Concern for the Other

Perspectives on the Ethics of K. E. Løgstrup

Svend Andersen, Kees van Kooten Niekerk, Svend Andersen, Kees van Kooten Niekerk

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780268160609
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

In Concern for the Other: The Ethics of K. E. Løgstrup, eleven scholars examine the structure, intention, and originality of Løgstrup's ethics as a whole. This collection of essays is a companion to Beyond the Ethical Demand, as well as to The Ethical Demand. The essays examine Løgstrup's crucial concept of the "sovereign expressions of life"; his view of moral principles as a substitute for, or inferior form of, ethics; his relationships to other philosophers, including the twentieth-century British moral philosophers; and the role of his Lutheran background in his ethics. Løgstrup also firmly advanced the controversial thesis, examined by several essays in this volume, that the demand for "other-concern" central to his ethics does not depend on religious faith.

CHAPTER THREE

The Genesis of K. E. Løgstrup’s View of Morality as a Substitute

Kees van Kooten Niekerk

In his book Opgør med Kierkegaard (Controverting Kierkegaard) Løgstrup 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 the victim’s needs and the question of how best to come to his aid. But we can imagine, Løgstrup continues, that the Samaritan was tempted to pass by and leave the victim to his fate. In that case he could have come to realize that it was his duty to aid the victim, and this realization could have made him take charge of the victim nevertheless. If so, he would not have acted out of mercy, but out of duty. His act would have been a moral act. As such it would have been a substitute for acting out of mercy. Løgstrup recognizes, of course, that this is better than brutality or indifference. However, at the same time he emphasizes that the Kantian Samaritan’s act, being a substitute, is inferior to the biblical Samaritan’s acting spontaneously out of mercy (SEL, 76).

Løgstrup substantiates this claim by comparing the role of motivation in acts of mercy and corresponding acts of duty. In acts of mercy, the agent is motivated by the need of another person and by the intended result of his or her action, consisting in the removal of obstacles to the other’s flourishing. The agent is completely engaged in caring for the other. In corresponding acts of duty, on the other hand, engagement and its inherent motivation have been disrupted. Now, duty—that is, the sense of the rightness of the action—is resorted to as a fresh motive. This motive, however, is only a substitute for the motivation inherent in the original engagement. The same applies to virtue, which Løgstrup describes as a disposition to act motivated by “the thought and the sense of the rightness of the action,” that is, as a disposition to act out of duty. He concludes: “Just as duty is a substitute motive, virtue is a substitute disposition” (SEL, 78).

According to Løgstrup the problem with these substitutes is that the engagement with the other and the world is loosened. “[T]he thought of and sense of the rightness of the act are given independent status and are interposed. … [T]he motive is no longer drawn from the consequences that the action will have for the lives of others and for society, but is sought in the individual himself.” The individual is thrown back upon himself or herself. Therefore, “[d]uty and virtue are moral introversions.” And Løgstrup adds that the thought of the rightness of the action involved in duty and virtue naturally evokes a “rapture at one’s own righteousness” (SEL, 78–79).

The above quotations about duty and virtue as substitutes and introversions suggest that Løgstrup is making a general point. Indeed, he uses the example of the Good Samaritan to say something about morality in general. The Samaritan’s mercy is an instance of what he calls the “sovereign expressions of life.” These are, roughly, spontaneous, otherregarding impulses or modes of conduct such as trust, mercy, and sincerity. What Løgstrup claims is that morality is secondary and inferior to the sovereign expressions of life. In his own words: “Morality exists to deliver substitute motives to substitute actions because the sovereign and spontaneous expressions of life, with their attachment to what the act is intended to achieve, either fail to materialize or are stifled” (SEL, 78).

It is not so easy to make out what Løgstrup, in the present context, means by “morality.” In any case, as secondary and inferior to the sovereign expressions of life, morality must be distinguished from them. Indeed, Løgstrup characterizes the sovereign expressions of life as “premoral” (SEL, 77). In the section of Opgør med Kierkegaard that ends with the example of the Good Samaritan (SEL, 72–76), he uses “morality” (Danish: moral) first as a designation of customary ethics. However, he also uses the word later as the designation of a Kantian type of morality. This type of morality “is distinguished by reflection,” that is, reflection on what is right, and on the question of why one should do what is right. The answer to that question is: because it is your duty to do so. Kantian morality is thus “a determinate consciousness of what duty requires and action based on that consciousness, which accordingly precedes it” (SEL, 73–74; quotations, 74).¹ Løgstrup’s transformation of the Good Samaritan into a Kantian Samaritan and his consequent contrast between acts of duty and acts of mercy suggest that he is thinking of this Kantian type of morality. Furthermore, in the course of his argument, Løgstrup extends his concept of morality to a morality of virtue as a disposition to act out of duty. I therefore think it is fairly safe to conclude that morality for Løgstrup in the present context is a phenomenon that, in contradistinction to the spontaneous sovereign expressions of life, is characterized by reflection and acting out of duty, which kind of action may, or may not, have been habitualized in virtue.

