Ethics

The Fundamental Questions of Our Lives

Wolfgang Huber, Brian McNeil

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781626161658, 9781626162273
• eBook ISBN: 9781626161665
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

In the twenty-first century the basic questions of ethics are no longer the abstract terms of ethical theory, but the concrete and burning issues related to the influence of life sciences, the impact of a globalized economy, and the consequences of present decisions for the future of humankind. Ethics: The Fundamental Questions of Our Lives analyzes twenty ethical issues that address education and culture, labor and economy, the environment and sustainability, democracy and cosmopolitanism, peace and war, and life and death. Each chapter describes a concrete example showing the relevance of the fundamental ethical question, then provides an explanation of how one can think through possible responses and reactions. Huber emphasizes the connections between personal, professional, and institutional ethics and demonstrates how human relationships lie at the center of our ethical lives. His aim is to articulate a theology of what he calls "responsible freedom" that transcends individualistic self-realization and includes communal obligations.

1

---

WHAT IS ETHICS ABOUT?

AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT throws a man to the ground on a station platform in the Berlin Underground and kicks his head repeatedly while the man lies motionless. A few months later, the court convicts the student of attempted murder and grave bodily harm and sentences him to incarceration without the possibility of probation. The young man’s lawyers appeal, and the court suspends the sentence until a final decision is made by a higher authority. The minister of the interior in Berlin criticizes this legal decision harshly, arguing that many people cannot understand it in view of the seriousness of the crime. But a Catholic high school says it is willing to open its doors to the student during the suspension of his sentence. School officials argue that giving a fresh chance to people who have incurred guilt is one element of the profile of a Christian school.

Why Is Ethics So Much a Matter of Debate?

These two reactions sound antithetical. Is the difference explained sufficiently by the differing roles of a minister of the interior and a Christian school? Or does it reflect different ethical standpoints? Is the decision about such a question connected to the specific basic attitude that is taken toward other people?

Ethics is concerned with conflicts today to a greater degree than in earlier periods. But its relationship to these conflicts has changed. Ethics not only helps us to find orientation in the conflict; rather, ethics itself has become a matter of debate. This is one of the most significant characteristics of modern pluralism.

A hundred years ago, it was still possible for an American judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., to describe the meaning of morality in the following simple words: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins” (Erlinger 2011). Today, scarcely anyone presupposes a comparable agreement about moral rules. People’s ideas about what constitutes a right and good life diverge widely.

To what extent must we accept such divergences? Has ethics lost its binding character altogether so that we are left with nothing more than a general relativism? Some hold this relativism, or even an ethical nihilism, to be inevitable (Blackburn 2003). But since we human beings do not live as individuals, each on our own island, we need a certain measure of agreement. On what questions is this necessary? And how can it be achieved? Ethical reflection is required.

Ethics is a reflection on the conduct of human life. The philosopher Immanuel Kant posed three fundamental questions: what can I know?, what ought I to do?, and what may I hope? (Kant [1781–87] 1956). The second of these is central today, but it cannot be answered independently of the other two. The answer to the question about right conduct depends not only on knowledge of the conditions and consequences of our behavior but also on motivations of conduct, and one of the factors that influences such motivations is our hopes. Ultimately, this answer is related to the anthropology that guides us. This means that all three of Kant’s questions are tributaries to a fourth question: what is the human being?

What Does Personal Freedom Mean?

The question, what ought I to do? arises because the answer is not supplied automatically by the instincts that govern human behavior. On the contrary, the human being can choose among various possibilities. One’s self-determination is, however, defined by boundaries that have been a repeated source of controversy in the history of ideas. If we assumed that human conduct was completely determined, it would be superfluous to pose the ethical question. Accordingly, ethics is about the possibility of a life in freedom.

But what is freedom? Surveys show that most Germans understand freedom to mean security from societal neediness and from comparable risks to life. This is linked to the idea that one is free when one can do what one wants. Finally, people are regarded as free when they actively seek success in life, accept the risks that have to be taken to attain this goal, and also bear the consequences (Petersen 2012).

The most important ethical consequences of such an understanding of freedom are that the state should cushion us against the great risks to life; that all people should do what they want, in the framework of regulations that are as sparing as possible; and that all are the authors of their own happiness.

