Princeton University

This field of concentration attends to relations among religious, ethical, and political aspects of culture and to the moral significance of religious traditions. Students are expected to develop specific areas of historical knowledge while also becoming familiar with recent work in theology, philosophy, comparative ethics, politics, and social theory.

The General Examination in Religion, Ethics, and Politics is roughly parallel in structure to the examination in Religion and Philosophy, including a unit on a classic text, a review essay, a study of a particular conceptual problem or normative issue, and a unit administered outside the Department, normally either in Politics or Philosophy. Dissertations in Religion, Ethics, and Politics include interpretative studies of figures and movements, analytical studies of ideas and arguments, and critical studies of culture and society.

Some students in this field formally enroll in the Program in Political Philosophy, jointly sponsored by the departments of Classics, History, Philosophy, Politics, and Religion. For such students the "outside" unit of the Examination is administered by the Program, and covers the history of Western political theory.

All students in Religion, Ethics, and Politics do some of their work outside the Department, with such professors as Cornel West in the Center for African American Studies, Robert George, Philip Pettit, and Melissa Lane in Politics, John Cooper and Alexander Nehamas in Philosophy, and John Bowlin at Princeton Theological Seminary.