On Helping One's Neighbor: Severe Poverty and the Religious Ethics of Obligation (New Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought) - Softcover

Ranganathan, Bharat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1009428195 ISBN 13: 9781009428194

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2026

Synopsis

Exploring what he calls 'the moral horror that is severe poverty,' Bharat Ranganathan develops a demanding account of the obligations that affluent people have to assist severely impoverished people. He argues that this is an immediate ethical as much as a social or structural imperative. Noting that developmental economists and moral and political philosophers have focused on wealth inequalities in increasingly sophisticated ways, Ranganathan observes that – within religious ethics – normative issues around severe poverty have nevertheless received insufficient attention. Bringing together general moral, religious, and philosophical principles with particular economic, social, and political realities, and engaging constructively with the writings of John Rawls and Peter Singer, this passionately argued book boldly challenges deleterious trends within ethics by unpacking, in a much more systematic way than hitherto, the pressing dilemmas around acute impoverishment. It will find an eager readership among scholars of religion, ethics, developmental studies, and theology.

About this title

About the Author

Bharat Ranganathan is the Rabbi Sidney and Jane Brooks Assistant Professor of Social Justice and Religion in the Religious Studies Program at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His teaching and research interests include religious ethics, philosophy of religion, and theology. On Helping One's Neighbor is his first book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009428195
• ISBN 13: 9781009428194
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232