This understanding of freedom has its origin in the fact that important ethical questions are understood and explained today primarily from an economic perspective. Hence, freedom is primarily economic freedom. Freedom from external neediness is the presupposition that allows each person to use one’s strengths to one’s own advantage. The individual’s task consists of exploiting as well as possible his or her own opportunities in life. This widespread understanding of freedom is summed up pithily in an advertisement for building loans: “You are not buying a building loan. You are buying freedom!”

The orientation to one’s own advantage is only one aspect of freedom. Freedom, as “the feeling that we are the author of our will and the subject of our life” (Bieri 2001), is more than just a claim that individuals make with regard to their own lives. It is, at the same time, a criterion for how they deal with others. Freedom is individual, but not egocentric.

Freedom and Justice

No one can be refused the right to take one’s life into one’s own hands and shape it, and this is why everyone must have the same access to freedom. Only in this way is the striving for freedom compatible with the dignity that is the same for all human beings. Accordingly, freedom as the starting point of ethics is linked to the obligation to acknowledge that all people have the same freedom. This attitude is called “egalitarian universalism.” Wherever we encounter it, we are (directly or indirectly) in the sphere of influence both of the rational thinking of the Enlightenment and of Jewish-Christian ethics.

The longing for freedom finds a concrete expression especially where people experience themselves as unfree. The longing for freedom is formulated in view of the concrete limitations that must be overcome. “When these restrictions have been overcome they represent a positive content of what we call for the time being our liberties” (Mead 1964). Experiences of the lack of freedom and struggles to overcome restrictions thus lead to changed interpretations of freedom and to new endeavors to achieve this freedom in law. The struggle to abolish slavery is the prototype of this historical process (see Patterson 1992). The consciousness of freedom as a value with a binding character for human life and for the shaping of human life in common is thus generated by an “interplay between suffering and the power to create value … the struggle for religious freedom in the eighteenth century, the struggle to abolish slavery in the nineteenth century, the fight against the return of the Holocaust in the twentieth century—without these contexts, it is impossible to explain the gradual articulation and institutionalization of these values” (Joas 2002). Demands for freedom generally acquire their substantial definition from the experience of being refused the possibility to develop, being coerced, and being treated unequally.

Independence from external coercion (that is, negative freedom) and the possibility of shaping one’s own life (that is, positive freedom) are inseparable. It is meaningless to play one of these forms of freedom against the other (see Berlin 2002; C. Taylor 1985). Freedom means that civil society restricts the self-determined behavior of individuals only to the extent necessary for the sake of freedom itself; at the same time, however, freedom must be shaped in such a way that everyone has, as far as possible, the same access to freedom. One criterion of freedom, understood in a positive way, is fairness vis-à-vis those members of society who have the smallest chances of attaining freedom. This shows that freedom is never only “my” freedom. It always includes an interest in the freedom of the other. And this is why freedom has an essentially communicative character.

This insight prevents us from stopping short at an individualistic understanding. We must inquire into the possibilities and the consequences of individual freedom in our life in common (see Bedford-Strohm 1993, 1998).

Freedom and Its Boundaries

If we understand “freedom” to mean the feeling that individuals have control of their lives, it is impossible to overlook the boundaries that this freedom encounters. No one personally determines the date and the place of one’s birth. No one decides what gifts one will receive, nor what weaknesses will accompany one throughout one’s lifetime. No one can determine on his or her own the changes in his or her life. Examples are the peaceful revolution in 1989, with its profound influence on the conditions of life in Europe; the good health that one person enjoys, while another has poor health; the job that survives (or does not survive) despite economic crises; and the partnership with a beloved person that proves to be lasting (or breaks down).

Is freedom an illusion? This question has been posed from Greek antiquity down to the modern neurosciences. Freedom certainly is an illusion if it is understood as absolute freedom, and it is likewise an illusion to think that it can be detached from the physical conditions of life. Human beings are tied to place and time, and this is why they can choose from only a limited number of options. Each person can make use of one’s freedom only within the framework of a limited scope for action. Personal abilities are limited, as are the opportunities and the means to make use of one’s own freedom. Selecting specific possibilities always means renouncing other possibilities.

