K. E. Løgstrup: The Ethical Demand

Description

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. Title_Pages Translators_Preface Acknowledgements A_Chronology_of_Lgstrups_Life_and_Works Translators_Introduction Introduction The_Fact_from_Which_the_Silent_Demand_Arises Mediation The_Radicality_of_the_Demand_and_the_Social_Norms The_Changeability_of_the_Social_Norms Is_There_a_Christian_Ethics Antagonism_towards_the_OneSided_Demand Is_the_Ethical_Demand_Destructive_on_Account_of_Its_Radical_Character Making_Compromises_with_the_Demand The_Ethical_Decision Science_and_Ethics Poetry_and_Ethics The_Unfulfillability_of_the_Demand_and_the_Proclamation_of_Jesus Polemical_Epilogue Editors_Notes Select_Bibliography Index