I think many readers will be puzzled at Løgstrup’s rather negative appraisal of the moralities of duty and virtue. Is it not unambiguously positive when people do things that are right for the sake of their rightness, or when they act out of virtue? It may be difficult to see why such actions should be inferior to the sovereign expressions of life. In the following I will try to clarify Løgstrup’s view of morality as a substitute by pointing to some of the theological and philosophical ideas that have influenced it. This does not mean, however, that I subscribe to this view. To indicate why I do not, I will conclude this essay by asking some critical questions.

MARTIN LUTHER

Løgstrup’s view that the sovereign expressions of life are superior to moral acts of duty has a theological background in Luther’s conception of the works of love as fruits of faith. In his treatise The Freedom of a Christian, Luther refers to the word of Jesus that says a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit (Mt 7:18) and uses it to support his claim that human beings can do good works only by virtue of justification through faith (Luther 1962a, 69 ff.). He explains the relationship between faith and the works of love as follows: “Behold, from faith thus flow forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a joyful, willing, and free mind that serves one’s neighbor willingly” (ibid., 75–76).

In his treatise Secular Authority, Luther relates this view of good works to the concept of the law. He quotes the biblical statement that the law is not given for the righteous but for the unrighteous (1 Tim 1:9), and asks why this is so. He answers: “Because the righteous does of himself all and more than all that all the laws demand. But the unrighteous do nothing that the law demands, therefore they need the law to instruct, constrain, and compel them to do what is good” (Luther 1962c, 369). In other words, the Christians, insofar as they are true believers, do not need the law; they do good works of themselves, without the law. The law has been given for the nonbelievers, to instruct them and compel them to do the good works they do not do of themselves.

This should not be misunderstood. Luther does not intend to say that nonbelievers can do good works in the proper sense of the word. True, they can do the works that are demanded by the law. But, according to Luther, the law, being God’s law, demands more than that. It demands that those works are done with all one’s heart and with love. By themselves human beings cannot achieve that. If they do the works of the law at all, they do them owing to fear of punishment or hope of reward, not with all their hearts. Therefore, they cannot fulfill the law. As Luther puts it in his Preface to the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans: “To fulfil the law, we must meet its requirement gladly and lovingly; live virtuous and upright lives without the constraint of the law, and as if neither the law nor its penalties existed”—and this is only possible in faith (Luther 1962b, 19–22; quotation, 21). According to Luther, this means that only the good works of faith are genuine good works. This they are because they are done with all one’s heart. Good works constrained by the law are good works only in an external, improper sense.

I think Luther’s contrast between the works of faith and the works of the law lies at the root of Løgstrup’s view that the sovereign expressions of life are superior to the performance of acts of duty. This is not only a natural idea, considering the fact that Løgstrup was a Lutheran theologian. It can also be supported with reference to Løgstrup’s writings. Later in this essay we will see how Løgstrup’s view of morality is dependent on Luther’s view of the law. Here I focus on the relationship between Luther’s view of the works of faith and Løgstrup’s conception of the sovereign expressions of life.

In one of his earliest publications, long before he developed his conception of the sovereign expressions of life, Løgstrup explicitly subscribes to Luther’s view of good works as the fruits of faith. This is not particularly remarkable for a Lutheran theologian, of course. What is remarkable, however, is how Løgstrup interprets that view. He explains it by saying that “the branch bears the fruit before it is aware of it, without making an effort and only because it is on the tree, so that the fruit is there before thought” (Løgstrup 1936a, 140; my translation). This explanation shows that Løgstrup understands Luther’s idea of the fruits of faith in terms of what we normally consider as spontaneous acts, namely, as acts that happen of themselves, without our thinking about them and making an effort. It is not difficult to understand why Løgstrup does not actually use the word “spontaneous” here. The reason must be that in everyday language we use that word only to designate natural human acts, not acts that flow forth from faith. But this does not alter the fact that there is a substantive similarity between what we normally call spontaneous acts and the acts of faith as Løgstrup describes them.²

It should be clear, however, that there is also an important difference between Løgstrup’s conception of the sovereign expressions of life and Luther’s view of the works of love. Whereas Luther’s works of love are fruits of faith, the sovereign expressions of life are natural human phenomena. I will explain what brought about this difference later. For the moment I restrict myself to noting the substantive similarity between Løgstrup’s interpretation of Luther’s works of love and his later conception of the sovereign expressions of life as spontaneous phenomena.

