Concern for the Other

Contents

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pp. v-vi

Preface

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pp. vii-viii

Knud E. L�gstrup is undoubtedly the most prominent philosopher- theologian Denmark has fostered since the days of S�ren Kierkegaard. His book The Ethical Demand is a major work in twentieth-century Danish thinking. It reached an unusually broad audience when it was first published, and it still does. ...

Abbreviations

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pp. ix-

Introduction

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pp. 1-8

Løgstrup’s ethics of the ethical demand was formulated half a century ago. Nevertheless, it seems to be receiving renewed attention today. This might, in part, be a result of its tendency to reflect several important trends in contemporary moral thinking. ...

The Conception of Ethics and the Ethical in K. E. L�gstrup's The Ethical Demand

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pp. 9-28

The Ethical Demand is the most important work of moral philosophy written in Danish in the twentieth century, and it remains the central work by its author, K. E. L�gstrup. The Ethical Demand is not an easy book to read, and a university education in moral philosophy is no guarantee that the task will be any easier. ...

In the Eyes of a Lutheran Philosopher: How L�gstrup Treated Moral Thinkers

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pp. 29-54

Løgstrup regarded himself as both a Christian theologian and a philosopher. Accordingly, his ethics is dual in nature. Here I deal with his philosophical ethics. As the reader will discover, however, the thought of Martin Luther plays a decisive role in Løgstrup’s philosophical ethics. ...

The Genesis of K. E. L�gstrup's View of Morality as a Substitute

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pp. 55-84

In his book Opg�r med Kierkegaard (Controverting Kierkegaard) L�gstrup presents a Kantian transformation of the biblical story of the Good Samaritan. According to him, the original story tells us how the Samaritan, moved by mercy, spontaneously took charge of the victim of assault, his thoughts occupied by ...

Principles and Situations: K. E. L�gstrup and British Moral Philosophy of the Twentieth Century

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pp. 85-102

The year that Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand was published, 1956, was, as it happens, the year in which I began my own philosophical studies in England, and Løgstrup’s remarks on British moral philosophy strike many familiar notes. The writers he is interested in were the ones who provided the focus ...

The Use of Principles in Ethical Situations: A Response to Almond

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pp. 103-112

Brenda Almond’s essay in this volume is an important contribution to the understanding of K. E. Løgstrup’s philosophical world. Løgstrup formulated some of his views in contrast to positions in British moral philosophy, and in doing so he challenged both a rationalist approach to ethics ...

The Liquid Modern Adventures of the "Sovereign Expression of Life"

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pp. 113-138

I came across the first English edition of Knud Ejler Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand by chance, during a sabbatical term in the Newfoundland Memorial University. While collecting ideas and sources for my Postmodern Ethics, I browsed through the library shelves in search of a version of contemporary ...

The Ethical Demand in a Global Perspective: A Response to Bauman

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pp. 139-146

Zygmunt Bauman has written an engaging and thought-provoking essay on the ethics of K. E. Løgstrup in which he raises the important question of how Løgstrup’s ethics could be understood in a modern global society. Bauman’s questions are all the more stimulating to me in light of my work ...

Human Nature and Human Dependence: What Might a Thomist Learn from Reading L�gstrup?

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pp. 147-166

Thomism does not confront its philosophical rivals as a completed system of thought, and not primarily even as a set of propositions, but rather in the first place as a set of questions, questions that do indeed presuppose the truth of certain assertions and the soundness of certain arguments, ...

Sovereign Expressions of Life, Virtues, and Actions: A Response to MacIntyre

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pp. 167-176

Thomism is not a closed system of thoughts and propositions, or even a system at all, according to Alasdair MacIntyre, but a kind of inquiry, an open-ended quest with reference to a particular kind of question evolving through history. This way of describing the historicity of Thomistic thinking holds true, ...

Donum or Datum? K. E. Løgstrup’s Religious Account of the Gift of Life

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pp. 177-206

K. E. Løgstrup’s reflections on ethics proceed from what he regarded as “the foundational relation,” which is that human beings live together on the basis of trust rather than distrust.¹ There is, in Løgstrup, a strong protest against philosophical attempts to ground morality in a conception of ourselves ...

A Response to Hans Reinders's "Donum or Datum?"

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pp. 207-216

I will comment here on all three points. The first is the central point in Reinders’s essay, and I discuss it at some length. Does Løgstrup’s ethical view presuppose that one adopts a theological perspective? Reinders says it does. I, like Løgstrup, maintain that it does not. ...

Contributors

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pp. 217-218

Index

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pp. 219-225