The fact that human freedom is limited is not connected only with the place and time of the individual life or with personal gifts and opportunities. This limitation is above all a product of the finitude of human life and of the negative situations in which human beings are continually entangled as a result of their actions and inaction. We hope that the use of our freedom will make us the authors of our lives, but this use of our freedom is always linked to the errors of which we are the authors. “Genuine freedom exists on earth only together with guilt” (Theunissen 2002). Whenever we act we must assume the possibility that we will incur guilt vis-à-vis people. This experience shows us a fundamental feature of a person’s relationship to God, before whom no one can evade the limitation of his or her freedom. Vis-à-vis God, the human person experiences oneself as one who receives. The substantial definition of freedom includes gratitude that we receive life and freedom as gifts from God. In this gratitude, we become explicitly conscious that our life is finite and our freedom limited. This gratitude forms the basis of the use we make of our freedom (see W. Huber 2012c).

If our starting point is the gift of freedom, the decisive ethical task is to preserve and exercise the freedom that has been bestowed on us. This lays down a clear boundary against an egocentric freedom that sees only one’s own advantage: in such an understanding of freedom, the other person is seen as a restriction or perhaps even as a threat to one’s own freedom, which is regarded as a right that should be defended against the others. The Christian understanding of freedom is expounded by the commandment to love: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is certainly true that this commandment includes respect for one’s own self as well as responsibility for what other people need for their lives, but the needs of other people for which we bear a specific responsibility are as important as our self-respect. Freedom does not separate people; it unites them. The Christian understanding aims not at an egocentric freedom but at a communicative freedom.

It is in love that freedom becomes concrete. This is the fundamental idea of Christian ethics. Responsibility for one’s own life is absolutely inseparable from responsibility for the life of others. Self-determination and reciprocal behavior on behalf of the other belong together. Freedom should be shaped in such a way that it promotes life in common, instead of destroying it. On the other hand, the forms of life in common must not fetter love. Rather, they should allow it to develop fully. The starting point of ethics is the freedom for which we take responsibility.

The question of human freedom is one of the basic themes of philosophy, but it is equally a question of theology, and this shows us why ethics has elaborated two basic forms in the course of its history, a philosophical and a theological ethics. One can treat the theme of human freedom in such a way that one prescinds from the human’s relationship to God. But one can also see the finitude and the fallibility of the human as a reason to explicitly integrate the human’s relationship to God into ethical reflection. The ethics presented in this book takes the latter path, but always in a dialogue with philosophical positions.

My reflections are based on the Protestant form of Christian ethics, which is concerned with the freedom for which we take responsibility as a form of life. In the dialogue with philosophical ethics, Protestant ethics contributes the perspective that this freedom is not simply produced by humans but is bestowed on them. It also insists that when we make use of this freedom, we fail again and again and remain dependent on the strength that allows us to make a fresh start. The primary difference today between Protestant ethics and important traditions of Catholic moral theology is that the former is conceived, not as an ethics of law, but as an ethics of responsibility.

Religion and Ethics

Religious convictions or secular attitudes influence how people judge what is individually or collectively right and good. People choose a way of living that, in their view, corresponds to the elementary trust and the basic truths that are meant to provide orientation for their life. The correspondence between the truth and the way of living, between fundamental convictions about values and one’s way of life, is a theme of all the religions, and indeed of all worldviews. This is why it is meaningful to speak of “religious ethics” and to present and compare under this heading the ethical views of the various religions.

Every religious ethics refers to an existential praxis that in one way or another reflects the fundamental attitudes of a community of shared convictions. In the context of Christian theology, these attitudes derive from the directives that are anchored in the traditions of Judaism and of Christianity. Examples are the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1ff.), the Golden Rule (“In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you,” Mt 7:12), or the precept of threefold love—for God, for one’s neighbor, and for one’s own self (Mt 22:37–38).

How can universalistic norms acquire a binding significance for individuals? The logical justification of these norms does not suffice. The binding characters develop above all in the shared life of families, peer groups, or faith communities. If moral consensus is to be achieved in a pluralistic society, it is essential that the universalistic principles that are to determine moral conduct are anchored in the convictions, attitudes of faith, and religious practices of the various groups in society. The American legal philosopher John Rawls (1993) has spoken in such contexts of an “overlapping consensus” among these groups. A consensus of this kind has considerable practical importance for moral conduct. Moral convictions risk losing their motivating power when they are detached from ways of living that have an ethical content (Habermas 2001b).

In a pluralistic society, various communities of shared convictions stand alongside one another. Their differences also concern fundamental convictions about values. Nevertheless, a theological ethics cannot be content to elaborate Christian convictions as the content of the ethos of a church group. On the contrary, one of its tasks is to establish a relationship between this ethos and other ethical positions. Besides this, the ordering of society as a whole is always one element in the Christian ethos that does not limit itself to those people who belong to a Christian community but acts to secure respect for the dignity of all people and the safeguarding of their rights. This ethos takes the part of those who are weaker, those whose rights are restricted, and those who are at risk in their lives—independently of whether they are members of a community of faith or of shared convictions.

