Ethical Concepts and Problems (Selected Works of K.E. Logstrup) 019885904X, 9780198859048

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Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems

Selected Works of K. E. Løgstrup Series editors: Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s Analysis of Existence and Its Relation to Proclamation The Ethical Demand Controverting Kierkegaard Ethical Concepts and Problems

K. E. Løgstrup Ethical Concepts and Problems

Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos Introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1971 Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020 Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020 Editorial notes © Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern 2020 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2020 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936958 ISBN 978–0–19–885904–8 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Contents Translators’ Preface Acknowledgements A Chronology of Løgstrup’s Life and Works Introduction Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk

vii xv xvii xix

Ethical Concepts and Problems 1. Three Ethical Traditions The Teleological Tradition The Deontological Tradition The Ontological Tradition

3 3 6 7

2. The Ethical Demand and the Sovereign Expressions of Life

9

The Commandment to Love the Neighbour Is the Most Natural of All Commandments The Sovereign Expressions of Life The Spontaneity of Love of the Neighbour and Its ‘Demotivation’ Open and Displaced Trust

9 12 14 19

3. Norm and Spontaneity Morality and Spontaneity The Conflict between Duty and Temptation

4. The Ethical Demand and the Norms The Absolute Difference between Good and Evil, and the Changing Moral and Legal Norms Do the Ten Commandments Still Hold Good?

5. Politics and Ethics Politics and Ethics The Golden Rule Love of the Neighbour as Realization and as Idea

23 23 24 28 28 30 35 35 36 37

6. Duty

43

7. Responsibility

49

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8. Choice, Will, and Freedom A Phenomenological Account of the Will The Idea of a Disengaged Will Luther and Erasmus Coactio and Necessitas Two Different Questions Displacing the Battlefield and Making It Internal to Human Beings Descartes’s Concept of the Disengaged Will Kierkegaard Determinism and Indeterminism Existential Philosophy The Undivided Nature of the Will

9. Choice, Decision, and Resolution 10. Politics The Replacement of the Estates-Based Society with Civil Life Cultural Policy The Replacement of the Estates-Based Society with Political Life The Statesperson’s Loss of Power and the Formation of Public Opinion The Right of Resistance The Manageable Destruction The Dangerous vs the Utopian

Editors’ Notes Bibliography Index

51 51 53 57 59 60 61 63 64 66 69 69 72 74 74 77 81 84 86 95 100 105 115 117

Translators’ Preface This translation is based on the edition of Etiske begreber og problemer published by Klim, Aarhus, in 2014. Except for the correction of a few typos and the addition of references to newer editions of Kierkegaard’s works, the Klim text is identical with that of its original publication in 1971 as Løgstrup’s contribution to the anthology Etik och kristen tro [Ethics and Christian Faith]. In connection with some textual problems in Chapter 8 (‘Choice, Will, and Freedom’) we have consulted Løgstrup’s article ‘Viljesbegrebet i De servo arbitrio’ [The Concept of the Will in De servo arbitrio] from 1940, on which the first part of Chapter 8 is based. For the translation of Chapter 5 (‘Politics and Ethics’) we have benefited greatly from the previous translation by Heidi Flegal, which was published in Beyond the Ethical Demand, chapter 5.¹ As is set out in the Introduction to this volume, Løgstrup based his ethics on a phenomenological approach that was substantially influenced by Hans Lipps’s language-oriented method. This approach means that in the present work he formulates many of his ethical considerations in everyday language. This is not to say that he does not employ academic ethical terminology, too, which he uses primarily when he expounds and discusses alternative ethical positions. But when he sets out his own ideas, he largely makes use of words and expressions derived from everyday language. In an article from about the same time as the present volume, Løgstrup paraphrases O. F. Bollnow’s characterization of Lipps’s phenomenological method as ‘the art of distinguishing closely related concepts; concepts that are often used interchangeably, without making any distinction between them, are distinguished from one another. Only in such a distinction is a significant understanding of them achieved.’² Lipps’s way of distinguishing plays an important part in Løgstrup’s own

¹ For full bibliographical details here and in the following, see the Select Bibliography. ² K. E. Løgstrup, ‘Fænomenologi og psykologie’ [Phenomenology and Psychology], in Solidaritet og kærlighed [Solidarity and Love], p. 124, cited here from Hans Fink and Robert Stern’s translation.

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phenomenological analyses.³ This suggests that he chose his words with great precision, at least when he dealt with central concepts. Seemingly synonymous words and expressions may carry subtle differences in meaning. As a consequence, the translator has the task as much as possible to transfer differences in Løgstrup’s Danish terminology into English. For example, in his elucidation of the naturalness of the ethical demand in Chapter 2, Løgstrup speaks alternately of ‘selvudfoldelse’ and ‘livsudfoldelse’. Although it may seem that these words have the same meaning, it is probable that Løgstrup alternates intentionally to make a distinction between a self-oriented realization of life and a more general one. At any rate the reader should have the opportunity to interpret the text in this way. Therefore, we have translated these terms consistently as ‘self-realization’ and ‘realization of life’, respectively. Moreover, considering Løgstrup’s careful way of dealing with language we have endeavoured to translate key Danish terms consistently with the same English terms. Løgstrup’s way of connecting with everyday language means that the translator faces the problem that linguistic similarities and differences in Danish do not necessarily have their counterpart in English. Fortunately English and Danish are so closely related that the problem does not arise very often. For example, in Chapter 8, which deals with the concept of the will, expressions such as ‘Jeg gjorde det af egen fri vilje’ and ‘Han mangler vilje’ can be translated literally as ‘I did it of my own free will’ and ‘He lacks will’ without loss of meaning. Yet with the verb ‘ville’ there is a difference. The Danish ‘Jeg vil gøre det’ in the sense of expressing an object for the will (rather than just indicating a future act) would normally be translated as ‘I want to do it’. However, this translation would obscure the linguistic similarity between the substantive ‘vilje’ and the verb ‘ville’ in Danish, which plays a part in Løgstrup’s argument. Therefore, we have chosen to translate ‘Jeg vil pløje marken færdig’, etc. in the mentioned sense consistently as ‘I will finish ploughing my field’, etc., although this may seem somewhat artificial. In general, when we judged that differences between Danish and English terminology and/or idiom could hamper the understanding, we have addressed the question in a note. ³ See the methodological remarks in §3 of Løgstrup’s ‘Introduction’ to The Ethical Demand.

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As for the issue of gendered language we have followed the practice of the Oxford University Press edition of The Ethical Demand. That is to say, except when Løgstrup clearly refers to a man, we have used thirdperson plural pronouns to refer to individual human beings.⁴ Løgstrup usually sets out other people’s views in the form of a paraphrase, but sometimes he supports his paraphrase with quotations from those people’s works. He does so in different ways, which we have treated as follows: (a) when Løgstrup quotes from a Danish text, we provide our own translation but add a reference to a standard English translation where available, and note if our translation departs significantly from it; (b) when Løgstrup gives a non-Danish quotation, we translate it into English, but add a note informing the reader that he quotes in the original language; and (c) when Løgstrup translates a non-Danish quotation into Danish, we translate his translation, but check against a standard English translation and note if his translation (and thus ours) departs significantly from it. We have followed Danish practice in capitalizing only the first letter in titles of works published in Danish after 1948, but have followed English practice in capitalizing all significant words for English titles; and in the Select Bibliography and the Index we have followed the Danish system of putting the special characters ‘æ’, ‘ø’, and ‘å’ at the end of the alphabet, so that for example ‘Luther’ is listed before ‘Løgstrup’. For some of Løgstrup’s central concepts it has been difficult to find English terms that precisely capture their meaning. Therefore it may be useful to say something about that meaning, as we understand it, and explain why we have translated as we did. choice, decision, and resolution (valg, afgørelse, and beslutning, respectively): In Chapter 9 of the present work Løgstrup explains the differences between these terms. Whereas in ‘valg’ we are masters of the situation, in ‘afgørelse’ we are forced to decide, there is more at stake, and, unlike in ‘valg’, refraining from deciding will have fateful consequences. On the other hand, ‘beslutning’ is the result of a process of deliberation, which is brought to a conclusion. In this connection the translator is faced with the

⁴ For a justification of this practice, see the ‘Translators’ Preface’ to the Oxford University Press edition of The Ethical Demand.

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’  problem that English has no counterpart for the linguistic distinction between ‘afgørelse’ and ‘beslutning’, as both words are usually translated as ‘decision’. However, without a linguistic distinction the text would not make sense. In conformity with the different translations of The Ethical Demand (in which Løgstrup discusses the differences between ‘afgørelse’ and ‘beslutning’ too) we have chosen to render ‘afgørelse’ as ‘decision’ and ‘beslutning’ as ‘resolution’. The reader should just keep in mind that ‘decision’ in this context has a more specific meaning than it normally has in English. compassion (barmhjertighed): Løgstrup’s use of this word is closely connected to the biblical story of the Good Samaritan, in Danish den barmhjertige samaritaner (Luke 10:37). ‘Barmhjertighed’ is the Danish translation of Greek eleos and Hebrew hesed, which Luther translated as ‘Barmherzigkeit’, and which traditionally in English has been translated as ‘mercy’. However, the problem with ‘mercy’ is that it is primarily shown when sparing someone from punishment; but this does not correspond with Løgstrup’s understanding of the Samaritan story, which instead involves the desire to relieve other people’s suffering and act accordingly. For this reason, ‘compassion’ is arguably a more suitable translation than ‘mercy’, although previously in Løgstrup literature and translations, ‘mercy’ has been used as the preferred translation, e.g. when translating the sovereign expression of life ‘barmhjertighed’. A worry could be that ‘compassion’ sounds too passive and thus unlike mercy is more of a merely emotional state; but it is of crucial importance to both the Samaritan story and to Løgstrup’s use of ‘barmhjertighed’ that action is also involved: ‘Go, and do likewise’, as Jesus replies. In this respect, Løgstrup draws a distinction between ‘medlidenhed’, which is merely passive (and so more like ‘sympathy’ or ‘fellow-feeling’), and ‘barmhjertighed’, which involves action. However, in English ‘compassion’ also usually involves acting, so a person who merely felt compassion but did not act would arguably not count as compassionate. Therefore, Løgstrup’s important distinction is captured by the use of ‘compassion’ rather than ‘pity’ or ‘sympathy’, and so is adopted here. demand (fordring): This has also been the practice in the different English translations of Den etiske fordring, the very title of which

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has been rendered as The Ethical Demand. Løgstrup employs the term to cover the idea that something is demanded from you without this demand being a command. In making this contrast, Løgstrup’s use of the word implies that the reason to act is the content of what is required, rather than the authority of any commander, and so one should not just blindly follow what one is commanded to do, but one’s action should be based on the capacity to understand rather than the willingness to obey. expression of life (livsytring): This word can also be translated as ‘manifestation of life’ or ‘life manifestation’ (e.g. in Metaphysics II, Part V). Løgstrup’s use of it has its background in Danish versions of the German Lebensphilosophie. This type of philosophy stresses the non- or pre-rational aspects of human existence and is characterized by Herbert Schnädelbach as follows: ‘Life, in the sense of that which is always there to sustain and embrace spirit, culture, and also the individual consciousness, is the fundamental notion of life-philosophy in all its different aspects’.⁵ In his doctoral dissertation Løgstrup adopts this idea and adapts it theologically by stating that life, as God has created it, is the pre-condition of culture. In this connection he designates culture’s different areas, including cognition, as ‘Livs-Ytringer’.⁶ Here ‘livsytring’ is used in the wide sense of encompassing all culture insofar as it is the product of pre-cultural life. However, Løgstrup continues by focusing on the ethical content of pre-cultural life, which is revealed in Jesus’s spontaneous acts of love.⁷ It is this aspect of life which later determines his conception of the ‘suveræne/spontane livsytringer’. These are spontaneous other-regarding impulses or ways of conduct such as trust, sincerity, and compassion. Because ‘expression’ seems to capture the spontaneous and dynamic nature of these phenomena best, we have translated it as ‘sovereign/spontaneous expressions of life’. This translation is supported by the web version of Den Danske Ordbog, which defines ‘livsytring’ as ‘udtryk for eller udslag af menneskers eller andre levende væseners liv og færden’

⁵ Herbert Schnädelbach, Philosophy in Germany, p. 142. ⁶ K. E. Løgstrup, Den erkendelsesteoretiske konflikt [The Epistemological Conflict], §22. ⁷ Ibid., §24.

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’  (expression or effect of human or other living beings’ life and activities). A final argument in its favour is the fact that it has gained a foothold in the Anglophone discussion of Løgstrup’s ethics. immediate (umiddelbar): Løgstrup can use this word in the common sense of ‘direct, without intermediary’, but often it refers for him more specifically to the property of being self-forgetfully engaged in the task at hand or the relationship with other people (cf. The Ethical Demand, ‘Polemical Epilogue’, §2). In this sense ‘umiddelbar’ is a key term for Løgstrup as it is for Kierkegaard, and therefore we have translated it as ‘immediate’ as is normal in Kierkegaard. In Løgstrup’s view the sovereign expressions of life belong to the sphere of immediacy. Hence he can use ‘umiddelbar’ in connection with them, too, and then the term is used in a sense close to that of ‘spontaneous’. life and existence (liv and tilværelse, respectively): In Løgstrup’s works both words usually refer to human life (in a biographical sense) or human existence, and often they seem to be used indiscriminately. However, ‘liv’ can also refer to the ‘pre-cultural’ dimension of human existence, as for example is the case with the concept of ‘livsytring’ (‘expression of life’). Therefore, in some contexts Løgstrup may have chosen ‘liv’ rather than ‘tilværelse’ in order to point to, or at least to include explicitly, the pre-cultural dimension of human life. To offer the reader the opportunity to judge themselves whether this is the case, we have consistently translated ‘liv’ as ‘life’ and ‘tilværelse’ as ‘existence’. mediated (formidlet): In the present work Løgstrup uses this word in the phrase ‘sagligt formidlet’. This phrase concerns the question of how individual persons relate to each other. Such a relationship can be purely personal, e.g. in passionate love, or it can be grounded in a matter or issue of common concern, e.g. as the subject of a conversation (cf. The Ethical Demand, Chapter 2). It is the latter kind of relationship that Løgstrup designates as ‘sagligt formidlet’, which we have translated as ‘mediated by a concrete issue’ or ‘mediated by matters of objective concern’, depending on the context. Schwärmerei (sværmeri): The word ‘Schwärmerei’ is the German counterpart of the Danish word ‘sværmeri’. Luther used this term as a derogatory characterization of those evangelical movements

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that aimed at establishing God’s Kingdom on earth. In a Lutheran context, this term is often translated as ‘enthusiasm’ or sometimes as ‘fanaticism’, but neither term is ideal in English, so we have decided to use the German word, which is also used in English and appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, where ‘Schwärmerei’ is defined as follows: ‘Religious zeal, fanaticism, extravagant enthusiasm for a cause or a person’. In the present work Løgstrup uses the term and the corresponding adjective ‘sværmerisk’ to indicate positions which revolve around ideals concerning how to make the world or human beings better in a fanciful way, and also the word ‘sværmerne’ (translated as ‘Schwärmers’) to refer to those filled with Schwärmerei. Therefore, Schwärmerei involves what Løgstrup (and Luther) would conceive of as naivety, overindulgence in a flattering view of human nature, and the promises of culture, politics, religious practices, or experiences, and so on.

