Christian Ethics and Life as a Gift

2019 ◽  
pp. 66-84
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Secular Terms ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter covers Chapters 5 and 6 of The Ethical Demand. Having distinguished the ethical demand from social norms, Løgstrup now turns to consider where this leaves him in relation to Christian ethics, and his claim to be operating from a ‘purely human’ standpoint. While he resists the suggestion that Christianity can break the ‘silence’ of the demand by providing it with a content that rests on religious doctrines, Løgstrup also claims that the ethical demand only makes sense if we consider life to be a gift, which raises the interpretative question whether for Løgstrup the giver of this gift is God, or whether this idea can be made sense of in more secular terms.

The Ethical Demand and Social Norms

2019 ◽  
pp. 48-65
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Variable Character ◽  
Key Features ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ethical Demand ◽  
The Way

This chapter covers Chapters 3 and 4 of The Ethical Demand. In these chapters, Løgstrup adds to his characterization of the demand by claiming that it is ‘radical’. He explains this radicality in terms of various further key features, including the way it may intrude on our lives and pick us out as individuals, while even the enemy is included in the requirement on us to care. At the same time, Løgstrup argues that we do not have the right to make the demand, while also denying that it is ‘limitless’. The features of the demand that make it radical distinguish it from the social norms, while the unconditional and absolute nature of the demand contrasts with the variable character of such norms, a contrast which he uses to respond to the challenge of relativism.

The Radical Demand in Løgstrup's Ethics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Stephen Darwall ◽  
Ethical Demand

This book focuses on the ethics of the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup (1905–81), and in particular on his key text The Ethical Demand (1956). The first part of the book provides a commentary on The Ethical Demand. The second part contains chapters on Løgstrup as a natural law theorist; his critique of Kant and Kierkegaard; his relation to Levinas; the difference between his position and the second-person ethics of Stephen Darwall; and the role of Luther in Løgstrup’s thinking. Overall, it is argued that Løgstrup rejects accounts of ethical obligation based on the commands of God, or on abstract principles governing practical reason, or on social norms; instead he develops a different picture, at the basis of which is our interdependence, which he argues gives his ethics a grounding in the nature of life itself. The book claims that Løgstrup offers a distinctive and attractive account of our moral obligation to others, which fits into the natural law tradition.

The Radicality of the Demand and the Social Norms

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
K. E. Løgstrup
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter focuses on the radicality of the ethical demand, and how that sets it apart from social mores and laws. It is argued that because the demand is silent or unspoken, we must then respond selflessly for the good of the other person, while it may also interfere with our lives, and could include love of the enemy. The radicality of the demand then expresses itself in the fact that a person has no right to make the demand, while it isolates or makes responsible the person on whom it falls. At the same time, the radicality of the demand does not mean it is limitless. However, as we cannot rely on people to act as the demand requires, we also need social norms, which are not radical in these ways. The relation between the demand and these norms is explored, and each is argued to require the other.

The Ethical Demand and Its Basis

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-47
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter covers the ‘Introduction’ to K. E. Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand, and the first two chapters of the book. These provide the foundation for Løgstrup’s account of the ethical demand, by relating it to Jesus’s proclamation to love our neighbour, while showing how the demand grows out of the interdependence of human beings, an interdependence that can be illustrated through the key example of trust. Løgstrup also defends the claim that the demand to care for the other is ‘unspoken’ or ‘silent’, and begins to contrast the demand to social norms, while also responding to the worry that the demand might encourage us to ‘encroach’ on the lives of others, arguing in the second chapter of his book that we cannot escape this problem by seeking relationships that involve an intimacy which somehow does away with any mediation between individuals.

scholarly journals Kristen etik mellem kompromis og radikalitet

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 110-126
Author(s):  
Ulrik Nissen
Keyword(s):  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Christian Ethic ◽  
Christian Discipleship ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
Ethical Demand

K. E. Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand, first published in 1956, has proved to hold insights that give it continued resonance in Scandinavian theology and beyond. Among other things, its rejection of a Christian ethic continues to be debated. Such a critical stance towards Christian ethics can also be found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But in contrast to Løgstrup, he can still endorse a Christian discipleship and the call to bear witness to Christ. By bringing Løgstrup and Bonhoeffer into conversation it can be argued that an ethic of responsibility as a responsive concept can open up for a Christian ethic in a third positionbetween compromise and radicalism.

The Absolute Demand of Concrete Existence

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
K. E. Løgstrup
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter critiques Kierkegaard’s conception of the infinite demand. Kierkegaard’s demand remains abstract because he tries to derive content from form: namely, to derive its content from the fact that it is infinite, where this means that its aim is for the finite individual to know that they are nothing before God. But it is then impossible to treat this infinite demand as connecting to our relation with other people, and each involves radically different conceptions of guilt and responsibility. To avoid this problem, it is argued that we should think in terms of an ethical demand which remains between individuals, but which is also distinct from the social norms, as the person on whom the demand falls is ‘isolated’ and so must take individual responsibility for their response to the other, rather than merely following social norms and thereby being confined to life in the crowd.

The Changeability of the Social Norms

2020 ◽  
pp. 56-89
Author(s):  
K. E. Løgstrup
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Moral Relativism ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Church ◽  
Ethical Demand

This chapter continues the discussion of the relation between the ethical demand and social norms. It considers the changeability of such norms, focusing on the cases of the norms governing sex, love, and marriage, the relation between political authority and citizens, and between society and the church and religion. The final section asks whether, given the historical variability in the nature of such norms, there is a worry of moral relativism. In response, it is argued that even if our social norms can vary, the ethical demand itself cannot, as what remains constant is the wrongness of exploiting the vulnerability of others for our own good: it is just that in different societies, such exploitation can take different forms, so that the norms protecting us from such vulnerability to others can vary.

The Ethical Demand

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. E. Løgstrup ◽  
Bjørn Rabjerg ◽  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Relation ◽  
Ethical Demand

This book concerns the nature and basis for the fundamental ethical relation between human beings. Beginning from the fundamental example of trust, it is argued that this relation arises from our interdependence and mutual vulnerability, which then gives us power over the lives of other people. It claimed that in this situation, there arises a demand to care for the other person. This demand is characterized as silent, radical, one-sided, and unfulfillable, as it cannot be satisfied by just doing what the other asks; requires us to act unselfishly; is non-reciprocal; and should not be experienced as a demand. As a result, the demand is distinguished from ordinary social norms, which lack these characteristics, though it is argued that there is a relation between these two levels, as legitimate social norms should ‘refract’ the ethical demand. It is also argued that in order to make sense of a demand of this sort, we must see ‘life as a gift’, rather than treating ourselves as the sovereign grounds for our own existence. In understanding the ethical demand in this way, it is suggested, we can make sense of Jesus’s proclamation to love our neighbour in purely human terms, though at the same time we may have to go beyond a scientific picture which operates with a clear distinction between fact and values, and treats determinism as a basis for rejecting moral responsibility.

Cooperation and obligation in early parent-child relationships

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross A. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Close Relationships ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
Infant Survival ◽  
Peer Experiences ◽  
Early Experiences ◽  
Early Parent ◽  
Collaborative Skills ◽  
Parent Child Relationships

Abstract Tomasello's moral psychology of obligation would be developmentally deepened by greater attention to early experiences of cooperation and shared social agency between parents and infants, evolved to promote infant survival. They provide a foundation for developing understanding of the mutual obligations of close relationships that contribute (alongside peer experiences) to growing collaborative skills, fairness expectations, and fidelity to social norms.

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