JAKOB KNUDSEN

Løgstrup’s conception of the sovereign expressions of life has more than merely a theological background in Luther. It has also a philosophical background in what might be called “the ideal of living immediately,” in the form in which it was propounded by the Danish theologian, philosopher, and writer Jakob Knudsen (1858–1917). This ideal consists in an engagement with the world, which has a “self-forgetful, immediate, and unreflected nature” (Knudsen 1949, 47).3 Knudsen contrasts this ideal with self-contemplation, which he specifies as “the looking at yourself that kills … the tender, living moment” (ibid., 49). Moreover, he connects it with the ideal of love when he writes: “The self’s longing for and commitment to another self is its own and proper function, it is being oneself, for it is the only relation entered by the self, which it cannot leave and contemplate from the outside” (Knudsen 1948, 155, emphasis in original). In other words, it is precisely by virtue of the self-forgetfulness involved in the commitment to another person that a human being in love attains the purpose of being oneself.

Løgstrup’s thinking was strongly influenced by Knudsen.⁴ His influence was already present in Løgstrup’s first academic work, a prizewinning dissertation on the ethics of Max Scheler (1931, unpublished). Apart from references to Scheler’s Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Formalism in Ethics and Material Ethics of Value), which is the main source used for the dissertation, it contains very few references to other works. One of those, however, is a reference to a biography of Luther written by Knudsen. Here Løgstrup quotes Knudsen’s statement: “None of us should try to look at the back of our own neck,” which he (Løgstrup) regards as an expression of “the destructivity, indeed, the pointlessness of self-contemplation” (Løgstrup 1931, 140).⁵

In The Ethical Demand, Løgstrup criticizes the condemnation of living immediately found in Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript. According to Løgstrup, immediacy can mean two things: “a) It can mean devotion: to devote oneself to one’s work, to take pleasure in a carefree manner in fellowship with others, to be spellbound in love, to be heartbroken at the loss of somebody one cared for. And b) it can mean the selfish form we give our devotion …” (Løgstrup 1997, 234). The trouble with Kierkegaard is that he does not make this distinction, which has the annoying consequence that he rejects living immediately because of the selfishness it involves. Interestingly, Løgstrup associates the first, positive, meaning of immediacy with Knudsen’s concept of zest for life, and he refers to the fact that Knudsen already distinguished between zest for life and selfishness (ibid., 234–235).

In his Opgør med Kierkegaard, Løgstrup returns to Kierkegaard’s condemnation of living immediately in connection with his treatment of the sovereign expressions of life. He opposes Kierkegaard’s view that it is our task to detach ourselves from immediacy through a reflection on the infinite in ourselves. His argument is, once again, that immediacy is not merely selfishness: “The immediacy with which the individual is bound to the world through desire and pleasure is matched by the immediacy with which he is bound to the world through … sovereign expressions of life” (SEL, 70–71). This means that our task is not to detach ourselves from immediacy, but rather to live the right kind of immediate life, that is, giving way to the sovereign expressions of life (SEL, 71).

On the basis of these expositions, Løgstrup’s positive conception of living immediately can be described as living engaged in and absorbed by the tasks and occurrences of life without stopping short to reflect upon oneself. Moreover, in conjunction with Løgstrup’s references to Knudsen, they reveal a clear influence from the latter’s ideal of self-forgetful commitment to the world and the other. Finally, the exposition from Opgør med Kierkegaard shows that Løgstrup regarded the realization of the sovereign expressions of life as a part of living immediately. I therefore think it is fair to say that, among other things, Løgstrup’s emphasis on the agent’s engagement with the world and the other in the sovereign expressions of life reflects Knudsen’s ideal of living immediately.

This raises the question of how Løgstrup’s concepts of immediacy and spontaneity relate to one another. Immediate engagement in the world and the other is the opposite of reflection. Spontaneity, on the other hand, means that human action happens effortlessly and of its own accord.⁶ The relationship between these concepts is that spontaneous actions are normally immediate actions in which the agent is absorbed by the task at hand. This does not mean, however, that all immediate actions are spontaneous actions. Making an effort to perform a difficult task may be referred to as immediate action in the sense that the agent is completely absorbed by the task, but it is certainly not spontaneous action happening effortlessly and of its own accord. However, the circumstance that spontaneous actions are normally immediate actions explains why Løgstrup could elaborate on Luther’s notion of “spontaneous” love in terms of Knudsen’s ideal of living immediately.

Løgstrup’s view of morality as a substitute must be understood in relation to his conception of the sovereign expressions of life. Thus far I have focused on the ideas that contributed to the formation of that conception. Now it is time to consider Løgstrup’s view of morality as a substitute. For this view, too, it is possible to point to a source that exerted a substantial influence on the young Løgstrup, namely, the Danish theological movement known as “Tidehverv.”

TIDEHVERV

Tidehverv (literally, “Time on the Turn”) was a Danish movement parallel to Swiss-German dialectical theology. It arose in the 1920s out of an opposition to the prevalent understanding of Christian belief, which aimed at religious and moral development of one’s personality oriented towards the person of Jesus as the ideal. Drawing upon Luther’s view of sin as egocentrism, Tidehverv condemned this understanding as a selfish preoccupation with one’s own perfection.^7...