Acknowledgements We are very grateful to Hans Fink, Bjørn Rabjerg, and Robert Stern for their close cooperation with our translation. Without their assistance this translation would not have been possible.

A Chronology of Løgstrup’s Life and Works 1905

(2 September) Born in Copenhagen, Denmark

1923–30

Studies theology at the University of Copenhagen while also following lectures on philosophy, in particular Frithiof Brandt’s series of lectures on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

1930–5

Research visits at various universities, mainly in Germany, but also in France, Switzerland, and Austria

1932

Awarded the gold medal for his prize essay (similar to a PhD dissertation) on Max Scheler’s phenomenological approach to ethics: En fremstilling og vurdering af Max Scheler’s: ‘Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik’ [An Exposition and Evaluation of Max Scheler’s: ‘Formalism in Ethics and Material Ethics of Value’] (published 2016)

1935

Marriage to Rosemarie Pauly (1914–2005); they had five children

1936–43

Returns to Denmark. Lutheran pastor on Funen. Becomes part of the Tidehverv movement

1943

Defends his higher doctoral dissertation Den erkendelsesteoretiske Konflikt mellem den transcendentalfilosofiske Idealisme og Teologien [The Epistemological Conflict between Transcendental Idealism and Theology], which was published in 1942. Becomes professor of ethics and philosophy of religion at Aarhus University, Denmark (new Danish critical edition published 2011)

1944

Goes underground for the remainder of World War II due to his involvement in the resistance movement

1948

Earliest signs of disagreement with Tidehverv

1950

Gives a series of lectures on Kierkegaard and Heidegger at the Freie Universität Berlin, published the same year as Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verhältnis zur Verkündigung [Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s Analysis of Existence and Its Relation to Proclamation] (Danish publication 2013)

1952

Kants filosofi I [Kant’s Philosophy I] (reprinted in 1970 as Part 1 of Kants kritik af erkendelsen og refleksionen [Kant’s Critique of Knowledge and Reflection])

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1956

Den etiske fordring [The Ethical Demand]

1961

Breaks with Tidehverv (final break in 1964) Kunst og etik [Art and Ethics] Becomes a member of the Danish Academy

1965

Kants æstetik [Kant’s Aesthetics]

1968

Opgør med Kierkegaard [Controverting Kierkegaard]

1970

Kants kritik af erkendelsen og refleksionen [Kant’s Critique of Knowledge and Reflection]

1971

Etiske begreber og problemer [Ethical Concepts and Problems] published as a contribution to an anthology on ethics and Christian faith (published as a book in 1996)

1972

Norm og spontaneitet [Norm and Spontaneity]

1974

Awarded the Amalienborg Prize. This prize was inaugurated in 1972, and is awarded by the Queen of Denmark to an outstanding Danish scholar or writer

1976

Vidde og prægnans [Breadth and Fullness], the first volume of the Metaphysics I–IV series

1978

Metaphysics IV: Skabelse og tilintetgørelse [Creation and Annihilation]

1981

Dies on 20 November in his home in Hyllested, north-east of Aarhus

1982

System og symbol [System and Symbol]

1983

Metaphysics II: Kunst og erkendelse [Art and Knowledge]

1984

Metaphysics III: Ophav og omgivelse [Source and Surrounding]

1984

Det uomtvistelige [What Is Incontrovertible]

1987

Solidaritet og kærlighed og andre essays [Solidarity and Love and Other Essays]

1988

Udfordringer [Challenges]

1992

Kære Hal – Kære Koste [Dear Hal – Dear Koste] (letter correspondence, reprinted and expanded in 2010 in Venskab og strid [Friendship and Strife])

1995

Prædikener fra Sandager-Holevad [Sermons from SandagerHolevad]

1996

Martin Heidegger

1999

Prædikenen og dens Tekst [The Sermon and its Text]

2010

Venskab og strid [Friendship and Strife] (letter correspondence)

Introduction Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk

Christian and Philosophical Ethics The present work by K. E. Løgstrup was not originally planned as a separate publication. It first appeared in 1971 as his contribution to an anthology entitled Etik och kristen tro [Ethics and Christian Belief] edited by the Swedish theologian Gustaf Wingren.¹ The anthology contained a preface written by Wingren and contributions by theologians from Sweden, Norway, Germany, and Denmark with the purpose of providing a textbook of ethics for the faculties of theology in Scandinavian universities. In 1996, fifteen years after his death, Løgstrup’s contribution was published as a book in its own right by Gyldendal, Copenhagen under the title of the original contribution (‘Etiske begreber og problemer’). In 2014 it was republished, as a volume in the Løgstrup Bibliotek [Løgstrup Library] by Klim, Aarhus. The present translation is based on this latest edition, and the page numbers in square brackets refer to it.² As suggested by the title, the purpose of the anthology was to discuss the relationship between ethics and Christian belief. The Christian perspective is prominent in its first part, ‘The Ethos of the Bible’ by Birger Gerhardsson, ¹ Gustaf Wingren (ed.), Etik och kristen tro (Lund: CWK Gleerup; Copenhagen: Gyldendal; Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1971). ² Unattributed references in the text are to the present book, followed by a reference to the Danish edition. Other references to books by Løgstrup are given first to English translations where available, and then to the Danish originals. Full bibliographical details are given in the Select Bibliography. Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001

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which consists of a comprehensive exposition of biblical ethics. The second part, ‘Historical Types of Ethos’ was written by four authors and deals with Catholic moral theology, different types of ethics of the Reformation, and political ethics ‘from Industrialism to Post-industrialist Society’. Løgstrup’s contribution constituted the third and last part. This account of the book’s composition is probably sufficient to raise the suspicion that the different authors have rather divergent views on the relationship between ethics and Christian belief. This suspicion is confirmed by the editor’s preface, as he writes: ‘[T]he book’s great problem lies certainly in the internal connection and the internal tension between the two sections that figure first and last’.³ Wingren refers to the fact that ‘for a long time the theological ethics in Aarhus has been marked by a tendency that has been diametrically opposed to the inclination to biblical exclusivity characteristic of Swedish exegesis. “There is no Christian ethics”—so an often quoted sentence has sounded’.⁴ The background for this was the influence in Aarhus of Løgstrup’s ‘strictly human’ or philosophical account of the Christian commandment to love the neighbour put forward in The Ethical Demand, explicitly rejecting a Christian ethics that derives specific guidelines from the Bible.⁵ However, Wingren thinks that the contrast between Gerhardsson’s and Løgstrup’s contributions is not as deep as it might seem. On the one hand, Gerhardsson is said to consider universal human features in the New Testament: ‘ “The human” becomes in Gerhardsson’s account at the same time something universally existing and something only realized in Christ, and by this also something given to humans in Christ’. On the other hand, as regards Løgstrup, ‘[m]ore and more clearly traits of an interpretation of belief, partly based on the biblical belief in creation, has come into view’, which means that ‘Løgstrup is getting closer to positions in the area of the original Christian ethos, which Gerhardsson as exegete depicts on the basis of the text of the New Testament’.⁶ It can be disputed, though, whether Løgstrup in 1971 had in fact moved closer to the original Christian ethos than before, as Wingren claims here. To be sure, there is ample evidence that, in his contribution

³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶

Gustav Wingren, ‘Förord’ [Preface], Etik och kristen tro, pp. 5–7, p. 6. Ibid., p. 7. See The Ethical Demand, pp. 98–100/Den etiske fordring, pp. 128–9. Wingren, ‘Förord’, p. 7.

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to Etik och kristen tro, Løgstrup took the question of the relationship between ethics and Christian belief directly into account. For example, in Chapter 2 he begins his exposition of the ethical demand and the sovereign expressions of life discussing the commandment to love the neighbour in both the Old and New Testaments, and his exposition of the relation between the ethical demand and the social norms in Chapter 4 includes a comprehensive discussion of the relevance of the Decalogue. Moreover, in his discussion of the concept of the will in Chapter 8 he pays much attention to Luther’s rejection of Erasmus’s view of the free will, and in Chapter 10 he discusses political questions in a continuous elucidation of the differences between Luther’s and Calvin’s understanding of society and ours. However, these theological considerations should not be taken as an indication that Løgstrup has modified his rejection of a specific Christian ethics. Just three years earlier in his book Opgør med Kierkegaard [Controverting Kierkegaard] he had given a theological justification of this rejection, with explicit reference to the Christian belief in creation: ‘Eternity incarnates itself not, in the first instance, in Jesus of Nazareth, but already in creation and the universality of the demand. Christianity itself contends that the idea of creation is not a particularly Christian notion, and it is a Christian contention that the radical demand is not a particularly Christian demand’.⁷ In the present text he extends this theological justification of the ‘strictly human’ nature of the ethical demand to cover also moral and political norms, and now even with reference to the core doctrine of Christian belief, namely God’s forgiving grace: Christianity begins with God’s goodwill, it need not be earned, and this means that the actions of the individual need not ascend to God for his goodwill to descend, rather their actions must extend outwards towards the other human being. The moral and political order is set free. It is exclusively a question about ⁷ Beyond the Ethical Demand, p. 71/Opgør med Kierkegaard, p. 120. Already in 1961, in his rejoinder to N. H. Søe’s criticism of his rejection of a specific Christian ethics in The Ethical Demand, Løgstrup had formulated this idea: ‘Unlike Søe, I regard it as a Christian claim that the ethical demand is not a specifically Christian demand’ (Beyond the Ethical Demand, p. 28/Kunst og etik [Art and Ethics], p. 260). N. H. Søe (1895–1978) was the professor of ethics and philosophy of religion at the University of Copenhagen and the author of an influential textbook: Kristelig etik [Christian Ethics] (Copenhagen: Gad, 1942). He had criticized Løgstrup’s rejection of a specific Christian ethics in ‘Den etiske fordring’, Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, 21(1958), pp. 1–15.

xxii  how we can organize our shared life together in the best way. We must use our reason and see for ourselves how we can best give a moral and political form to our common and social life. (33–4/40)⁸

It seems that Løgstrup here formulates his answer to the overarching question of Etik och kristen tro, concerning the relationship between ethics and Christian belief. In The Ethical Demand he had been addressing both theologians and the general public, here he is specifically addressing Scandinavian students of theology and theological colleagues trying to convince them of the theological plausibility of the secularization of ethics and politics. But his position is basically the same.

Løgstrup’s Phenomenological Approach What, then, is the kind of philosophy that underlies Løgstrup’s ethics? Løgstrup’s fundamental ethical ideas are based on a phenomenological approach, which is indebted to Martin Heidegger’s and Hans Lipps’s existential phenomenology. In the article ‘Fænomenologi og psykologi’ [Phenomenology and Psychology] from about the same time as ‘Etiske begreber og problemer’⁹ he has characterized this type of phenomenology. It takes its point of departure in common human experience and consists in ‘bringing into the light of day the understanding of human nature and relationship to the world that lies hidden in pre-philosophical knowledge’.¹⁰ This understanding is hidden, because we normally are absorbed in practical engagement with the world. Philosophy ‘interrupts us in our externally directed preoccupations. A knowledge that was hidden from ourselves, because our eyes were focused outwardly, is redeemed in philosophy’.¹¹ Both Heidegger and Lipps used phenomenology to reveal basic features of human existence, but they did this in different ways and with ⁸ Løgstrup argued in a similar way already in The Ethical Demand, though justified there with reference to Jesus’s polemic against using religion to regulate and protect human relations: The Ethical Demand, pp. 98–100/Den etiske fordring, pp. 127–9. ⁹ K. E. Løgstrup, ‘Fænomenologi og psykologi’, in Religionspsykologi. Et teologiskpsykologisk symposium, edited by K. E. Bugge and Reimer Jensen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1970), pp. 111–30. Republished in Solidaritet og kærlighed [Solidarity and Love] (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1987), pp. 116–40, to which the quotations refer. A translation by Hans Fink and Robert Stern is available for download here: https:// ethicaldemand.wordpress.com/resources-and-link/. ¹⁰ Solidaritet og kærlighed, p. 117. ¹¹ Ibid., p. 118.

