Ronald Duty
Forms of property change as society changes. Property in whatever form continues to be crucial to people’s livelihoods and to their common life. Ronald Duty is interested in questions about property at the intersection of Christian ethics, political theory, law, and economic life. Although our ideas about property and its current forms have roots in previous times, a critical look at these should inform both how we ought to think about property and address questions of justice going forward.
Biography
Ronald W. Duty is a Christian ethicist in the Lutheran tradition from the United States of America. He earned his Ph.D. in political theory at the University of Minnesota in 1979, an A.M. in religious studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1986, and an M.Div. from Luther Seminary in 1986.After serving ten years as a parish pastor, he worked in Church in Society at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Office on developing the ELCA’s policy positions on ethical and social issues, and on processes for moral deliberation.
His research interests include property, Lutheran ethics, Luther’s understanding of the seventh commandment and the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, and his thought on social, political, and economic matters, and political theory especially related to justice and the liberal democratic tradition.
Education
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Ph.D. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1979 A.M.
A.M. University of Chicago Divinity School, 1986
M.Div. Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, 1986
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Christian Ethics
Political Theory
Social Thought
Law
Books
Articles
The Right to Property and Daily Bread: Thinking with Luther about Human Economic Rights
Published: Feb 01, 2009 by Journal of Lutheran Ethics
Authors: Ronald W. Duty
This article examines the human right to property and related economic rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through the lens of Luther’s religious and moral imagination. The article looks property and economic rights with double vision[10] from Luther’s expansive vision about daily bread and serving the neighbor and the equally expansive vision about the interconnectedness of property and other rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.