Frequently Asked Questions

EthicsFinder is a free resource and can be easily added to library databases, University / School curricula, and various eResources and ‘helpful links’ on websites, social media and more. You can view ways to share EthicsFinder on this guide here.

EthicsFinder is for anyone wanting to find high-quality articles, books, and videos on a range of ethical, social, cultural, philosophical and political topics. Articles can be filtered for student/academic audiences (by clicking ‘Specialist’ on the Articles tab) or for a broader public audience (by clicking ‘General’).

As the website also features well-known critiques of Catholic ethical approaches (sort for ‘Critiques’ on the Articles tab), the site should be of interest to people who hold diverse and divergent views on ethical topics. As the website also collates and updates Church teaching across every topic, (head to the ‘Faith’ tab) it should be of interest to anyone wanting a quick and easy place to access magisterial teaching and other Church documents.

All the curated resources on EthicsFinder have gone through a rigorous review process involving 80+ academics and topic experts from 50+ universities and institutions.

All are specialists in ethical theory and practice who are willing to be consulted on the resources by reviewing, providing suggested inclusions and deletions, as well as ongoing feedback and updates.

Their work is carried out on a pro bono basis and does not constitute endorsement of any published link on the website. While all topics and content are under continual review, each topic also undergoes a more formal, comprehensive annual review.

Certainly! We welcome input on potential articles, books, videos and Church teaching (‘Faith’) for any topics featured on the website.

We cannot guarantee that recommendations will be accepted, nor might we be able to respond to or provide feedback on every suggestion. However, all suggestions will be considered and included in the editorial and consultation process.

Please email your suggestions to ethicsfinder@acu.edu.au.

Most issues are best understood from a variety of perspectives, particularly ethical ones. Where there are influential, widely referenced, reason-based, non-polemical critiques of Catholic intellectual approaches, we have sought to find and include them.

Critiques have therefore been included for topics where a stable and long-standing ‘critical’ position is widely known (e.g. ‘Abortion’, ‘Gender Identity’, ‘Euthanasia’, and not ‘Sport’, ‘Music’ or ‘Journalism’). When the topic is one that allows a diversity of views from within the Catholic intellectual tradition (e.g. ‘Death Penalty’, ‘Intention’, ‘Jurisprudence’), critiques will not necessarily be displayed and contrary views will be featured together.

To find Critiques click a topic, click the ‘Articles’ tab, then use the ‘sort’ filter to select ‘Critiques’. Please note not all topics feature Critiques.

Fitting 2000+ years of Church teaching in one site is a little ambitious, so we’ve chosen to collate and continually update the key contemporary magisterial references for each topic.

Accessible via the ‘Faith’ tab on the search results page, these (mostly Vatican) links can be sorted further to display material from “Popes and Bishops” (e.g. Papal encyclicals, audiences, letters, addresses; as well as regional Bishops Conference’s statements), “Councils and Texts” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Compendium of the Catechism, Vatican II documents, etc) and Vatican Bodies (e.g. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pontifical Academy for Life, Congregation for Catholic Education, etc).

We’re very sorry about that, it’s one of the limitations of linking to thousands of externally-managed websites.

Our systems are supposed to catch and correct ‘dead’ links before they make it to your eyes, but if one sneaks through the cracks we’d be grateful for you to let us know over email (ethicsfinder@acu.edu.au) and we’ll update the link as soon as possible.

Please do! All the topic descriptions (the introductory overviews that appear beside the search results) have been written by Professor John Haldane (Chair of the Advisory Board of EthicsFinder). If you are citing this in a paper, you may wish to use the following citation as a guide:

John Haldane, ‘Human Rights’, EthicsFinder 2021 (available at: www.ethicsfinder.com).

EthicsFinder contains links to external websites that have been obtained from publicly accessible search engines and databases. We take reasonable care in linking to websites but have no direct control over the content of the linked sites or the changes that may occur to the content on those sites. Unless expressly stated, the owners of such links and search engines should not be taken to support or endorse EthicsFinder or Australian Catholic University.

Australian Catholic University bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Please feel free to contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content. Any contact and transactions between users and that external site are purely a matter between users and that external site and not the responsibility of Australian Catholic University, EthicsFinder’s Advisory Board or Editorial Consultants.

For further information, please visit our Terms of Use page.