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David Hollenbach, S.J.
Alma materSt. Joseph's University
Known forHis work on Economic Justice for All,
The Common Good and Christian Ethics"
Awards1996 Fulbright Fellowship (for research & teaching in Kenya),

2009 Marianist Award (University of Dayton)

John Courtney Murray Award for Distinguished Achievement in Theology (Catholic Theological Society of America)
Scientific career
FieldsHuman Rights and International Justice
InstitutionsGeorgetown University, Weston School of Theology, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Boston College

David Hollenbach, S.J. (born October 6, 1942 in Philadelphia, PA.) is both the current University Chair in Human Rights and International Justice and Director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College. Aside from being a full time professor of Theology at Boston College, Hollenbach has taught at Hekima College of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, The Jesuit Philosophy Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and the East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila, Philippines.[1] He is also a consultant to the Jesuit Refugee Service.[2]

Education, Career, and Influences

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Hollenbach first received his B.S. in physics from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, PA, followed by his Ph.L. from the College of Philosophy and Letters and his M.A. from the Department of Philosophy at the same institution in 1968. He went on to receive his M.Div. from Woodstock College in 1971 and his Ph.D. in Religious Ethics from Yale University in 1975.

After receiving his B.S. in 1968, he went on to teach at Georgetown University until 1969. From 1976-1991, Hollenbach was the Professor of Moral Theology at the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, MA. Up until November 2009, Hollenbach held several positions in the Catholic University of Eastern Africa's Hekima College in Nairobi, Kenya. From there, he went on to assume his current positions of University Chair in Human Rights and International Justice and Director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College. He was also a major contributor to the 1986 Pastoral letter titled Economic justice for all.

Regarding his membership in the Society of Jesus, he joined September 7, 1964. Hollenbach was ordained into priesthood on June 5, 1971. He acts as the Higher Education Secretary within the society, he is also the advisor on global collaboration of Jesuit universities on human rights.[3] Hollenbach draws from many theologians, including Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Jacques Maritain.[4]

Works

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The Common Good and Christian Ethics
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Written in 2002, this book has become one of Hollenbach's most famous works as an author. While in this book Hollenbach does look to his major influences such as Aquinas for inspiration, it mainly focuses on Hollenbach's attempt to define the "common good" and find what contrasts this good. Building on his earlier writings, Hollenbach emphasizes relationships as being the source of the common good. There are certain goods that Hollenbach states are essential for modern day democracies to be successful. These goods include mutual respect, self determination, and individual agency. Hollenbach points out that these essential goods are completely social and depend solely on human interaction. Ultimately this book is a study on how we as humans relate with one another and what we need to do to better our relationships with one another. Some points of interest that Hollenbach discusses are racism and marginalization.[5]

Views on Globalization

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Human Rights

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Hollenbach advocates a stronger basis of consensus in order to create a stronger overall consensus. He argued that equating moral concern with group interest and saying that morals that was founded in the time period were faulty and could be proven worthless if the interests of the groups or times changed.[6]

We need to present reasons why the human rights ethos should become a more truly common morality and a truly global ethic. Unless we know the reasons on which the consensus is based we will not know whether it is a genuinely moral consensus or merely the result of lucky circumstances...A form of practical reason that is essentially an instrumental calculus of self-interest cannot play this role, for it will either simply reinforce what the group from a particular tradition already believes or challenge the group in ways that lack authentic respect for it traditions. In either case, an instrumental rationality of self-interest lacks what is required to bring traditions together on the ground that is genuinely shared.[7]

Hollenbach followed Jacques Maritain in believing that at the heart of human rights is reason. Regardless of religious affiliation and beliefs of human destiny, pluralists can all agree on the reasons why such crimes against humanity such as torture, genocidal violence, and religious compulsion were inherently wrong. Many religions had their own version of the Golden Rule (in Christianity, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) that did not lineate far from each other. Hollenbach also valued religious and cultural traditions, as opposed to conceptions of the time, as examples of moral truth.[6]

Global Vision

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Hollenbach saw globalization as a two-headed being; the first comprising of the human rights movement and the other as the programs of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The former encouraged solidarity which would in turn lead to basic justice. Globalization in the economic sense needed a way to forge solidarity amongst worsening poverty, exclusion, and domination. He suggested to stray from the pluralistic association of peoples with their respective nations and instead proposed the idea of a worldwide rights-bearing human community that placed importance on value in the membership to the human race.
In terms of Catholic social ethics, Hollenbach believed that there is a need to use both liberal and communitarian moral theories in conjunction with the natural law reasoning that was advocated at the time. However, he stressed that liberal theory could benefit from the emphasis of morally constitutive roles of communities in the shaping of individuals that as expounded in the logic of Aristotle and Aquinas. Combining the somewhat antiquated communitarianism emphases of cultivation of virtue and the common good with the liberalist idea of individual rights allowed for a contemporary option of Catholicism of which Hollenbach was a strong proponent.[6]

Partial Bibliography

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  • Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the Catholic Human Rights Tradition. (1979)
  • Nuclear Ethics: A Christian Moral Argument" (1983)
  • Justice, Peace, and Human Rights: American Catholic Social Ethics in a Pluralistic World (1990)
  • Catholicism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Public Philosophy (With R. Bruce Douglass)(1994)
  • The Common Good and Christian Ethics (2002)
  • The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Chrisitan Ethics (2003)
  • Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations (2005)
  • Refugee Rights: Ethics Advocacy, and Africa (2008)
  • Driven from Home: Protecting the Rights of Forced Migrants (2010)

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "David Hollenbach, S.J. - Theology Department -". Boston College. Retrieved 2011-04-05.
  2. ^ Boston College Theology Department. "David Hollenbach". Boston College. Retrieved 2011-04-05.
  3. ^ "DAVID HOLLENBACH, S.J." Boston College Personal Web Server (sites created by faculty, staff, and students). Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  4. ^ Craig, Daniel M (1). "Book Review". The Journal of Religion. The University of Chicago Press. doi:10.1086/382324. Retrieved 6 April 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Craig, Daniel M (1). "Book Review". The Journal of Religion. doi:10.1086/382324. Retrieved 6 April 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ a b c Dorrien, Gary J. (2008). Social ethics in the making: interpreting an American tradition. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 661–664.
  7. ^ Hollenbach, David (2003). The Global Face of Public Faith. Georgetown University Press. pp. 242–243.
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Category:American Christian theologians Category:Boston College faculty Category:Jesuits

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