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different purposes. Whereas Heidegger in Being and Time formulated a ‘fundamental ontology’ of being human consisting in general features such as having to choose between possibilities of existence, being in the world, being together with others, etc. as the way to develop a universal ontology, Lipps analysed a manifold of concrete human possibilities such as embarrassment, shame, and miserliness, in order to gain insight into what he called ‘human nature’.¹² In his analyses Lipps employed a specific method: precise description of related phenomena on the basis of a comparison between different expressions in everyday language, which contain the words for these phenomena, e.g. ‘anger’ and ‘rage’. Whereas you ‘direct your anger’ at someone, you can only ‘vent your rage’ on someone, and whereas you ‘take up something’ in anger, you ‘lose grip of yourself ’ in rage. These differences in usage reveal that in anger you are still yourself, whereas you have lost self-control in rage.¹³ In several respects Løgstrup’s phenomenology is in continuity with Heidegger’s and Lipps’s phenomenology. Especially Lipps’s languageoriented method exerted a substantial influence.¹⁴ Thus, explaining his approach in The Ethical Demand to his critics, Løgstrup wrote: ‘In my description of the phenomena, I have only worked with comparisons and distinctions within the natural language’s interpretation of life. In short, I have stuck to phenomenological analyses and steered clear of scientific investigations’.¹⁵ In the article about phenomenology and psychology he exemplifies the phenomenological approach by referring to Lipps’s analysis of the differences between anger and rage.¹⁶ In the same context he subscribes to O. F. Bollnow’s rebuttal of the objection against Lipps’s method that it is nothing but a philosophically fruitless clarification of linguistic habit. Bollnow had explained that this objection fails to ¹² Hans Lipps, Die menschliche Natur: Werke III, 2nd edn (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), p. 8: ‘Es gilt, in den Möglichkeiten des Menschen seine Natur und die Art seiner Existenz aufzudecken’ (It is all about uncovering the nature and mode of existence of human beings by attending to their possibilities). ¹³ Lipps, Die menschliche Natur, p. 21. ¹⁴ Løgstrup has written a philosophy of language, which was greatly inspired by Lipps, entitled Vidde og prægnans. Sprogfilosofiske betragtninger. Metafysik I (Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1976). The major part of this book has appeared in English under the title ‘Breadth and Concision’ in Knud E. Løgstrup, Metaphysics, Vol. II, translated and with an introduction by Russell L. Dees (Milwaukee, Marquette University Press, 1995), pp. 147–290. ¹⁵ Beyond the Ethical Demand, p. 71/Kunst og etik, p. 120. ¹⁶ Solidaritet og kærlighed, pp. 112–13.

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appreciate the significance of language and he had supported this contention with a quotation from Lipps himself, which is reproduced by Løgstrup: ‘The word here opens something up for one. That something is given linguistic form is the only way to let it show itself. Only words can discover what remains hidden to the factual grasp’.¹⁷ Finally it should be noted that, in spite of the affinity between Løgstrup’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s and Lipps’s, there is also an important difference in the fact that Løgstrup extends its scope beyond mere description by regarding it as including an ethical dimension, an ‘ontological ethics’.

Ontological Ethics The first chapter of the present work is entitled ‘Three Ethical Traditions’ and opens with a general description of the two traditions that have been dominant in Western ethical thought: on the one hand teleological ethics that takes the Good to be the true aim for human striving and which has appeared in many rather different forms over the centuries including classical eudaimonic ethics, Roman Catholic ethics, Max Scheler’s phenomenological ethics, and modern utilitarianism; and on the other hand, the deontological ethics with Kant as the major figure, and where the focus is on what is right and what is demanded. At the end of the chapter Løgstrup quite briefly introduces a third tradition, the ontological tradition, a term he uses now to characterize the position he had presented authoritatively in The Ethical Demand. The rest of the book can be seen as giving expositions of ethical concepts and problems as understood within this ontological tradition, of which he sometimes explicitly takes Luther to be another representative. Of course, in a textbook like this, Løgstrup reused many things he had written before. However, he always reconsidered and, if required, modified and reformulated his earlier ideas, and often supplemented them with new considerations. He does the same in the present volume as well. Before going into some of this it is, however, quite important to notice that when Løgstrup talks about ontological ethics ‘ontology’ is not to be taken in the ordinary philosophical sense of a general theory of ¹⁷ Ibid., p. 124.

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all there is, but in the Heideggerian sense of general features of human existence.¹⁸ Obviously, both the teleological and the deontological forms of ethics have ontological presuppositions in the ordinary sense, and there are clearly teleological and deontological ideas involved in Løgstrup’s ontological ethics. After all, the very notion of a demand is deontological, and it is the concern for the good of the other that gives it its content. So, the contrast intended between teleology and deontology on the one hand and ontology on the other is rather a matter of a change of perspective from a traditional philosophical approach that seeks to base ethics on an ethically neutral ontology to a phenomenological and existential approach claiming to find a foundation for ethics in the very ontology of being human. Løgstrup at first presents his basic ontological argument in a highly condensed form:¹⁹ The ethical demand receives its content from the fundamental condition that we live under and which we are not in a position to change, namely that the life of one person is entangled with that of the other person, and so it consists in taking care of the part of the other person’s life which as a result of this entanglement is at our mercy. (7/15)

The mutual interdependency between human beings inevitably gives you some power over the other person that you are involved with, and power always entails a responsibility for how the power is used. The condition that you are under thus confronts you with the choice between using your power to take care of the other person (insofar as they are dependent on you) or take advantage of their dependency on you. It is up to you to decide what to do, but it is not up to you to decide what is good and bad. ‘To be concerned for the other is good; pushing through our self-concern at the expense of the other human being is evil’ (29/35–6).

¹⁸ Cf. The Ethical Demand, p. 153, n. 2/Den etiske fordring, p. 194, n. 1: ‘To use classical philosophical terminology: The one-sided demand contains an ontology, a fundamental and constitutive determination of being, namely that human existence and the world that goes with it have been given to human beings’. ¹⁹ Løgstrup had presented an elaborate version of this argument earlier in ‘Ethik und Ontologie’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 57 (1960), pp. 357–91. Translated as ‘Ethics and Ontology’ by Eric Watkins as an appendix to K. E. Løgstrup, The Ethical Demand, edited by Hans Fink and Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1997), pp. 265–93.

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Our lives are thus lived within a moral order that is ontological in that it is unchangeable and not of our own making. Løgstrup seems to present a somewhat different argument for the ontological status of the ethical demand in Chapter 2. With the fundamental fact that the realization of my own powerful self requires the love of others, the commandment to love the others presents itself to me. Indeed: to love spontaneously, just as I expect the other to love the realization of my life spontaneously. I will not settle for having their interest in the realization of my life and my power forced out of them. (11/15)

Here it is the fact of my own selfish demand for the other’s unselfish and spontaneous love that is supposed to make me realize that I am equally under a demand for unselfish, spontaneous love. This may invite the impression that Løgstrup is making the mistake of giving self-interested reasons for moral behaviour and giving up the idea of the radicality of the ethical demand, but it is rather to be taken as a phenomenological extension of the earlier argument focusing on features of my own life that can make me understand both the situation of the other and what it is that is demanded of me. It is a matter of how I can come to know a fact, rather than what establishes that fact. It is still the case that ‘we could . . . formulate the commandment as follows: the power that the interdependence gives you over another human being, you must use in their best interest’ (11/15–16). Because of this intelligibility Løgstrup can characterize the ethical demand as ‘the most natural morality’ (10/14).²⁰ It should be noticed that he uses the concept of morality (Danish: ‘moral’) here in a broader sense than he did in The Ethical Demand. There he had made a conceptual distinction between the ethical demand on the one hand, which is absolute, and morality being a part of culturally and historically changing social norms.²¹ In the present work he extends the concept of morality to embrace both the ethical demand and the moral norms: ‘Morality has as it were two kinds of content: an absolute kind, given with the difference between good and evil, and another kind, which is changeable and variable’ (29–30/36). This explains why Løgstrup can now characterize ²⁰ Cf. 36/42: ‘[W]e cannot conceive of a more natural morality than the very ethical demand which arises from the fundamental fact that there is power in all our mutual relationships’. ²¹ See The Ethical Demand, pp. 48–51/Den etiske fordring, pp. 65–9.

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the ethical demand along with the Golden Rule as ‘the most natural morality’. Yet, this is not quite as simple as it may sound. But precisely the most natural of all ethical commandments is the one to which we cannot align our nature. Our nature posits the commandment, but our nature will not follow it. If inclined to paradoxes, we could say that the most natural of all commandments is the most unnatural. This is true but also false; or briefly put, it is a simplification. We know the radicality not only as commandment and rule, i.e. a command to love your neighbour and the Golden Rule, but we also know it as spontaneity. (11–12/16)

That is to say, on the one hand our selfish nature resists the commandment to love our neighbour. However, human nature is not merely selfish. It includes a spontaneity that matches the ethical demand. This is the spontaneity that underlies the sovereign expressions of life.

Sovereign Expressions of Life In The Ethical Demand Løgstrup had argued that the demand is radical in the sense that it demands that I take care of the other unselfishly and not for my own sake. In this radical sense, according to Løgstrup, the demand can only be fulfilled by spontaneous love of the neighbour, because only in this way do we act completely unselfishly. But this means for Løgstrup that the demand is unfulfillable, because, due to our selfishness, we do not have such love and because spontaneous love cannot be created in obedience. We can only attempt to do the acts love would have us do, but as conscious attempts to obey the demand they are precisely not the spontaneous love that is demanded. So Løgstrup can say: ‘[W]hat is demanded is that the demand should not have been necessary’.²² However, in the present volume he states that there is a ‘spontaneity in human existence that goes along with the commandment to love the neighbour’ (12/16). Whence this change or clarification? The reason is that in the meantime Løgstrup has developed his conception of ‘the sovereign expressions of life’. Thereby he means spontaneous impulses or forms of conduct that are necessary for upholding human community and communication in that they are (as he puts it) ‘possibility maintaining possibilities’ rather than ‘possibility-dissolving ²² The Ethical Demand, p. 131/Den etiske fordring, p. 168.

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possibilities’ (12/16). The most prominent examples are trust, openness in speech, sincerity, and compassion. They are ‘sovereign’ in the sense that they prompt us to take care of the other and do this with ethical authority so that they do not need justification, excuse, or explanation. Through them we may without further ado live up to what is ethically demanded without being conscious of a demand. However, we often prevent them from realizing themselves. Then they may make themselves felt as a conscious demand. We can attempt to obey this demand by doing that which we should have done spontaneously, but by so doing we cannot fulfil the demand, as it can only be fulfilled spontaneously, that is, without being experienced as a demand. In this way Løgstrup sticks to the idea of the unfulfillability of the ethical demand prominent in the book with that title. He formulates it now, somewhat paradoxically: ‘The human being must be more than obedient to be obedient, they must be trustful, sincere, compassionate. The radicality of the demand consists in its demand to be superfluous’ (13/18).²³ Interestingly, given the work’s theological context, Løgstrup continues by addressing the question whether the sovereign expressions of life apply to Jesus’s command to love foreigners and enemies as well. He answers this question in a discussion with Nietzsche, which offers him the opportunity to elaborate on his conception. Nietzsche had stated that when we try to save someone we dislike who has fallen into the water, we do so out of all kinds of egoistic motives such as avoiding the embarrassing realization of the fragility of life or being applauded as heroes. Løgstrup praises Nietzsche for his brilliant disclosure of human egoism and hypocrisy but denies that this is all that can be said about human motivation. Nietzsche fails to recognize that the egoistic motives are perversions of a fundamental impulse to help a person in need. Nietzsche ‘does not distinguish between what should be set down in the account of our given life and its immediate impulses, and what should be set down in the account of our ego and its destruction of life’ (17–8/22). Løgstrup

²³ Løgstrup presented his conception of the sovereign expressions of life comprehensively in Opgør med Kierkegaard, to which he gives specific references on p. 13, n. 3/18, n. 1. Most of the passages to which he refers have been translated in Beyond the Ethical Demand, pp. 50–82. For an account and discussion see Kees van Kooten Niekerk, ‘Løgstrup’s Conception of the Sovereign Expressions of Life’ in What Is Ethically Demanded?, edited by Hans Fink and Robert Stern (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2017), pp. 186–215.

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summarizes his criticism of Nietzsche by saying: ‘The disclosure does not serve a truth of an ontological nature’ (19/24). This statement shows that Løgstrup considers the idea of the sovereign expressions of life as belonging to given life as an important part of his ontological ethics.²⁴ The egoistic perversion of given life is further illustrated in Løgstrup’s discussion of two forms of trust. In The Ethical Demand he had begun his argument for the ontological status of the ethical demand by referring to the basic trust that human beings cannot help showing and expecting. In personal relations trust is confidence in the other’s positive reception of us, which, in a wider perspective, can be described as ‘a trust in life itself, a trust in its ongoing renewal’.²⁵ Already there, he is seeing trust with all the characteristics of a sovereign expression of life, though without using that term. He went on to contrast basic trust with what he called reserved or conventionally guarded trust, trust that is more or less consciously made conditional or half-hearted in order to avoid exposure of our dependency. In the present work he contrasts basic trust with something else that he calls ‘displaced’ trust. This is the selfish form that we can give our trust in life itself when we transpose it from confidence in the other’s reception of us and what is granted to us, to confidence in that which can be conquered by our own efforts, which then only makes life worth living. We transform trust as openness to whatever life will bring in its continuous renewal into trust in life only insofar as we are ourselves sovereign and in command of it. Thereby trust as a sovereign expression of life is distorted, but even this distortion of trust is possible only because trust as openness is ontologically prior and available also for this distortion. In The Ethical Demand Løgstrup had given a comprehensive account of the relationship between the ethical demand and the social norms.²⁶ The main ideas of this account reappear in Chapter 4 of the present ²⁴ The last two quotations have prompted Bjørn Rabjerg to speak of Løgstrup’s ‘two accounts doctrine’, an ontological one, referring to the goodness of the given life, and an anthropological one, referring to human wickedness. See his ‘Efterskrift’ [Postscript] to Etiske begreber og problemer (Aarhus: Klim, 2014), p. 125. Cf. Robert Stern, The Radical Demand in Løgstrup’s Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 92–3. The attribute ‘given’ implies that life has been given by God, the Creator, which Løgstrup regards as a philosophical statement. See Beyond the Ethical Demand, pp. 10–1/Kunst og etik, pp. 238–9. ²⁵ The Ethical Demand, p. 15/Den etiske fordring, p. 23. ²⁶ See The Ethical Demand/Den etiske fordring, Chapters 3 and 4.

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work. However, having developed his conception of the sovereign expressions of life, Løgstrup has now expanded his account to cover the relationship between them and the social norms as well. He did this even more thoroughly in Norm og spontaneitet [Norm and Spontaneity], which appeared in 1972, quite soon after the present work.²⁷ In the present work he restricts himself to moral norms and understands their relation to the sovereign expressions of life primarily as a contrast. Moral norms can only be applied in the sense of being used as a touchstone or criterion for—real or imagined—concrete acts. They are too abstract to be realized. The sovereign expressions of life, on the other hand, cannot be applied in that sense. They can only be realized by being shaped into concrete acts that fit the situation at hand. In this connection Løgstrup speaks of ‘the definitive nature of the expression of life’ (23/28), a somewhat nebulous characterization, which he had explained in Opgør med Kierkegaard but does not explain here. He means that the sovereign expressions of life make a definite, unchangeable claim upon us, e.g. to show compassion.²⁸ It is up to us to transform this into concrete action in the given situation.

