anita Silvers, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Paul Lauritzen, Our Posthuman Future: Discussing the Consequences of Biotechnological Advances, The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 35, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2005), pp. 4-7

  • Biotech & Justice: Catching up with the Real World Order

    Lisa Sowle CahillARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2003

    Since its inception in 1990, the Human Genome Project has spurred almost as many ethical and social questions as it has start-up biotech companies. Yet one of the most perplexing challenges of the new genomics is how to guide and govern the use of genetic knowledge in an era of economic globalization. Diagnostic and predictive testing, gene-based therapies, pharmacogenomics, and genetic enhancement are already available or speeding toward reality…

  • Bioethics, Theology, and Social Change

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEJournal of Religious Ethics2003

    Recent years have witnessed a concern among theological bioethicists that secular debate has grown increasingly “thin,” and that “thick” religious traditions and their spokespersons have been correspondingly excluded. This essay disputes that analysis. First, religious and theological voices compete for public attention and effectiveness with the equally “thick” cultural traditions of modern science and market capitalism. The distinctive contribu…

  • Toward Global Ethics

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLETheological Studies2002

    [Several earlier essays in this journal have explored questions such as whether it is possible to speak of intercultural dialogue about the common good in an era of globalization, or whether one can even seek a “global ethics.” These questions are more poignant and critical since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The author here argues that a revised concept of the common good can still be useful. She brings to bear on global ethics some a…

  • Marriage after Modernity: Christian Marriage in Postmodern Times. Adrian Thatcher

    Lisa Sowle CahillARTICLEThe Journal of Religion2002

  • When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking

    Lisa Sowle Cahill, John Howard YoderARTICLEJournal of Law and Religion2001

  • Using Augustine in Contemporary Sexual Ethics: A Response to Gilbert Meilaender

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEJournal of Religious Ethics2001

    In response to Gilbert Meilaender's innovative interpretation of Augustine and of Roman Catholic teaching, the author suggests (1) that Meilaender attributes to Augustine a more positive view of sexual pleasure than the texts will support, (2) that modern Roman Catholic teaching suggests that love should have priority over procreation as a meaning of sex; and (3) that the moral logic of Meilaender's argument does not require a rejection of all re…

  • Sexuality, Christian Theology, and the Defense of Moral Practices

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEModern Theology2000

  • Toward Justice in Human Subjects Research

    Lisa Sowle Cahill, Jeffrey Kahn et al.ARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2000

  • Social ethics of embryo and stem cell research

    Open AccessLisa Sowle CahillARTICLEWomen s Health Issues2000

  • Uneasy Neighbors: Church and State in the New Testament . Walter E. Pilgrim

    Lisa Sowle Cahill, Lisa CahillARTICLEThe Journal of Religion2000