Paul Ramsey (ethicist)

Paul Ramsey
Born	December 10, 1913 United States
Died	February 29, 1988 (aged 74) United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Christian ethicist
Religion	Protestant

Robert Paul Ramsey (December 10, 1913 – February 29, 1988)^[1] was an American Christian ethicist of the 20th century. He was a Methodist and a native of Mississippi. He graduated from Millsaps College in Mississippi and Yale University. The major portion of his academic career was spent as a tenured professor at Princeton University until the end of his life in 1988.

Life

Paul Ramsey undertook his doctoral studies at Yale where he was mentored by H. Richard Niebuhr.^[2] He subsequently taught Christian Ethics at Princeton. He has been credited with re-introducing just war theory into Protestant ethical reflection.^[3] His popular text book Basic Christian Ethics was reviewed by a young John Rawls.^[4]

Bibliography

• Basic Christian Ethics (1950) ^[5]
• War and the Christian Conscience: How Shall Modern War Be Conducted Justly? Durham, North Carolina 1961
• Nine Modern Moralists, Prentice Hall, 1962
• Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics, University of America Press 1967.
• The Case of the Curious Exception in Gene Outka and Paul Ramsey eds. Norm and context in Christian Ethics, New York 1968.
• The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility, New York 1968
• Fabricated Man
• The Ethics of Fetal Research, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.
• Ethics at the Edges of Life
• The Patient as Person. Explorations in medical ethics, (3)1973 New Haven, Connecticut ^[6]
• The Essential Paul Ramsey ^[7]
• Speak Up for Just War or Pacifism. A Critique of the United Methodist Bishops' Pastoral Letter "In Defense of Creation" Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988

Secondary literature

• Paul Ramsey's Ethics: The Power of 'Agape' in a Postmodern World (2000) ^[8]
• Carnahan, Kevin. Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey: Idealist and Pragmatic Christians on Politics, Philosophy, Religion, and War (2010)

References

1. "Register of the Paul Ramsey Papers, 1934-1984 and undated". Rubenstein Library, Duke University. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
2. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians (London: Greenwood Press, 2000), p387
3. "Obituary by Oliver O'Donovan". Studies in Christian Ethics. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
4. "Before the Original Position: the Neo-Orthodox Theology of a young John Rawls". by Eric Gregory Journal of Religious Ethics 35.2 (2007).
5. Basic Christian Ethics.
6. "The Patient as Person".
7. "The Essential Paul Ramsey".
8. "Paul Ramsey's Ethics".

External links

• The Birth of Bioethics: Who is Paul Ramsey? (Albert R. Jonsen, 2001 from the preface to the second edition of Paul Ramsey's ground breaking book The Patient as Person) Thecbc.org
• NYTimes Obituary of Paul Ramsey