Elucidation of Key Ethical Concepts As suggested by its title, an important part of Ethical Concepts and Problems is the elucidation of some key ethical concepts. Those chosen for special treatment include: duty, responsibility, choice, will, and freedom. In his elucidation of those ethical concepts Løgstrup makes ample use of the Lippsian style of phenomenological analysis. Løgstrup’s elucidations are however not merely conceptual clarifications; they also involve discussions of ideas that are associated with the concepts in question. Thus, when discussing the concept of duty in Chapter 6 he gives a brief account of Kant’s ethic of duty. One of the critical points he makes may require some explanation. Løgstrup states briefly that only when a sovereign expression of life fails is there a need for duty as ‘a substitute motive for substitute actions’ (47/53). This formulation goes back to the ²⁷ Part of this book has been translated in Beyond the Ethical Demand. ²⁸ Cf. Kees van Kooten Niekerk, ‘Løgstrup’s Conception of the Sovereign Expressions of Life’, pp. 194–5.

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criticism of Kant’s ideal of acting out of duty which Løgstrup had put forward in Opgør med Kierkegaard.²⁹ Its main point was that, whereas in a sovereign expression of life the agent is motivated by and fully engaged in caring for the other, in acting out of duty this motivation and engagement have been disrupted. Now the motivation is sought in the agent’s own sense of duty. Acting out of duty substitutes for acting out of care; concern for the other is replaced with concern for one’s own moral standing. And, according to Løgstrup, this naturally evokes ‘rapture at one’s own righteousness’.³⁰ In the present work Løgstrup repeats that duty is a substitute motive for substitute actions, but he now continues: ‘But, it should be noted, a substitute that we cannot possibly do without, because at the slightest excuse we shy away from submitting to the spontaneous expressions of life with their devotion to the ends and results of the action. Though inferior to the sovereign expression of life, duty is of course better than indifference and heartlessness’ (47/53). Thus, though sticking to his basic determination of the relationship between the sovereign expressions of life and duty, Løgstrup seems to have come to a more relaxed view of duty here, based on the realization that in practical life we cannot do without it. The very short Chapter 7 on responsibility provides a good example of the Lippsian approach. Having explained that responsibility means that something depends on us, Løgstrup connects this idea with expressions such as ‘bearing responsibility’ and ‘the responsibility is a heavy burden’. Subsequently, comparing the concept of responsibility with that of duty, he points out that ‘being irresponsible’ is more serious than ‘being negligent’ in doing one’s duty, because the former concerns the whole person, whereas the latter only describes a weakness of character (49/56). Chapter 8, which deals with the concepts of choice, will, and freedom, is based on an early article about the concept of the will in Luther’s De servo arbitrio [On the Bondage of the Will]³¹ though substantially

²⁹ Løgstrup refers to this criticism on 47, n. 1/53, n. 1. See Beyond the Ethical Demand, pp. 72–82/Opgør med Kierkegaard, pp. 121–31. ³⁰ Beyond the Ethical Demand, p. 79/Opgør med Kierkegaard, p. 129. ³¹ K. E. Løgstrup, ‘Viljesbegrebet i De servo arbitrio’ [The Concept of the Will in De servo arbitrio], Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, 3 (1940), pp. 129–47. Luther’s text is translated by Philip Watson in E. Gordon Rupp and Philip Watson (eds), Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969) and also in vol. 33 of Luther’s Works, 55 vols (St Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress Press, 1958–86).

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reworked. Løgstrup resumes the article’s phenomenological analysis of the will and its discussion of the controversy between Luther and Erasmus, but not without important modifications: he now supports his own phenomenological analysis with new examples and delimits it from Kant’s philosophical and Jørgen Jørgensen’s psychological definitions of the will. He shortens the discussion of the Luther-Erasmus controversy but supplements it with discussions of Descartes’s and Kierkegaard’s conceptions of the will, and he further adds reflections about determinism and indeterminism, a brief account of the concept of freedom in existential philosophy, and considerations about the undivided nature of the will, which includes a brief discussion of Jørgen Jørgensen and Gilbert Ryle’s critique of the view of the will as a psychological entity. In his Lippsian account of the will Løgstrup begins by stating that to will is not to choose but to will something in particular, thereby having left choice behind, and he supports this statement with a number of examples from everyday language. Moreover, willing in a strict sense has to do with overcoming different forms of resistance. Løgstrup opposes this understanding of the will to the ordinary philosophical talk of a free will. In everyday language we only seldom speak of a free will. This is because ‘ “I will . . . ” is always to will something and presupposes that I have taken a stance towards it, and no longer have a free hand. Therefore, to say that the will is free is tantamount to the rash undertaking of characterizing the will before and apart from the resistance against it, which is to say, before it even exists’ (54/62). Only philosophers and theologians are rash enough to characterize the will in this way. This observation even incites Løgstrup to the general statement: ‘[T]here is good reason to be suspicious of a philosophical or theological terminology that finds no support in everyday speech’ (54/62). In the same vein, when discussing Luther’s critique of Erasmus’s conception of the free will, he praises Luther for sticking to everyday language: ‘Luther has far too much linguistic sensitivity to let the word “will” in its full meaning slip out of his grasp for even a single moment’ (58/67).

Ethics and Politics In The Ethical Demand Løgstrup had argued that there is no special Christian ethics, and also that there is no special Christian politics. Two of his claims were: ‘For there to be a cabal on political and ethical matters

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amongst Christians ought really to be out of the question’³² and ‘The only political parties to which the Christian cannot—for purely Christian reasons—belong are therefore the so-called Christian political parties’.³³ Nor is it possible to base political views on the ethical demand. There is no direct road from ontological ethics to politics. ‘By not acknowledging that our relation to it is invisible, it can also happen that people turn the radical demand into an external, handy principle that as a kind of magic spell will solve all our problems. In this way it becomes nothing but a cliché.’³⁴ Without really changing his position or retracting any of his earlier arguments, by 1971 Løgstrup had become more open to seeing positive connections between the ethical demand and politics. He was then writing during the war in Vietnam and in the generally heated political situation after 1968. He had himself been involved in organizing a meeting of the Russell Tribunal held in Denmark protesting against the war crimes committed by the American army in Vietnam, and he had taken his stand on questions about the claims of the radical student movement and a number of other social issues of the time. In Norm og spontaneitet, he provides further phenomenological elucidations of ethical concepts such as guilt, destiny, character, and power, and there he is even more explicitly political. The present work can in many respects be seen as a stepping stone to the later and longer book meant for the general public. In Chapter 5 Løgstrup treats the relationship between politics and ethics from the viewpoint of the use of power. In ethics this is a question regarding one person’s immediate power over another person. In politics in a democratic society it is a matter of the use politicians make of the power they have been delegated to frame laws and regulate social life, but it is also a matter of how members of the public use the power they have as participants in a democratic order. Both theologians and social scientists have argued that political decisions should be kept separate from ethical considerations. Løgstrup rejects this view and argues for the importance of upholding a connection between ethics and politics. He does so by distinguishing between love of neighbour as realization and as idea. The Good Samaritan is acting spontaneously thereby realizing ³² The Ethical Demand, p. 99/Den etiske fordring, pp. 128–9. ³³ The Ethical Demand, p. 99, n. 4/Den etiske fordring, p. 129, n. 1. ³⁴ The Ethical Demand, p. 102/Den etiske fordring, p. 132.

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neighbourly love without being concerned about ethical or legal norms, but he could well turn into a political Samaritan and try to convince the authorities that something should be done to prevent future robberies along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. His mercy in the individual case could inspire him politically (39/44). There remain, of course, great differences between the two arenas of action. In politics love of the neighbour is never realized, it functions merely as an idea, but this use of the ethical demand is no longer condemned by Løgstrup as ‘nothing but a cliché’. What is common to the realization and the political use of the idea of neighbourly love is the need in both cases for imaginative role reversal as a means in working out how power is to be used. Neighbourly love must be voluntary and spontaneous; politics, therefore, cannot be used to make people act out of love, but people can very well be forced to act as if they did love, knowing full well that they don’t. This is what happens in the Scandinavian welfare states, where the rich are taxed rather heavily so that the poor can be taken care of. The rich gnash their teeth (39/46), but that does not matter, the poor are still being helped. Løgstrup here comes out as a moderate socialist and he does so even more clearly in his next book. In Chapter 10, which is by far the longest in the book, he discusses a number of political issues relevant particularly for the contemporary Scandinavian societies. He does so partly through a comparison with the rather different social conditions at Luther’s time, first and foremost the fact that Luther lived in a society of estates, in which the government and only the government had the task on behalf of God to take care of the people’s well-being, whereas in our democratic societies this is a responsibility of the whole people. He thereby warns his fellow Lutheran theologians against applying Luther’s words directly to issues in the modern world while at the same time emphasizing how they could nevertheless be inspiring. He shows how the field of problems regarded as political is now much broader than it was at Luther’s time. Questions of education and of culture in general have become questions for politics in quite new ways, making issues of personal freedom much more central than earlier. One of the issues he addresses is how the state should support art, by supporting both artists and the public reception of art, ideally without interfering either with the autonomy of the artists or the freedom of thought for members of the public. He defends the system of indirect support that had recently been introduced in Denmark where politicians

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supply the means but leave it to boards of specialists to decide who and what to support according to standards of quality rather than standards of ideology, knowing full well that this distinction may be difficult to uphold. Regarding foreign policy he describes how the prime ministers of the Nordic countries are forced to remain silent about the well-documented war crimes committed by the American army in Vietnam. They may even have to excuse these crimes as if that was their heartfelt opinion. They could not uphold their positions as heads of state if they did not. Their power thus comes with a price and is heavily circumscribed. In a situation like that it is important that ordinary citizens use their power to protest and to establish contacts with the opposition in other countries in ways the official politicians cannot. Such a confrontation between the power of the state and the power of sections of the public are necessary for a healthy democratic culture because it is a precondition for things being called by their right name, which again is a precondition for change. Democracy is not without problems of its own, however. Løgstrup discusses the dangers of absolutizing the ideal of democracy turning all issues into issues that should be decided democratically. Demands for a much broader democratic participation were central to the youth and students’ uprising of the time. Løgstrup had direct experience with this from his own university. In many ways he was in sympathy with the basic tendency, but he also warned strongly against the demagogy and ideological manipulation to which it was giving rise. He makes the important point that ‘[d]emocracy builds on the judgement of both the voters and the elected. If this fails democracy turns into demagogy’ (96/109). Therefore, democracy is in need of assistance from experts, though with circumscribed power that is subject to control. The supporters of absolute democracy believe that judgement can be secured merely through debate. However, this is an illusion. And since the most interested people cannot stand futile debate, absolute democracy easily falls victim to demagogues who exercise power without being controlled. At its best the youth and students’ uprising builds on a realization of the necessity of fundamental social change. However, since such change is difficult and transcends their power, the wish for change is channeled into a battle against society’s institutions, which they think they can manage. This is what Løgstrup means by ‘the manageable destruction’, the section’s cryptic and ironic title (95/109).

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Norm and spontaneitet has the subtitle Etik og politik mellem teknokrati og dilettantokrati [Ethics and Politics between Technocracy and Dilettantocracy]. This precisely indicates the two tendencies Løgstrup saw threatening democratic societies and institutions like the university: they should neither be ruled solely by technocrats beyond democratic control nor by absolute democrats without the assistance of experts; a viable balance between expertise and democratic rule ought to be realized. In The Ethical Demand §9.5, Løgstrup had discussed the situation of people who risked their lives in resisting totalitarian and corrupt governments like the Nazi regime in Germany. In the present work he again discusses the right or even the duty to resist evil both in the political sphere and in the personal sphere. He does so with reference to the play Anna Sophie Hedvig by the Danish author Kjeld Abell, performed first in 1939. This play establishes a parallel between the political and the personal spheres, between the courage of a partisan fighting for the freedom of his country and the courage of a rather anonymous schoolteacher confronting and in momentary rage actually killing a mean and evil colleague. They both tragically risk their lives by standing up against what they see as evil and doing so with means that are themselves illegal and destructive. However, whereas Abell saw a parallel between the political and the personal sphere, Løgstrup makes a distinction. In the political sphere resistance against tyrants is justified, even a duty, because it is exercised in order to re-establish the rule of law. In the personal sphere, on the other hand, it is not justified because it dissolves the rule of law. Here only resistance in words is justified. However, Abell’s play shows that words do not always work, which means that it is a genuine tragedy where there is no solution. Kjeld Abell saw both the partisan and the schoolteacher as fighting for a world where evil would eventually be completely eradicated, but Løgstrup warns against such optimism. It is a fundamental condition of human life that ‘when we eliminate the unfortunate conditions of one kind of conflict, then new conditions arise for new kinds of conflicts. New tragedies will be written. The life of one human being is too entangled with the life of another human being for our existence ever to be able to escape from conflicts’ (103/118). This condition belongs to the unchanging ontology of being human as much as does the ethical demand that we take care of the other.

1 Three Ethical Traditions [7] In Western civilization, the characteristics of ethical life have been determined either from the starting point of the good as the true end of human striving, or from the starting point of a demand addressed to human beings. There are two dominant ethical traditions: the teleological, in which the end (telos) is the basic concept, and the deontological (to deon, what is right or what is demanded), in which duty is the basic concept.

