Dr. Cates joined the University of Iowa faculty in 1990.

Her research focuses on religious ethics and moral psychology. She works primarily within the Aristotelian-Thomistic moral tradition on the nature of the self, the structure of virtue, the relationship between virtue and natural law, particular virtues such as love and compassion, the internal causes of moral evil, the structure of emotion, particular emotions such as anger and hatred, the role of emotions in the moral life, and the way the religious imagination can influence the cultivation of virtue and the deliberate formation of moral emotions.

Dr. Cates works secondarily on issues of bioethics (especially the ethical implications of genetic science and technology), sexual ethics (including questions of religion, gender, and sexuality), the uses of creative literature in ethics, comparative religious ethics, and the ethics of human rights (especially conceptions of the ground of human dignity and the protection of girls and women from sexual violence).

Dr. Cates is Co-Editor with Dr. Irene Oh (George Washington University) of the Journal of Religious Ethics, which is currently housed at the University of Iowa.

Research interests

• Religious ethics
• Moral psychology
• Virtue
• Emotion
• Moral evil

Selected publications

• Howard, Veena R., and Diana Fritz Cates (2025). Dharma Samkata in the Mahābhārata: Existential Struggles and Real Repercussions. Journal of Religious Ethics 53.1: 72-88.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (2023). How the Law of Love could Govern our Hatreds. Renovatio 7.1: 67-73.
• Cates, Diana Fritz ed. (2020). Special Issue: Religious Beliefs and the Morality of Payback. Religions. (ISSN 2077-1444).
• Schnell, Jan Rippentrop, Cates, Diana Fritz (2019). Rethinking Anger as the Desire for Payback. Religions, 10 (11), 618-31.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (2019). Relational Complexity and Moral Responsibility. Journal of Religious Ethics, 47 (1), 154-165.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (2018). You Deserve to Suffer for What You Did. Journal of Religious Ethics, 771-782 (4), 11.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (2017). Approaching the Morality of Emotion: Specifying the Object of Inquiry. J. Corrigan (Ed.), Feeling Religion (pp. 23-52). Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (2012). Love: A Thomistic Analysis. Journal of Moral Theology, 1 (2), 1-30.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (2010). Experiential Narratives of Rape and Torture. Journal of Religious Ethics, Sumner B. Twiss and John Kelsay, eds., 38/1, 43-66.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (2009). Aquinas on the Emotions: A Religious-Ethical Inquiry. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
• Cates, Diana Fritz, and Paul Lauritzen, eds. (2001). Medicine and the Ethics of Care. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
• Cates, Diana Fritz (1997). Choosing to Feel: Virtue, Friendship, and Compassion for Friends. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.

Select Presentations

• 2025
  • “Aquinas’s Theory of Emotion and its Relevance for Understanding Polarizing Political Emotions.” Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
• 2020
  • "The Ethics of Mercy." Keynote address. Ethics Day 2020. Catholic Health Services of Long Island.2017   “The Relational Dynamics of Intimacy and Alterity.” Invited response to Richard Miller, Friends and Other Strangers. Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion.
• 2018
  • "Religion, Emotion, and Decision Making: The Humanistic Study of Global Health." Plenary address. 2018 Global Health Studies Conference.
• 2017
  • “Contributions of the Humanities to Cancer Research Advocacy.” Invited address. Fall Speaker Forum. Current Ethical Issues for Breast Cancer Advocates. Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition.
  • "The Relational Dynamics of Intimacy and Alterity." Invited response to Richard Miller, Friends and Other Strangers. Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion.
  • "Contributions of the Humanities to Cancer Research Advocacy." Invited address. Fall Speaker Forum. Current Ethical Issues for Breast Cancer Advocates. Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition.
  • “Love, Social Criticism, and Structural Injustices:  Martin Luther and his Legacy in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.” Panel presentation. Annual Meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics. New Orleans, Louisiana.