Encountering Levinas

This chapter relates Løgstrup’s work to the ideas of Emmanuel Levinas. It begins by focusing on similarities between them (§9.1), which might then suggest ways in which each can be used to come to the aid of the other on certain shared difficulties (§9.2). But then certain significant divergences are uncovered (§9.3), which also opens up the possibility of a critical dialogue between Løgstrup and Levinas on certain fundamental issues and questions (§9.4). It is argued that at the basis of this divergence is Løgstrup’s natural law approach to the problem of normativity, and thus to the ethical demand, which puts him at odds with Levinas’s suggestion that this normativity arises from the authority of the other as a commander.

The Ethical Demand and the Failure of Love

This chapter covers Chapters 7 to 9 of The Ethical Demand. In these chapters, Løgstrup considers how it is that the demand enters our life as a demand, which happens when natural love fails, and we therefore come to feel under some obligation to do what we would have done, had we loved the other person properly. The demand is thus characterized as unfulfillable, as once it arises, we have already failed to love and so to respond to the other in the right way. Nonetheless, Løgstrup argues, we cannot use this unfulfillability to claim that the demand no longer applies to us, as the failure to love is our fault, while any goodness must be attributed to life and not ourselves. This failure is reflected in the many and various ways which we find to wriggle out of facing up to the demand and what it requires of us.

The Ethical Demand and Social Norms

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.

Ethics, Science, and Poetry

This chapter covers Chapters 10 and 11 of The Ethical Demand, which focus on how Løgstrup sees the demand in relation to science on the one hand, and poetry on the other. In relation to science, Løgstrup argues for a form of philosophy that might be seen to challenge the ‘anti-metaphysical’ assumptions of scientific thinking, particularly in the way his account attributes a kind of normative authority to the demand as standing in judgement over our actions. Løgstrup also considers how far certain kinds of scientific determinism might pose a challenge to ethics, arguing that this challenge can be resisted. In Chapter 11, Løgstrup asks whether poetry can have implications for ethics, suggesting poetry can break through the triviality in which our lives are often lived, thus making us properly attentive to the world that surrounds us, including other people.

The Ethical Demand and Its Basis

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.

Interpreting Løgstrup

This concluding chapter returns to the challenges that Løgstrup faces regarding the ethical demand as he characterizes it (§12.1), and the ‘understanding of life’ on which he claims it is based, particularly the idea that life is a gift (§12.2). The chapter also considers what, if anything, is distinctive about Løgstrup’s ethics (§12.3). His position is compared and contrasted to Kantian deontology, utilitarian consequentialism, and virtue theory, while the connections with contemporary care ethics are also explored. Overall, it is argued that this study of Løgstrup suggests the power and coherence of his ethical vision, and the important but underexplored contribution that he can make to contemporary thinking in ethics.

Dealing with Darwall

This chapter contrasts Løgstrup’s position with the account of moral obligation offered by Stephen Darwall, which bases obligation on second-personal authority. The chapter begins by setting out Darwall’s position (§10.1). It then focuses on three respects in which he could seem to claim an advantage over Løgstrup: namely, in the way he links obligations to rights; in the place he gives to respect for autonomy in his account; and in the greater explanatory resources he has available to make sense of the idea of moral obligation (§10.2). The chapter then considers responses that Løgstrup might give to these challenges (§10.3), arguing that Løgstrup’s objection to the command account of obligation is also telling against Darwall.

Christian Ethics and Life as a Gift

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.

Introduction

This Introduction begins in §0.1 by examining the problem of moral obligation, focusing on Elizabeth Anscombe’s claim that it makes no sense without a divine lawgiver. Other alternative accounts of moral obligation are outlined, such as Kantian self-legislation and social command accounts. This provides a background to Løgstrup’s own view, which is sketched as offering a different approach. The Introduction then moves on in §0.2 to provide an account of Løgstrup’s life and times, and in §0.3 to a consideration of why his work is not better known, but why it is relevant now. The final section of the Introduction outlines the structure of the rest of the book which follows.

Learning from Luther

This chapter considers Løgstrup’s relation to Martin Luther. It begins by outlining Luther’s account of human wickedness, and the crucial role this plays in his distinctive theology and ethics. It then shows how Løgstrup takes over this account, but also departs from Luther in certain fundamental respects (§11.1). It then considers how K. Olesen Larsen, building on Kierkegaard, exploits this departure to mount a critical challenge to Løgstrup (§11.2). It is then shown how Løgstrup might respond to Olesen Larsen, but in a way that reveals how his ethics is indeed a step beyond Luther, but arguably a defensible one (§11.3). Finally, the chapter considers how Løgstrup deals with an issue that is central to his Lutheran approach, namely the conception of moral agency that is possible on this model, making a critical comparison with Iris Murdoch (§11.4).