The Teleological Tradition The teleological tradition is the oldest and originates in Plato and Aristotle. Insofar as the good is the true end, achieving it becomes true happiness (eudaimonia). The task of philosophers is to give a characterization of what the good and what happiness consists in, and provide instructions on how human beings can achieve it. With respect to this, the two philosophers make use of a hierarchy of goods: the lowest goods are those which are only pursued for the sake of something else and are not of ethical interest (e.g. houses, furniture, ships); next comes the goods that can be pursued for the sake of themselves and for the sake of something else (e.g. honour); and finally, the highest good that can only be pursued for the sake of itself. But apart from this, there are also differences between Plato and Aristotle. Plato was influenced by Socrates, who taught that although humans are cut off from knowing the absolute good, it is equally certain that it exists. Therefore, even though the good cannot become our possession, it can nonetheless, when we are directed towards it, become Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001

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the cause of both our knowledge and striving. When this happens, [8] humans realize their highest potentials. However, for Socrates as well as for Plato the self-realization is characterized as devotion, since the good is the subject-transcendent (though not in Judeo-Christian sense of the cosmos-transcendent, or the beyond). Knowledge of the good leads to good actions, both because the good is happiness, and because the knowledge in question is a Bildung of human beings (paideia) through which the direction of their whole life changes. In more detail, Plato sees this as humans being turned away from the field where they are involved with the commonplace and the current, and which they take for reality, and being directed towards reality proper, namely the reality of the ideas, in virtue of which the commonplace and the current exist and are accessible for us. This occurs through reason; the unsensual eye for the supersensual. The highest idea is the good, which simultaneously is the end and origin of all things and the ethical good. What for us is separated, namely ethics and natural philosophy, coincide for Plato. Contrary to Plato, Aristotle polemically claims that what is important is not so much the concept and determination of the good, but rather finding which of the given and specific goods that exist are the most excellent. The ethical good is integral to the same sphere as the goods, and it must be a particular activity already known and named in accordance with its nature. The ethical good is a question of nature (physis) and not of law (nomos). The sort of activity that is to be considered must be distinctive of humans, and it is reason. Eudaimonia, which everyone agrees is the name of the ethical good, therefore, is the form of life that flourishes in realizing the activity of reason, which is distinctive of human beings. As life does not flourish through a coup, virtue (aretê) is part of the nature of eudaimonia. For in no other deeds is there such constancy as in those determined by aretê, in as much as the addition of excellence, which aretê gives the realization of life, is trained and acquired through habit (ethismos). A distinction is drawn between the moral virtues, which everybody can acquire, and which are the result of the control of reason over our actions and bodily needs, and the [9] intellectual virtues, which only a minority can acquire. Luck and good fortune are part of eudaimonia, as well as external goods such as wealth, friends, influence, and good looks. Even though these are only external, they are nevertheless a necessary condition for life to flourish. In contrast

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to Plato, for Aristotle the ethical good is, then, subject-immanent, the full actualization of the human being’s own possibilities. Common to Plato and Aristotle is the understanding of humans as social beings, and as a result the good life is a life in society; for them ethics, education, and politics become one. The task of the state is, through education of its citizens, to give them an opportunity to live a good and happy life. Furthermore, a common feature is that the intellectualism in their ethical conception threatens to lead to an ethical life that has two tiers. Up to this point, Roman Catholic ethics agrees with Greek ethics. It too is teleological and works with a hierarchy of value, in which God is introduced as the highest good, by Augustine influenced by Plato, by Thomas Aquinas influenced by Aristotle. Augustine presupposes that human beings always strive for happiness; however, they can only find it in the highest good. Therefore, only God may be loved with the sort of love which is pleasure (fruitio), while everything that exists in the world, including also other human beings, may only be loved with the sort of love that is use (usus). In contrast, for Thomas the relation of human beings to the goods serves the actualization of their own possibilities, including the relation to the highest good. Yet, it is ruled out that God would thereby become a means for human striving, because the possibilities which are to be actualized all have their source in God. A modern teleological ethics with a hierarchy of goods or values, as they are also called, is that of Max Scheleri and Nicolai Hartmann.ii Here, the value sphere of the pleasurable and unpleasant ranks lowest, above it the vital values of what is noble and what is common, and above it the spiritual values of which there are three kinds: beautiful-ugly, rightwrong, true-false, and finally the highest—found only in Scheler— values of the holy [10] and the profane. We respond to the goods and values in their positivity, negativity, and hierarchy in the emotional and intentional acts of feeling, placing before, placing after, love and hate, in an immediate way. However, we are also given certain criteria, for example: duration, the lowest values are the most ephemeral and the highest are eternal; divisibility, the lowest must be divided if more people are to have a share in them, whereas an unlimited number of individuals can partake in the spiritual values. The ethical values are not found in the hierarchy, because good is that value which pertains to the

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realization of the positive and the higher value; evil is that value which pertains to the realization of the negative and the lower value. We can only arrive at the whole realm of value with all its hierarchies through a compilation of the ethos of all the different peoples and epochs. The principle of the hierarchy is that one infinite sum of values within one area of the hierarchy cannot trump a higher value. Nicolai Hartmann has adopted Scheler’s basic position, but without the metaphysical grounding of the hierarchy of values. Utilitarianism is a teleological ethics that, if followed through, refuses any hierarchy of values. An action is good, when it results in maximal pleasure (minimal pain), or as it is said, results in the greatest happiness for the greater number of people. For it is presupposed that all actions can be ordered in a scale depending on the total sum of pleasure or pain which each action causes. The total sum includes not only the pleasure and pain caused to the individual, but also that of everyone else. In the same way, not only immediate and direct effects are included, but also distant and indirect effects that may occasionally even be more important than the immediate and direct effects. But whether the pleasure is higher or lower is irrelevant. The maximization principle states that the action ought to be carried out which under the given circumstances produces more good or less bad in the world than any other possible action. In utilitarianism the maximization principle is combined with a naturalistic definition of ‘good’ as pleasure, where it is presupposed that ‘pleasure’ taken as a natural phenomenon is [11] measurable. Nowadays, utilitarianism is usually underpinned with a psychology of needs, as in Bertrand Russell, with the justification that since our active life is built around our needs, the good lacks vitality if it is not connected with our needs. Therefore, the desire that gives the largest and most durable satisfaction is good, which does not conflict with, but promotes the satisfaction of, the needs of others.

The Deontological Tradition The deontological ethicist above all others is Kant. The central point in his ethics is that while all the abilities of human beings except for the will can be used either for good or evil, the will itself is either good or bad, thanks to its ability to follow maxims, which means to be determined by reason. However, reason can have two roles. It has a very modest role

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when our inclinations determine what is to be the object of our will, because then the function of reason merely consists in making a maxim out of the inclination. By contrast, the role of reason is crucial when it is the one of determining whether something ought to be the object of the will or not. It does this not by supplying the will with its object, which it cannot do, because it is pure and it does not have in itself any concept of an object; but by determining the form of the will’s maxims independently of inclinations, in an imperative that is categorical. This happens by reason applying its own law in its pure universality in the requirement on the maxim that it be universalizable: you may only act upon such maxims that you can will to become universal laws. A human being acts unfreely when their will is conditioned by inclination and in the manner of the causality of natural law, whereas they act freely and out of duty, when despite their inclinations they obey the moral law of reason out of respect for it. Wherever the causality of natural law rules, from an ethical perspective lawlessness prevails. Reason must therefore establish order through its moral law in a practical way. Therefore, duty becomes everything; it alone is capable of creating a moral universe. [12] Kierkegaard’s view is also to be characterized as deontological. When Kierkegaard describes human beings as a synthesis between eternity and temporality, this does not mean that eternity is present in the nature of human beings as an integrated part of it, but that it is present in human existence as an infinite demand on this existence, in virtue of which human beings are spirit and a self at all. The individual can only win their identity in relation to eternity and its demand through their life from one singular situation to another. The focus on the singularity of the situation, in contrast to the Kantian focus on the universality of the moral law, is a common feature in all forms of existentialism.

The Ontological Tradition There is also a third basic view, which could be called ontological.iii The ethical demand receives its content from the fundamental condition that we live under and which we are not in a position to change, namely that the life of one person is entangled with that of the other person, and so it consists in taking care of the part of the other person’s life which as a result of this entanglement is at our mercy. ‘Nature (understood as the

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immutable fundamental conditions) teaches what love does’ (Luther).iv The ethical demand is refracted as through prismsv by all the different and particular relationships in which we stand to one another as spouses, parents and children, teachers and students, employers and workers, as they are all forms of the fundamental condition whereby the ethical demand receives its content.

2 The Ethical Demand and the Sovereign Expressions of Life The Commandment to Love the Neighbour Is the Most Natural of All Commandments [13] The word ‘neighbour’ is a translation of plésion, an adverbial accusative case of plésios, meaning nigh or nearby, which was used as a noun for the person next to you, your neighbour, or compatriot. In Israel, the larger community, family, tribe, or people to which the individual belongs constitutes their world, and this also gives meaning to the word translated as plésion. The laws concerning the relation to the neighbour, of which the most fundamental are summarized in the second tablet of the Decalogue, are given to the people and presuppose the people. In the way it is formulated in Leviticus 19:18, the neighbour in the commandment to love the neighbour is the compatriot; the extension of the commandment in 19:34 to encompass foreigners settled in Israel is based on 19:18. But the rules of law—in the Old Testament there is no distinction between morality and law—time and time again have such a broad and universal formulation that for that matter they did not need to be limited to the compatriot. In the interpretation of preChristian Judaism, some explicitly exclude foreigners from the interpretation of the commandment, while others extend the commandment to all human beings. The transformation of the concept of neighbour in Jesus’s preaching— Matthew 5:43–8 goes in a direction which is antithetical to the Old Testament—does not consist in a cosmopolitan extension of the concept, extending its meaning from compatriot to any fellow creature, but rather Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001

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        

it consists in a sharpening of it: the neighbour is the one in need of help, and from whom we cannot expect anything in return, as we would from friends, relatives, and equals. The love belonging to the Kingdom of Heaven, which stems from faith in the future coming of this Kingdom, is spontaneous [14] and applies, therefore, to the foreigner and the enemy. It cannot be determined in advance who the neighbour is; it is self-evident—this is expressed in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25–37, where provocatively even the Jew is made the one in need of help, and the foreigner is the one who shows compassion.¹ In comparison to the ethos of Antiquity, the Christian ethos implies a shift from justice to love for the neighbour. The relation to the other, when it is subordinated to the idea of justice, is led by what the other is entitled to and what they have made themselves worthy of; but the neighbour is loved for their own sake. The works, in which love for the neighbour is given form, vary constantly; they are based on the situation, time, and person involved, and are neither determined by ideas nor by law. The formulation of the love commandment stresses the peculiarity that it is precisely our egoism that makes it clear that the most natural morality is also the most radical. No self-realization is possible without a requirement that others pay heed to it and in some way live for it. If there is any commandment that is grounded in the reality of our life, it is the love commandment. The requirement is something we all make of others, before the requirement is made of us. No other commandment is as selfevident as the love commandment. It is embodied in every single meeting between human beings. Anytime and anywhere, it is voiced as the requirement that others must love the realization of my life. Even a human being, who with the greatest aversion turns against what they consider exaggerated in the love commandment, and who does not want to acknowledge the unnatural restraint of their own self-realization that is implied in the obedience to the commandment, nevertheless needs the love of others in order to succeed in their own great efforts; and what’s more, they also feel that this is completely fair. However, in my egoistic claim on others lies the claim that arises from the existence of others, that I should adopt [15] an altruistic attitude towards them. As we know, the commandment states: you shall love your neighbour as yourself—and ‘as ¹ Gerhard Kittel, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament [Theological Dictionary of the New Testament] (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1954), vol. VI, pp. 310–16.

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yourself ’ means: by the love you lay claim to, you know the love that you owe the other human being. With the fundamental fact that the realization of my own powerful self calls for the love of others, the commandment to love the others presents itself to me. Indeed: to love spontaneously, just as I expect the other to love the realization of my life spontaneously. I will not settle for having their interest in the realization of my life and my power forced out of them. Precisely this shows how natural the morality at issue here is. After all, I do not hold back my requirements on others until after I have showered them with favours, and only then ask them to love the realization of my life by appealing to those deeds. On the contrary, I claim this love in advance. I do not wait for my love to occur, as little as I guarantee the other person that it will occur later. We are really pushy in requiring that the others care for what we are doing. The others cannot start loving us quickly enough. Their love must be spontaneous and not reciprocal. Nothing less will do. It is widely assumed that the love commandment only presents itself religiously. Without religion, we would not realize that we are subject to a demand of this nature and this radicality. The commandment has entered into our existence only through revelation in the Christian sense. If human beings obey the commandment then it only happens for the sake of the Christian revelation, and a human being can never align their nature with this act of obedience. However, the latter is as true as the former is false. As has been said, the commandment is the most natural of all commandments. If we ask from which feature of our existence it arises, the answer is that it arises from the way in which we are in need of one another, which is integral to the constitution of human existence. The love commandment arises from the interdependence and the power, that due to this interdependence, we cannot avoid having over each other. Therefore, we could also formulate the commandment as follows: [16] the power that the interdependence gives you over another human being, you must use in their best interests. But precisely the most natural of all ethical commandments is the one to which we cannot align our nature. Our nature posits the commandment, but our nature cannot adhere to it. If inclined to paradoxes, we could say that the most natural of all commandments is the most unnatural. This is true but also false; or briefly put, it is a simplification.

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We know the radicality not only as commandment and rule, i.e. a command to love your neighbour and the Golden Rule, but we also know it as spontaneity.

