Concern for the Other: Perspectives on the Ethics of K. E. Løgstrup

In the Eyes of a Lutheran Philosopher: How L

In the Eyes of a Lutheran Philosopher How Løgstrup Treated Moral Thinkers Svend Andersen 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. In fact, Løgstrup, in working out his ethics, shows himself to be a Lutheran philosopher. I seek to substantiate this claim by considering Løgstrup’s ethics in relation to that of other prominent classical and contemporary philosophers. The reader should be aware of my approach from the outset: I do not give my own interpretation of the various moral philosophers, but I stick to what Løgstrup himself said of them and how he positioned himself in relation to them. I deviate from this approach in only one instance: the German philosopher Hans Lipps. This contemporary of Heidegger is all but unknown in the Anglo-Saxon world, and consequently I have given my own presentation of those parts of Lipps’s phenomenology on which Løgstrup builds his ethics . The following overview also supports the claim that Løgstrup ’s ethics are a reformulation of Luther’s idea of natural law, achieved by the application of existential phenomenology. ■ 29 C H A P T E R T W O Andersen-02 10/19/07 1:44 PM Page 29 One reason why Løgstrup never gave a comprehensive treatment of moral philosophers is that he never wrote a textbook on ethics. (He was, in fact, skeptical of the “institution” of the textbook.) However, there does exist at least one textbook-like treatise of his on the subject of ethics—“Ethik und Ontologie” (1960)—in which he presents theories of ethics using the distinction between teleological, deontological, and ontological ethics .1 I follow this structure in my presentation of the moral philosophers discussed by Løgstrup. TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS Under the heading of teleological ethics—he did not use the term “consequentialism”—Løgstrup deals primarily with three types of theories , which we can call the ethics of antiquity, ideal consequentialism, and utilitarianism. Aristotle Løgstrup deals with the ethics of antiquity in a strictly descriptive manner , and of the little he writes, most is devoted to Aristotle. He mentions the concept of virtue but provides no deeper discussion. This is not because he lacked interest in the relation between Aristotle’s ethics and his own. On the contrary, he was aware of possible similarities between his concept of the sovereign expressions of life and Aristotle’s concept of virtues. He also hoped that some of his students would investigate the potential connection, but unfortunately none of them did so.2 Under the heading of teleological ethics, Løgstrup also mentions the traditional positions of Plato and Thomas Aquinas.3 Max Scheler By “ideal consequentialism” I mean theories that define the good to be promoted in moral action as a kind of ideal entity. In “Ethik und Ontologie,” Løgstrup mentions two German philosophers from the early twentieth century, Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann. In Løgstrup’s context the most important is Scheler; Scheler’s so-called materiale Wertethik was Svend Andersen 30 Andersen-02 10/19/07 1:44 PM Page 30 made the topic of a prize paper in a competition announced by the University of Copenhagen, for which Løgstrup submitted an essay in 1932. This essay—which was awarded a gold medal—is important because it is Løgstrup’s first academic work on phenomenology, the tradition of contemporary philosophy in which he is situated. According to Scheler, a human act is morally good (or right) if it realizes a value. Moral values are ideal, and hence moral insight has the character of intuition (Anschauung).4 Epistemologically, Scheler can be called an intuitionist, which in his case means that he represents a Husserlian kind of phenomenology. A “phenomenon,” in this view, is an ideal unity of meaning that is given in an immediate intuition. Ontologically speaking, Scheler is, of course, a realist, and the values to be realized in moral acts are ordered in hierarchies. Scheler argues, against Kant, that the most basic feature of moral life is not obligation (Pflicht) but rather virtues, in the sense of positive moral capabilities. Although clearly Scheler does not deny the existence of obligations...