This is why theological ethics also brings Christian perspectives to bear on life in common in society. In the Catholic tradition, this concept is developed as “social doctrine” in a form that belongs more strongly to an ethics of law, appealing frequently to the agreement between criteria that faith perceives in revelation and principles of the natural law that can be recognized by reason in general. In the Protestant tradition, this kind of reflection in the context of society has the character of “social ethics.” Its goal is not that people should observe normative precepts but that they should be empowered to make their own ethical judgments from the perspective of a freedom they take responsibility for. Catholic social doctrine is oriented to the model of pronouncements by the church’s magisterium; Protestant social ethics is based on the model of cooperation in forming a judgment.

What Is Right? What Is Good Conduct?

The words ethical conduct, morality, and ethos, which refer to practiced and recognized forms of life, either of individuals or of societies, are seldom used today. For many authors, “morals” designates the ethical rules and norms recognized by individuals, groups, or societies, while the concept of “ethics” refers to the theoretical reflection on the ethical rules and norms and on ethical conduct (Lienemann 2008). The concepts of ethical conduct, morality, and ethos have moved into the background, but the spectrum of meaning of “morals” and “ethics” has widened. In daily usage, these words can refer both to life praxis and to the rules that are essential to this praxis, as well as to reflection on these rules.

The words morals and ethics are often used interchangeably in daily usage, but some writers apply them to the two fundamental dimensions in which the question about responsible human conduct is posed, namely, the “right” and the “good.” In the first dimension, the question about human conduct is related to life in common with others. This application entails the search for those moral rules that are valid for everyone, the rules that must be observed for the sake of life in common. The guiding question then is, What do I owe to the others so that, despite all our differentness, we can live together as equals? This is also known as the question of what is “right.” We apply the term wrong to anything that proves not to be right. At the same time, the question about human conduct is related to the search for a personal identity, for the success of one’s own life. The guiding question here is, What do I owe to myself in order to regard my life as a good life? This is also known as the question of what is “good.” We apply the term bad to anything that proves not to be good.

In recent philosophical debates, it has been proposed that the concepts of “morals” and “ethics” should be linked to these two questions about the “right” and the “good.” For example, Jürgen Habermas (1991) understands morals as the reflection on what is right, and ethics as the reflection on what is good. Ronald Dworkin (2011b) makes the point succinctly: “Moral standards prescribe how we ought to treat others; ethical standards, how we ought to live ourselves” (see also Dworkin 2011a). The sequence of these two definitions also contains a hierarchy. We can indeed regard responsibility for the success of our own lives as our most important task, but we can take on this responsibility only when we respect the dignity of others at the same time we respect our own dignity. This means that the criteria for how we ought to treat one another take precedence over the criteria for how we oursel...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Translator’s Note
• 1 What Is Ethics About?
• 2 Life in Common: Does the Family Have a Future?
• 3 Human Dignity: Is There Such a Thing as a “Trial Pregnancy”?
• 4 Handicap: Do We Want the Perfect Human Being?
• 5 Basic Needs: Isn’t Eating Too a Moral Question?
• 6 Poverty: How Is It Possible to Dismantle Injustice?
• 7 Culture: Is There Such a Thing as Cultural Basic Foodstuffs?
• 8 Conscience: Is It Possible to Learn Freedom of Conscience—Andto Protect It?
• 9 Responsibility: How Does One Become a World Citizen?
• 10 The Information Age: Do the Media Control Us?
• 11 Work: Do We Live to Work?
• 12 Profit: What Is the Economy For?
• 13 Science: Are We Permitted to Do Everything That We Can in Fact Do?
• 14 Medicine: Is There a Human Right to Health?
• 15 Politics: Is It Possible to Combine Power and Morality?
• 16 Tolerance: How Much Differentness Can We Take?
• 17 War and Peace: How Far Does Our Responsibility Go?
• 18 Intergenerational Justice: What Do We Leave Behind for Those Who Come after Us?
• 19 Old Age: What Does It Mean to “Honor Your Father and Your Mother”?
• 20 Dying: When Has the Time Come to Die?
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• References
• Index
• Footnotes