Any Universal Ethic Minimalist and Dangerous

"Because of the framework of antithesis assumed by both RO and Hauerwas, any notion of a ‘common’ morality or universal ethics must be jettisoned, along with any project of deriving morality from a perduring ‘natural law’ that holds for all communities (because nature has been obfuscated by sin such that there is no perduring ‘humanity’). Rather, as Hauerwas puts it, ‘Ethics always requires an adjective or qualifier.’ An ethic is tied to a particular ethos and thus must always be a qualified ethic (whether Jewish, Christian, pagan, liberal, etc.)."

"Hauerwas’s critique of natural law ethics is insightful here: ‘Emphasis on the distinctiveness of Christian ethics does not deny that there are points of contact between Christian ethics and other forms of the moral life. While such points frequently exist, they are not sufficient to provide a basis of a ‘universal’ ethic grounded in human nature per se. Attempts to secure such an ethic inevitably result in a minimalistic ethic and often one which gives support to forms of cultural imperialism,’ which can be taken to underwrite coercion (Hauerwas, Peaceable Kingdom, 60-61)."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 240