ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes one of the main ways that comparative religious ethicists might pursue a vocation as public intellectuals is to relate their work to interreligious dialogues on practical moral issues. Public intellectuals seek to unite—in their thinking, speaking, and writing—the tasks and virtues of scholarship with the tasks and virtues of citizenship. For comparative religious ethicists as public intellectuals who seek to link scholarship with citizenship, interreligious dialogues are—or can be—more than raw material for teaching and research. Many comparative religious ethicists are themselves members of faith communities, and they may participate directly in interfaith activities primarily as people of faith and as representatives of particular religious and moral traditions. But the professionalization and specialization of academic life also contributed to an erosion of the bond between scholarship and citizenship. A major task confronting anyone interested in reconciling scholarship and citizenship is to rethink the goals of and the audiences for academic research and writing.
