Abstract
Comparative religious ethics is a mature subfield of ethics that interprets and compares particular ethical visions, in pursuit of various critical, constructive, and theoretical goals. Work in this field seeks better understanding of general ideas, themes, and traditions, as well as specific figures and issues, and draws on a much wider range of sources than is typical for current theorizing and criticism. This entry outlines and analyzes the field, gives a brief history of comparative religious ethics, discusses strengths and weaknesses of different strategies of comparison, and closes with a discussion of descriptive and normative goals in the field.