The Sovereign Expressions of Life In contemporary theology, it is a widely held view promoted by existentialism that there is no spontaneity in human existence that goes along with the commandment to love the neighbour. This view is incorrect, because expressions of life exist that could be called sovereign. Human existence is possibility, according to the analysis of Kierkegaard and alongside him existential philosophy, especially Heidegger. It is not just the sovereign expressions of life—trust, sincerity, compassioni—that are possibilities, but so are distrust, insincerity, heartlessness. But there is a difference between them already in their nature as possibilities. The possibility can either move forward or imprison, either open up or confine. Trust, sincerity, and compassion breed new possibilities for the other and for ourselves. They keep the nature of existence as possibility alive. Distrust, insincerity, and heartlessness tend to rob existence, for others and in ourselves, of its nature as possibility and turn it into confinement. Trust is a possibilitymaintaining possibility. Distrust is a possibility-dissolving possibility. Furthermore, even if the heartless person wins and the compassionate person suffers defeat, compassion is still equally sovereign. Compassion needs no justification, excuse, or explanation, as it rests in itself. In contrast, heartlessness has to prove its legitimacy. [17] Just how sovereign sincerity is can be made clear by comparison with insincerity. If something needs hiding, something important, we become insecure and in doing so we observe our own behaviour, as a doppelgänger, with an inner distance from it.² It is not a sufficient explanation to say that the mental uneasiness manifests itself in unnatural speech, as if state of mind was one thing and speech something else, state of mind ² Klaus Rifbjerg has illustrated this in the novel Operaelskeren [The Opera Lover], when Helmer Franck writes that he has begun to be conscious of his own self; his behaviour at the dinner table resembles acting out a role: ‘Sometimes, I realize that I look at the children with a distinctive kindness or a special interest, an interest that is only special because it is produced by my own state of mind and which is constantly an object for my own introspection’. All of this because he has something to hide.ii

    

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being the cause and speech the effect. No, the strain is caused by the fact that the moment we speak, we come into conflict with the requirement for sincerity that speech imposes on anyone who ventures into it. What speech grants, namely openness, it also claims, and it does so as the anonymous and at the same time personal expression of life that it is by nature. We can only speak with each other in the trust that what is said is received as it was meant. If we are on guard towards one another, suspicion is parasitic on trust. Without the possibilities of sympathy and compassion, we would not be able to understand the misfortune of another human being. In schadenfreude, we are parasitic on the access to the other person’s misfortune, the understanding of which has only been given to us thanks to sympathy and compassion. If the sovereign possibilities of life did not bring themselves about by themselves, in spite of our will, we could not exist; not even in our malevolence. It is a common view that everything that belongs to our existence is relative, and what is absolute belongs to the beyond, and the latter only engages with our existence in its absolute demand on it. But the sovereign expressions of life are also absolute according to their definitive nature. This is manifested in the fact that if we reduce the sovereign expression of life even in the slightest degree, [18] it immediately turns into its opposite. It is not possible to moderate our trust, sincerity, or compassion, as then at the same moment we are placed in distrust, insincerity, and heartlessness. But not only do the sovereign expressions of life correspond to the ethical demand; the ethical demand can only be obeyed with the sovereign expressions of life that make it superfluous. The human being must be more than obedient to be obedient, they must be trustful, sincere, compassionate. The radicality of the demand consists in its demand to be superfluous. In the sovereign expression of life we get ahead of ourselves, which is why we say that we are seized by it. Their spontaneity consists in this.³

³ Regarding the sovereign expressions of life, I take the liberty of referring to the closer analysis of them in my own work: Opgør med Kierkegaard [Controverting Kierkegaard] (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1968: 92–104, 111–17, 121–6, 168–9; Aarhus: Klim, 2013: 95–107, 115–20, 125–30, 150–1, 175–6).iii



        

But also our destructive emotions and reactive feelings pre-empt us. As a power over ourselves and as an opinion about ourselves, we lag behind our impulses, emotions, and thoughts, whether they are positive or negative. There is, therefore, no way to come to know ourselves without first realizing that we do not know ourselves, and the reason for this lies in the fact that what moves us and drives us comes ahead of us. We can only come to understand ourselves through critical observation of what we have already thought, felt, and done.iii

The Spontaneity of Love of the Neighbour and Its ‘Demotivation’ Previously, it was claimed that the sovereign expression of life involves a spontaneity that goes along with the commandment to love the neighbour. However, when it is the case, as it often is in Jesus’s proclamation, that the neighbour is the stranger and enemy, it seems to be fruitless to search for a spontaneity which the commandment to love the neighbour could appeal to or connect with. After all, our attitude towards the stranger is indifference, and our attitude to the enemy is vindictiveness, [19] and where indifference or vindictiveness enters, love exits. To maintain that both be present is too glaring a contradiction. The argument appears to be logical, but it is wrong. However great the indifference towards the stranger and however great the hatred towards the enemy, they do not rule out that precisely in the relation to the stranger and enemy, beneath the indifference and the hate, there is a spontaneity, with which the love commandment can connect. How can this be known? From what happens when distress, tragedy, and mortal danger befall the stranger and enemy! The tragedy that befalls our enemies makes them our friend in a more fundamental sense than the one in which they are our enemy. For the most part, animosities arise on the social level. The issues which led us to each other then come to divide us, and in the animosity, we focus on the bad character which we believe our counterpart has shown. However, social behaviour and character are ways of using and shaping human possibilities, and therefore animosity normally arises on the basis of the social use of these possibilities and the shaping of the character of the individual’s humanity. And this is the explanation why the distress and mortal danger which has befallen a

      



hated person, evokes pain and calls out for help. Based on our mere humanity, we rarely become hostile towards each other; rather, we become hostile towards each other over the abuse we find in the other’s misuse of their human possibilities, in the things they do in the matters on which we have come to disagree. And when tragedy befalls the other person, it is their humanity, which cannot yet lead us to become hateful to one another, that appeals to us. I agree with the two Enlightenment philosophers Mendelssohn and Lessing.iv In ‘On Sentiments’ Mendelssohn says: Look at the crowd which in dense flocks pushes around the convicted person. They know everything about the atrocities that the scoundrel has committed; they have abhorred his conduct and perhaps even the man himself. Now he is dragged, disfigured and powerless, to the gruesome scaffold. People work their way through the swarm, they stand on their tiptoes, they climb the roofs to watch the features of death distort his face. His sentence has been pronounced, the executioner is approaching, in an instant his fate will be decided. [20] How fervently do not all hearts now wish, all at once, that he were forgiven. This man? The object of their abhorrence, whom a moment ago they would have sentenced to death? By virtue of what does a ray of charity now become alive in them again? Is it not the punishment that is approaching, is it not the sight of the most horrifying physical evil, which reconciles us with a dissolute person and by which they acquire our love?v

Lessing agrees with Mendelsohn and adds about this love that we cannot entirely get rid of it under any circumstances; it smoulders beneath the ashes covered by other and stronger sentiments—in this case disgust and condemnation—and only awaits a benign gust of wind in terms of tragedy and pain to flare up with the flames of sympathy (Hamburg Dramaturgy, 76th piece). Nietzsche poses the same question: Why do we leap after someone who has fallen into the water, even though we dislike them? Why do we feel pain and discomfort at the sight of someone spitting out blood, even though we are hostile to them? Nietzsche’s answer is not the same as that of Lessing and Mendelssohn. He continues: thoughtlessness says ‘out of sympathy!’. As if in those actions we did not think of ourselves, though unconsciously! An accident which happens to another offends us; it would be cowardice or impotence if we did not help them. Or it would make us dishonourable. Or we must act in order to prevent the dangers and fragility that life presents us with in the misfortune of another from



        

having too embarrassing an effect upon us. It is this sort of pain and dishonour that we repel when we act to help the stranger or enemy who is in distress; therefore, there can be a delicate act of self-defence, also revenge, in the act which is ascribed to sympathy. We see this most evidently when we could avoid the sight of the suffering person. Then, why do we not avoid it? Because we get the opportunity to present ourselves as the more powerful, and as helpers, we are certain of applause, certain to get the opportunity to feel how fortunate we are in contrast to the unfortunate, or because we hope that our effort might relieve us from our boredom (Daybreak, aphorism 133). Is Nietzsche right? Both yes and no. His observations are correct. [21] However, what he is wrong about is that he does not want to acknowledge that the phenomena that he observes are all perversions of the impulse to help the one in need, which is fundamental—fundamental because it happens solely based on the fact that they are a human being and I am a human being. However, time and time again things do not end with the fundamental impulse; it is transposed to the social level to be seized by our will for power, lust for honour, self-righteousness, and fear of other human beings, which are all ready with their motivations to distort the impulse to help. And this is where Nietzsche’s observations come in. We have to gain something from the impulse, on the level of power and prestige. This does not mean that the motives are merely added on top. No, the motives have impact; they maim the impulse and demolish its spontaneity. The distortion that remains of the impulse is the work of the motives. The reaction to Nietzsche’s ethico-psychological observations is twofold. They appear to be nothing less than a betrayal of existence. There seems to be not only contempt for others in what is disclosed, but contempt for life itself. Not only are we hypocritical, but life that has been given us is said by Nietzsche to be hypocritical. But in the midst of the protest against Nietzsche’s scrutiny, we have to concede that he is right. His observations are accurate, it is as he says, who dares deny it. But can we at one and the same time distance ourselves from Nietzsche’s view of existence on the one hand, and also capitulate to his observations on the other? Do not his ethico-psychological disclosures compel us to accept his view of life? No, they can just as well lead to the opposite conclusion. What Nietzsche observes and discloses is our distortion of the life that has been given us; and the deeper his

      



observations go, the more corrosive his disclosures are, the greater is the chance that we might become aware of the possibilities of life that we ride to death. The immediate impulse to ease pain, which the unfortunate person arouses in us, is the realization of a spontaneous and sovereign expression of life—however, the realization is time and time again seized by the destruction, the distortion, that Nietzsche is so obsessed with tracing that he makes the destruction and distortion [22] everything. For example, he makes the observation that when we love, honour, and admire someone, and we discover that they suffer, we are astounded, because we assumed that the happiness flowing towards us from them arose from their own happiness. But then something important happens; our feeling of love and admiration changes, it becomes tenderer. The gulf between us is bridged. We are enabled to give something to them in return, and to be able to give them something in return becomes to us a source of great joy and exultation. We seek to find what will ease their pain and give it to them. And if they want us to be the person who suffers at their suffering, then we present ourselves as suffering—and enjoy our activity of the gratitude, which is a sort of benevolent revenge (Daybreak aphorism 138). Our wish to ease the other person’s pain therefore connects itself to an experience that we are now on a par, their pain bridges the gulf between us, a gulf constituted by the admiration, and this means that through our comforting and help, we take revenge for the fact that they gave us reason to admire and honour them. It is typical for Nietzsche to make the revenge for the fact that the other evoked admiration decisive, it becomes the whole story; he makes the enjoyment of our active gratitude into the moving force, despite revenge and pleasure only being our distortion of the impulse to ease the pain. Nietzsche is aware that when we discover that the admired person suffers, the admiration fades, and in sympathy with the one once much admired, we become their equal. Suffering degrades, while sympathy confers superiority. However, what Nietzsche does not want to acknowledge is that the feeling of superiority is our own ego’s distortion of sympathy as an immediate impulse. The impulse as the fulfilment of an immediate expression of life is something we do not master ourselves, it literally takes us by surprise—very often only for it to be caught and ‘de-motivated’ or supressed by our own ego’s motivations. However, Nietzsche does not distinguish between what should be set down in the account of our given



        

life and its immediate impulses, and what should be set down in the account of our ego and its destruction of life. Nietzsche only keeps one account, and herein consists his consistently a-religious ontology. [23] But there are two accounts to maintain and keep separated: the account of our given life, and the account of our ego.vii What we find in Nietzsche is the relentless disclosure, not merely a ruthless disclosure, but rather a disclosure that stops nowhere, but lays waste to everything. Nowhere else is this so ruthlessly accomplished, and as brilliant in its ruthlessness, as in Nietzsche. He is unparalleled is his ability to see through the hypocrisy in all the many masks we use, which otherwise no one would even think of as being masks. But he goes even further than this. He not only discloses how, through hypocrisy and selfdeception, we batten on to the expressions of life that are given to us, such as trust and love, and in so doing destroy them; but he also takes himself to have disclosed that trust and love are interpretations of our existence, which are illusions and have never been anything but illusions. To be sure, Nietzsche looks the all-encompassing hypocrisy in the eye, but he also allows himself to be enchanted by it, so that he sees nothing else. He does not see that in the midst of the hypocrisy, we meet in each other’s trust. He fails to see that when we, despite the hypocrisy, still go through our life together fairly unscathed; we owe this to expressions of life that we do not owe to ourselves. However, the strange thing is that if we use these expressions of life to argue against Nietzsche, then the protest comes to appear as a neutralization of Nietzsche’s disclosure. Even where the disclosure goes too far, it has any counterclaim seem like concealment. It is as if the disclosure is always right. Trying to show what the disclosure overlooks is always in advance branded as inadequate, evasion, flattery, self-righteousness, and moralism of the worst sort. Therefore, what it is important to see, is that the disclosed hypocrisy and the expressions of life which we have pointed out are not on the same level. They belong to different levels. We are guilty of everything that we disclose; it is our own degradation of our life. By contrast, none of the expressions of life, which we have brought into view, are owed to ourselves, they are given to us with our existence. It is, therefore, a misunderstanding to think that pointing out the anonymous expressions of life is tantamount to stopping the disclosure [24] in its tracks halfway. This would only be the case if they were on the same level.

   



Nietzsche does not push the disclosure in order for a reality to surface from beneath all the illusions with which morality in particular has covered it. The disclosure does not serve a truth of an ontological nature. There is no ground which it wants to reach. Everything is ungrounded. And this is not a result that the disclosure itself establishes. On the contrary. With the disclosure being relentless, it is already assumed that there is no ground and there is no other truth than that of the disclosure.

