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Nicholas Hayes-Mota

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Nicholas Hayes-Mota

Assistant Professor

Nicholas Hayes-Mota is a social ethicist and public theologian. Working within the Catholic tradition, his primary research explores the role of religion in democratic public life, the ethics of democratic citizenship, and the possibility of a "politics of the common good" in today's highly pluralistic and often contentious societies. This last topic is the subject of Prof. Hayes-Mota's doctoral dissertation and first book (now in preparation), which synthesizes insights from Catholic social thought and the community organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky to advance a new account of common good politics, one that takes the role of power, conflict, and self-interest seriously. Additional research interests include the theology and history of community organizing, Catholic social thought and practice, Latin American and U.S. Hispanic-Latine theology, contemporary virtue ethics (in particular, the virtue of prudence), democratic theory, and, most recently, AI ethics.

Prof. Hayes-Mota holds an AB, summa cum laude, from Harvard College (2008), an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School (2014), and a Ph.D. in theology from Boston College (2024), where he was awarded the Donald and Hélène White Prize for Best Dissertation in the Humanities. Before coming to Santa Clara in 2024, he was Assistant Director of the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College. His scholarship and teaching is also informed by his 15 years of experience as a practitioner and teacher of community organizing. In that capacity, he was a key leader in the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) from 2013-2022 and a Research and Teaching Fellow in organizing at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2015-16; since 2013, he has remained an active organizing trainer and leadership coach with the global Leading Change Network (LCN). From the organizing tradition and the Catholic social tradition, Prof Hayes-Mota draws a deep commitment to cultivating the moral and political agency of others, and fostering a healthier civic life within the U.S. and beyond it.

Courses
  • TESP 4 The Christian Tradition
  • TESP 69 Christian Social Ethics
  • TESP 180 Conflict & Common Good Ethics

Selected Publications

"Principle in Practice: A MacIntyrean Analysis of Community Organizing and the Catholic Social Tradition." Journal of Catholic Social Thought (in production, Fall 2024)

“Partners in Forming the People: Jacques Maritain, Saul Alinsky, and the Project of Personalist Democracy.” Journal of Moral Theology 13.SI1 (Spring 2024).

“An Accountable Church? Broad-Based Community Organizing and Ecclesial Ethics,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 43.1 (Spring 2023).

“North American Public Theology: Commonality Amid Plurality.” In The T&T Clark Handbook of Public Theology, ed. Chrisoph Hübenthal and Christiane Alpers (London: T&T Clark, 2022).

"Power Politics for the Common Good: The Political Ecclesiology of Alinsky Organizing.” Ecumenical Trends 50.3 (2021).