Open and Displaced Trust What concerns us here is the relation between the spontaneous expression of life and its selfish form that we repeatedly give it. I will illustrate this with what I will call the difference between open and displaced trust. To trust is to trust in what may be given us, what might be granted us. However, as it is, we are simply obsessed with the will to conquer, and this takes trust in its service, so that we trust in what we will conquer. It then happens that our will to conquer proves itself stronger than our trust, and there is nothing strange about this, because trust due to its orientation and spontaneity is unprotected. Nor is it strange that trust is distorted. From being openness in speech, action, and conduct—due to the immediate expectation that these are received as intended, which is an expectation that we will be received as we are—trust instead becomes a trust that if we can only manage to get to the point aimed at by our will to conquer, then life with all its ambition, effort, and struggle has been worthwhile. Taking each instance at a time, from the beginning and as it proceeds, it is uncertain whether life is worth living, this can always only be settled afterwards. For, each time life is ascribed meaning and value only on the basis of what it was used to conquer. Clearly, this jeopardizes trust as openness. During the conquest, [25] what takes place between us becomes nothing but what we need to get over and done with, or something which delays us, or which can be used; at best it becomes a breathing space or a respite. Trust is displaced from openness to what is to be conquered. Trust therefore does not allow itself to be eradicated; it is so tough that we even have to get rid of life in order to get rid of trust. And to express this in a psychological mythical way, neither is the will to conquer interested in disposing of trust. Without trust in what is conquered, the



        

will would lose all its power. Therefore, and in the highest degree, displaced trust has something to offer the will to conquer: namely, that it gives the will certainty that there are no limits to what the conquest will give us. Simply everything. Consequently, there is the most glaring discrepancy between what we want to conquer and the blessedness we expect the conquest to produce for us. However, this discrepancy is brought about by trust. It is and remains a trust in what is granted to us, which now—as displaced—is a trust in what the conquest will grant us, and this is as mentioned nothing less than everything. If trust did not bring about this delusion, then our will to conquer would dissolve. Consequently, our will is a will to conquest based on the delusion, in which trust in what is conquered ensnares us. In return, the trust, displaced by the will, in the fact that the object of our conquest will turn out to be heaven on earth, makes the will possessed. It becomes ruthless, it becomes evil. Not because what is conquered itself needs to be evil; on the contrary, it could be perfectly good. However, no matter how wonderful that which we want to conquer might be, the will for it is made evil by our trust in what we will achieve with the conquered. Trust has made what we want to conquer into our idol. We march over corpses in pursuit of our goals. Our belief that what is accomplished, conquered, and achieved is heaven on earth turns out to be self-deception every time. Throughout our entire life, we have experienced this without being able to see through our experience. In a peculiar, absolute way, our experience is in vain. Or more precisely formulated, theoretically and existentially, we might see through the self-deception, but this clarity is ineffective. Not even in the slightest do we manage to act on this insight. It does not [26] allow itself to be incorporated into our life, into our practice. Something repels it, and this is the spontaneity of our trust in what is granted to us. This trust will not be subdued by any insight. The spontaneity in the trust in what we will achieve by our conquests is so powerful, that it is a trust that what we achieve will turn out to be sheer blessedness. When what we wish to win, accomplish, and achieve is our idol, this is so thanks to the spontaneity in trust. But if this is so, is it not then the case that spontaneity is what is evil? No, trust and its spontaneity become evil because of the displacement, which the will to conquer brings about, and by which it distorts trust and its spontaneity. Both the undistorted trust as openness, and the distorted

   



trust in what we achieve by our conquests, share the feature that they are forms of expectation. In trust as openness, we expect to become ourselves in the other’s reception of us. Openness means that we let the other take part in realizing us. In the other person’s reception of us, they take part in our self-realization. However, when trust is displaced, I expect through my conquests to experience myself as the person I wish to be. What is conquered realizes me, that is, it realizes my dream about myself. But as it is I, who through my struggle, my striving, and my requirements on others, brings me to where I wish and dream to be, I am in charge of my own self-realization. And yet—without others I cannot fulfil myself; but now they play a different part than before: they are the people who I push aside and compare myself with, they are those who I fight and in whose gaze I mirror myself. Insofar as trust belongs to human existence, it is a possibility, but it is always a realized possibility. Yet, it is important to insist that it is a possibility insofar as it is always realized in one of two ways. These two ways are mutually incompatible, and the one lives at the expense of the other. There would be no trust in what we wish to conquer, and there would be no spontaneity to make the conquest our idol, if there was no trust as openness. Trust is open, as has been mentioned, because it is a [27] trust in what is granted us, what will be given us, and this is primarily what others will grant us and give us. And this continues to be the case, also in the trust in what the conquest will mean for us. This shows itself in the fact that, for the self-realization that I myself bring about through conquest, others are just as necessary as they are in trust that is open. A human being knows from trust as openness that no human existence is possible without the others. However, in the evil trust of conquest, the others are necessary for us to compare ourselves with, or to be feared by, or to compete with and to defeat. Therefore, there is no existence without interdependence, but the interdependence is realized in one of two ways, of which one comes into being through a perversion of the other. The evil trust lives off the trust that is a goodness in human existence, it lives off the displacement of this trust, and in this displacement, the others are not necessary to receive me, but they are necessary to mirror my conquest. The conquest is potential contempt for life. Not only contempt for the life of others, but also contempt for our own life. We presuppose that there is no fixed price on our own life, it is highly fluctuating, and



        

whether the price is listed as high or low depends on our triumphs that we have used life to win. We reduce our life to a means and material for what we ourselves want to achieve for ourselves. Every time we have fallen short, every time our striving misfired, every time we did not accomplish what we set out to achieve, we list the price of our life low, perhaps at zero. In this consists our potential contempt for life, and it shows how obsessed we are with our ego’s triumphs.

3 Norm and Spontaneity Morality and Spontaneity [28] Ethical rules or norms can be applied, but they cannot be realized. They can be applied because their function is to be a touchstone or criterion. They cannot be realized because they are too abstract. What exist are concrete one-time situations and what we can bring about are concrete one-time actions. It is only possible to apply rules and norms to situations that have happened and events that have already transpired— because they can only be applied. Therefore, situations and actions need not be of the past, they can also be of the future and anticipated in the imagination. The application of a norm consists in the question whether the situation and the action can be subsumed into the norm or not. We call expressions of life such as trust, compassion, and sincerity spontaneous, because they have nothing to do with application or subsumption. They take the form of a one-time situation that is transformed by a one-time action. To be realized, the spontaneous expression of life must let itself be concretized through the concrete situation and the concrete action. Consequently, there is a tension between the definitive nature of the expression of life and the openness to the concrete situation that is given with its spontaneity. The definitive nature of the expression of life is not fully fixed, as it is up to the person and the situation to give it its concrete shape. By contrast, norms or rules have come about by being given the solidity of formulation, so that they both can subsume and test. Hence, it is not easy to imagine a greater difference than the difference between norms and the spontaneous expressions of life. Norms cannot be [29] realized, only applied. Spontaneous expressions of life cannot be applied, only realized. Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001



  

The Conflict between Duty and Temptation But now undeniably the question arises: what is needed for reflection on morality—that is, for people who are not moral philosophers. We leave moral philosophers out of account—it is their profession—and we leave also out of account the moral revival that may seize people and in which they indulge in indignation over the immoral behaviour of others. But, apart from this, what is needed? One or other of the following: (1) either we are in doubt about what is right and wrong, which means that as soon as the situation becomes a bit critical we experience a conflict of duty, or (2) a temptation is needed. We understand a conflict of duty as follows: the individual is in a situation, either through their own fault or through no fault of their own, in which different considerations, which they are obliged to consider either legally or ethically, collide in such a way that the observance of one implies the neglect of the other. According to this standard account, a conflict of duty only means a struggle within the agent between different actions that both constitute duty, but are mutually incompatible, and not a struggle between different persons, who individually act out of duty. Let me illustrate this with Joseph Conrad. In the short story The Secret Sharer, the Captain mysteriously gets a man on board, who turns out to be a First Mate who has fled his arrest on the ship he served. He had been arrested because, in a fit of unrestrained rage, he had been unfortunate enough to kill another crew member, who in a precarious situation had let everybody down and jeopardized their lives. The Captain of the ship on which the First Mate had sought refuge decides to give him sanctuary and keep him hidden, until he can reach the shores of a place where no one knows him and he may begin a new life afresh. But there are many problems associated with keeping a man hidden on a ship, and time and again it leads [30] to nerve-racking situations, which the Captain can only deal with by behaving so strangely in the eyes of his mates and crew that he is on the verge of destroying his relationship with them. Furthermore, it is his first voyage as a captain; how different it turns out from what he had imagined. He gets the man on board late one night while the ship is still at the dock and he is alone on the deck. And just before this happened, he had experienced a deep sense of happiness at the ample safety at sea compared to the restlessness of life on land; thank God he had chosen a life that did not entail disturbing problems, but a life that

     



had within it a fundamental moral beauty thanks to the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and the simplicity of its morality. In other words, the distinctive feature in what Joseph Conrad calls the fundamental moral beauty of life at sea is that it is free of anything that might savour of conflicts of duty—disturbing problems, as they are called. This is why the Captain in The Secret Sharer has chosen life at sea, and for this reason it is such a bitter experience when he is nevertheless confronted with these problems. There is one more place in the world other than at sea, where there is no doubt as to what is right or wrong and where conflicts of duty are unknown, and that is in the life of a certain philosopher in Königsberg around 1800, provided we believe Kant. In any case, you can read through from beginning to end both the Critique of Practical Reason and the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals without the slightest hint of anything that resembles a conflict of duty. In Kant’s philosophy— as in the life of seamen—there are only temptations. And this is exactly the other way in which reflection about moral rules can arise. An individual person knows perfectly well what is demanded of them and what is the right thing to do. But it is inconvenient or costly, and they feel like doing anything but what they actually know they ought to do. They are in a situation where an ethical and [31] an unethical consideration collide, and where they are tempted to give in to an inclination even though it is at the expense of their duty. However, the difference between conflicts of duty and temptation is not absolute; they overlap. Whether there are conflicts of duty consisting of two equally significant ethical considerations or not, in any case there are conflicts of duty in which the situation is obvious, insofar as it is beyond doubt which of the two ethical considerations is ethically most significant. And yet in such a situation, the person may very well be tempted to choose the less significant consideration because it is the most convenient option. Consequently, the conflict of duty is also a temptation. Are there any rules to solve a conflict of duty? Any teleologically oriented non-formal ethics that operates with a hierarchy of goods that are ends of human striving would answer the question affirmatively. The very hierarchy already entails the rule that higher goods are to be preferred to lower ones. We can deduce rules from the hierarchy to solve the conflicts of duty in the case of Greek ethics (both Plato and



  

Aristotle), Roman Catholic ethics, and a philosopher such as Max Scheler, where we are dealing with a kind of ethics that is teleological and has a hierarchy of values. According to Catholic moral theology, a proper conflict of duty is not possible, objectively speaking. For the source of all moral obligations is what God demands of a human being, and here no contradiction is possible. However, from a subjective point of view, a human being can be in a conflict of duty insofar as they can lack sufficient clarity to determine which of the conflicting duties takes precedence. To solve this, there are for instance the following rules: duty is prior to counsel; a duty justified by natural law is prior to duty justified by positive law; divine duty is prior to human duty; prohibition is prior to prescription. Legal duty, i.e. the duty the fulfilment of which others can claim of you to meet the entitlements of others, or which we can be forced to fulfil, is prior to the duty of love; duty concerning the higher good, i.e. the salvation of the soul, is prior to [32] duty concerning the objectively lesser good, i.e. corporeal life. If these rules are not sufficient to solve the conflict of duty so that we cannot resolve the doubt regarding which of the mutual incompatible duties we should do, then individuals must choose what appears to them to be the safest option. Are there any conflicts of duty in which the conflict is unresolvable? This much is certain: that most conflicts of duty that we consider critical are simply imaginary. In such cases, we know perfectly well what our duty is, but we are not inclined to follow it. Therefore, the situation is a temptation. The deliberation process initiated by the temptation seeks to find consequences of the obligated action that are not only inconvenient, but also ethically questionable, because, if ethically questionable, it is ethically justifiable to omit what we considered our duty in the first place. The more dubious we can make the consequences of doing our duty, the more we can make giving in to the temptation seem a form of duty, until the deliberation results in creating a completely ethically balanced conflict between two colliding possible actions. Duty has come to be opposed to duty. We have made ourselves believe that we are in a conflict of duty. We can just as well choose the convenient as the inconvenient solution, this is equally justifiable. Consequently, the classical account of the ethical deliberation process as a conflict between duty and inclination far from always suffices. The classical account lacks the peculiar deliberation feature caused by the temptation, which consists in camouflaging

     



the temptation as a conflict of duty. However, the question remains whether there are unsolvable conflicts of duty of which it can be said that, regardless of the decision taken by the individual in conflict, from an ethical point of view they could just as well have made the opposite decision. We refuse to agree to this, because such a conflict of duty would constitute a situation of choice that would be ethically abnormal. In fact, the distinctive feature of the ethical choice is that it always concerns [33] what we have to do, whether we actually do it or not. Testimony to this comes from such ethical words as: ‘ought’, ‘duty’, and ‘responsibility’. They presuppose that the ethical choice is the bound choice, contrary to the free choice we have when we are not tied up by considerateness, rules, tasks, etc. But in a conflict of duty where the conflicting duties would perfectly counterbalance each other, we would have free choice, because the balance would remove the bondage, and that would be ethically outrageous, when one bears in mind that the choice is fateful insofar as it consists in the neglect of a weighty ethical consideration. However that may be, the temptation comes about through the fact that the undertaking, the struggle that is the source of morality, no longer has the mind in its power. We are not sufficiently absorbed by the undertaking, or captured by the task at hand. They have lost their grip over us. And then morality stands out. It appears as something separate in our minds because of the lack of being absorbed by the task at hand and communal life, for the sake of which morality exists. For example, we have promised someone to take care of their affairs when the occasion arises. Then the occasion arises, and confronts us with the demand that we take care of their affairs. The natural thing is to honour the requirement for the sake of the person, for the affair, for our mutual and trusting relationship, and for the sake of the promise that was given, all taken together as one. If, on the contrary, we do it for the sake of the moral rule that we all know and which says that we must keep our promises, then we must admit to being indifferent to the person, their problems, and our trusting relationship. In order that the moral rule stands out and presents itself to our consciousness, something must have become indifferent to us. In other words, for them to be replaced by morality’s specific stress on our duty, we must have become indifferent to some of the requirements and challenges that in a very immediate way arise from the relationships we have to other people. In short, moral rules are safeguards that we turn to when our direct relationship fails.

4 The Ethical Demand and the Norms The Absolute Difference between Good and Evil, and the Changing Moral and Legal Norms [34] Our age is characterized by a consciousness of history. We are aware of how differently people live, think, and feel from one age to another, from culture to culture. We can only understand a foreign people from a bygone age, and grasp the inner coherence of their way of perceiving and reasoning, if—aided by the scholar who guides us—we have sufficient imagination to let ourselves be transferred to an entirely different mindset. However, it is peculiar that as soon as it is a question about morality we do not just accept the differences. For as long as possible we assume that there must be some sort of fundamental moral attitude, which recurs everywhere where humans have lived together. We reason as follows: there must be a few fundamental rules for behaviour, which are unchangeable; namely, the rules which are the conditions for life in society to be possible at all. What changes is the social and economic organization, and this causes the fundamental moral principles to have very different manifestations. Let us take a random example, provided by the English moral philosopher Nowell-Smith:i in some societies it is inappropriate for guests to clear their plate, while in other societies it is inappropriate for guests not to clear their plate, but these are just different manifestations of the same and unchangeable fundamental moral principle that we ought not behave in inappropriate ways towards our hosts. In all moralities, it is a recurrent rule that we shall reciprocate Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001

      



good with good, but the behaviour with which we observe the rule is very different, because it is based on what [35] is considered to be the best for the individual and this differs from people to people, and from one age to another. However, whether this way of seeing things can be carried through is not yet certain. To stay with the chosen example: probably, that we ought to reciprocate good with good only applied to equals in many cultures, but it was not part of the morality of despots in their relation to subjects, or of the morality of masters in their relation to slaves. Consequently, we must differentiate between two things: on the one hand, the conditions of life within a given society, and on the other hand the fundamental conditions necessary for a human being even to understand and deal with other individuals at all, without destroying their life possibilities. And as a matter of fact there are societies in which it is even part of the moral conditions that a minority lives at the expense of the destruction of the life possibilities of the many. But it is important to go behind the conditions of society to the fundamental conditions of life, because it is in them that we obtain the yardstick for the organization of society, for the legislation and the development of institutions. But now, we have arrived at another and even more crucial way in which we refuse to content ourselves with a historically justified relativism in the field of morality. Due to our historical consciousness, we are prepared to respect the conspicuous differences between peoples, ages, and cultures; however, not in the field of morality. In this field we refuse to let relativism infect us, and this also manifests itself in the fact that it is simply impossible for us not to judge the morality of other cultures from a moral point of view. In fact, we assume that the difference between good and evil is absolute, and that we know what this absoluteness consists in, so that we can subject the morality of any culture to a moral judgement. It is integral to the difference between good and evil that it evades our arbitrariness, for otherwise we could use it to promote our own causes and subdue other individuals, whereby it would be dissolved. In other words, the difference between good and evil has an absolute meaning, despite the many different and changing moral conceptions. To be concerned for the other is good; [36] pushing through our self-concern at the expense of the other human being is evil. Morality has as it were two kinds of content: an absolute kind, given with the very difference between good and evil, and another kind, which



     

is changeable and variable. Of course, between the two kinds of content there is always a very close connection. Because the changeable and variable morality has contributed to shaping the other human being’s needs, we know in part from that morality what their needs are, which the absolute difference between good and evil tells us to take into consideration. Therefore, the actions that take the needs of the other human being into consideration differ from epoch to epoch. In a polygamous marriage, the actions required to take the spouse into consideration differ from the actions in a monogamous relationship, and political responsibility differs from a feudal to a democratic society, etc. This means that we cannot keep the absolute difference between good and evil and the changeable morality apart. I will try to show this in yet another way. Our view of marriage in our time and in our culture is monogamous, our view of love is that of late bourgeois romanticism, and our understanding of political responsibility is democratic. But this precisely does not mean that we believe that there is only morality of marriage when marriage is monogamous and the concept of love is late bourgeois, and that political morality only exists in democracy. Despite the fact that we are subject to the view of our own epoch, we still have sufficient imagination to envisage a polygamous and pre-romantic morality of marriage and a political morality determined by feudalism. Contrary to this, we could not imagine that the difference between good and evil remains, if we were no longer to find that the good consists in concern for the needs of the other, and that evil consists in living at the expense of the other. Therefore, we assume that this difference is absolute. But wasn’t the difference between good and evil, under this interpretation, stated at a particular time in the history of mankind? This is true. But once this difference has been stated and understood, we cannot conceive of a human life where this does not belong, and where it ought not to have been stated and understood. And for this reason, we cannot [37] help judging not only our own, but also the morality of all other ages and cultures on the basis of the difference between good and evil that is understood in an absolute way.

Do the Ten Commandments Still Hold Good? Initially—given our consciousness of history—we would not expect the Ten Commandments to still hold good. After all, they are at home within

      



a culture and a time that is very different from ours. They were formulated more than two and a half millennia ago. Indeed, it is obvious that the prohibition against idols—thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth—does not mean anything to us. This belongs to a type of religious struggle that has no relevance for us. Neither does the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy mean anything to us, if we were to read the commandment literally. And if we look at the commandments which we instinctively accept without hesitation and which we assume are the same today, then there is no doubt that the more we, with the help of Old Testament scholars, realize how the ancient Israelites understood them, the more alien and irrelevant they become for us. The reason why we can be caught in the delusion that we share the content of the commandments with the Israelites is in part because of their concise and summary formulation and in part because they are isolated from the Law of Moses in which they belong, and which is of no use to us at all. The commandments of the Decalogue sounded completely different and were understood completely differently at that time compared with our times. Let us take an example: when the Israelites heard the commandments not to commit adultery, and not to covet the wife of their neighbour, then they heard this under the assumption that marriage is a polygamous institution which exists for the sake of the creation of a lineage, and that it is the man who creates the lineage, and that the woman is only the helper for it; all notions that are alien to us. Nevertheless, it is surprising that a series of commandments retrieved from the legislation of a people as distant and primitive as Israel, can still be used as the point of departure for ethical debate. This suggests that despite [38] the different content the Israelites and we ascribe to the commandments, there is some sort of fundamental attitude which is the same. It is then only a small step to think: firstly, that there exists—at all times—very fundamental conditions for how one human deals with another without living at the expense of the other; and secondly, that to an exceptional degree the Israelites had a sense for these conditions, even though of course in a way that was determined by their culture. Luther stuck to both of them, both the similarity and difference between the morality of the Decalogue and the morality of his own time. To set out his conception he used the language of the time,



     

which was rather rigid, and two terms were available for him to tackle the problem that we are dealing with. What I have called the absolute difference between good and evil, namely that goodness consists in concern for the other, and evil consists in pushing forward one’s selfconcern at the expense of the other human being—this Luther simply called natural law. And he called the changeable and varying moral and legal conceptions the positive law. The Law of Moses was a positive law, it was not absolute, neither was it binding for all people throughout the ages; on the contrary it was only binding for Israel and for Israel only for a certain period. It is not relevant for us. The Ten Commandments are just positive law, too, because they are at home within the Law of Moses. What the Israelites were supposed to understand about the first commandment concerning their relationship to God was only possible to understand through the many different ceremonial commandments found in the Law of Moses: they had to resort to these commandments to understand how to observe the first commandment. And similarly, how the Jews more precisely were to understand and observe the commandment of obedience towards their parents and those against adultery, murder, theft, and false witness, they could also only get to know from the many different regulations of society found in the entire Law of Moses. The Jews had their positive law, as we have our own, and ours is, according to Luther, that of Sachsenspiegel,ii a medieval law code in force at that time in Sachsen. And he continues, that for this reason we should let Moses be the Sachsenspiegel of the Jews, and not let ourselves be troubled by Moses. [39] But why did Luther include the Ten Commandments in the Catechism? He did this because he thought that of all the positive laws that he knew, it was the one that was closest to the natural law.iii In no other place had the natural law been formulated in such an orderly and concise way. All estatesiv were included in the Ten Commandments and our entire worldly relationship to the other was socially ordered normatively within it. I believe that Luther is right in principle, namely that by morality we understand on the one hand something absolute, given by the very difference between good and evil, and on the other hand something relative, and furthermore that we cannot avoid evaluating all the many different forms of morality determined by culture and epoch from a

      



point of view of the difference between good and evil which we consider absolute. But whether Luther is also right that the Ten Commandments in the Law of Moses are the best among the many different forms of morality is of course up for discussion. The Danish theologian Otto Møllerv did not agree with Luther on this point. He thought that the original Danish form of morality could be equally as good as the Jewish one, and at any rate a better fit for us. And we could ask ourselves whether we are not making a rather arbitrary selection of moral problems and points of view, when we let ourselves be guided by the Ten Commandments. For example, a ‘commandment’ that today plays an immense role in our ethical deliberation is the ‘commandment’ to respect the freedom of another human being and not to exert any coercion over them; the individual’s responsibility for another can never consist in depriving the other of their responsibility. However, there is no room for this ‘commandment’, were we to orientate ourselves based on the Ten Commandments. We cannot but be struck by the liberal way in which Luther takes a stand on the Law of Moses and the Ten Commandments. This is all the more surprising when we take into account that his position is not based on the historical consciousness that is so characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth century. His liberal attitude is due to his understanding of Christianity. In one religion after another, and also in Judaism, we find one cultic regulation after another; specific times and ways [40] in which one must fast and pray; which ceremonies must be observed at all sorts of occasions; religiously justified and detailed rules concerning moral behaviour and social and political order. Just to mention a couple of extreme examples: the Caste system in India and the dominating influence of the elderly in pre-communist Chinese society. What purpose does this serve in all these religious cultures? The answer is that with cultic forms, with ceremonies, with specific moral behaviour, and with a specific political order, the individual’s and the people’s relationship with the divine is secured. But this function drops out in Christianity. In Christianity there is nothing, no cult, no ceremony, no moral behaviour, no political order, by which the individual must secure the goodwill of the deity. Christianity



     

begins with God’s goodwill, it need not be earned, and this means that the actions of the individual need not ascend to God for his goodwill to descend, rather their actions must extend outwards towards the other human being. The moral and political order is set free. It is exclusively a question about how we can organize our shared life together in the best way. We must use our reason and see for ourselves how we can best give a moral and political form to our common and social life. It is our responsibility to give the world its—ever changing—form. This does not mean that we can do as we please with morality and politics. On the contrary, our responsibility for the moral and political order is radicalized when the religious foundation for it drops away.

5 Politics and Ethics Politics and Ethics [41] There are two different forms of power. One is the immediate or purely personal power that one person exercises over another. This is occasionally also referred to as psychological power. The underlying idea is that the life of one person is interwoven with the life of another, and that in an immediate way all relationships between humans are relations of power. However, another form of power is one that has been delegated to a person. This power is public, and how it is to be exercised is often defined by law. Sometimes this is referred to as power by virtue of authorization. It serves as a way to regulate our life together and protect one person from the encroachment of another. With this we enter into the political life, ‘political’ in the broadest sense. However, here we run into the view that ethics has very little to do with politics, and that the commandment to love your neighbour has nothing whatsoever to do with it. From many different sides—from the ranks of social scientists, as well as from the ranks of theologians—people attempt to pull ethics and politics apart. The justification given by the social sciences is two-fold: (a) economic life has become too complicated for political decisions to be based on ideological and ethical consideration, and (b) in politics, ideology and ethics only serve as a way to camouflage egoistic interests. Or it is put this way: people’s egoistic interests express themselves in the economic laws. Not respecting them will lead to catastrophe. The Soviet Union’s agricultural policy under Stalin is a prime example of this.i Or with reference to the field of wage policy, it is argued that if everyone earns the same income, people will not work as much as everyone else, but as little, causing the total amount of work performed to decline, and Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001



  

everybody will suffer. In the long term, an equal income [42] for all will lower the living standards for all, not only for those whose wage will be reduced, but also for those whose wage initially will increase. Moving on to the justification given by theologians for pulling ethics and politics apart, this is also two-fold: (a) politics concerns the collective order, while ethics in a radical sense belongs to the relation between individual people, and (b) ethics makes politics into Schwärmerei.ii Therefore, the question is: can we introduce ethical consideration into the life of politics effectively, without becoming prone to Schwärmerei, and transfer what applies only to interpersonal relations to the realm of the collective order? What we will have to do is to transpose morality so that it can be used in society, that is, deradicalize and de-emotionalize it. But, one might immediately ask, why not just stick with a moderate morality that can readily be used politically, instead of turning to a radical morality that must first be transposed in order to become politically applicable? There are two reasons for taking the latter option: (1) we cannot conceive of a more natural morality than the very ethical demand which arises from the fundamental fact that there is power in all our mutual relationships, and (2) the most natural morality conceivable is the most radical morality conceivable.

The Golden Rule The most natural of all moral rules is the rule called the Golden Rule, which states that what you want the other person to do unto you, you should do unto them. It is a very radical rule thanks to the element of imagination that it contains, and indeed on which it stands or falls, for here there is no mention of reciprocity. On the contrary. It is not based on recognizing that since the other person has taken care of me, I ought to take care of them in return. It is not a matter of totting things up, it does not say: to the extent the other has helped me in the realization of my life, I shall help them in the realization of theirs. On the contrary, the Golden Rule is radical. It says that even though the other person has done nothing for me, I shall nonetheless do for them what it is that they need. Perhaps the other has never been in a position to do anything for [43] me. Perhaps the other has never had the resources to do so. Briefly put, the rule does not appeal to our experience of how much or how little the other has done for us, but it appeals to our imagination: the

        



charitable acts that I, if I were in the other’s place, would wish done to me, I ought to do for them. Whereas the love commandment, in the formulation it has been given, emphasizes that it is our egoism which demonstrates that the most natural commandment is the most radical, the Golden Rule emphasizes the element of imagination. But just as little as we can get our nature to follow the love commandment, can we get our nature to follow the Golden Rule. Consequently, we cannot arrange society based on an expectation that people will conform to this rule without any inner conflict. It goes without saying that this would be Schwärmerei. But this does not mean that ethics and politics have nothing to do with each other. Only that we have to transpose the commandment and the rule for use in society. This is not achieved by making the Golden Rule a rule of reciprocity. Reciprocity serves no one, politically or otherwise. For, as has already been mentioned, those who are in need of help are often the very people who have not been able to reciprocate and perhaps they might never be able to do so. No, the transposition must consist in arranging society in such a manner that the powerful are coerced to use their power as if they had received it in order to serve others. In principle, we do this in public life by having power be authorized, something delegated to individuals, a power with which they are entrusted, and which they are held accountable for exercising appropriately.

Love of the Neighbour as Realization and as Idea When life between human beings is spoken of in Jesus’s proclamation it is always, or almost always, one individual person facing another individual person. Humankind, the people, are always left out of sight, it is always my relationship to my neighbour that matters. In Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan,iii the issue is the relationship of the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan to the assaulted person. As it turns out, though, there are very few individual relationships that are not somehow mediated by a concrete issue, and that do not involve political problems. [44] It wouldn’t hurt if the Samaritan possessed some medical knowledge and knew something about how to treat wounds. The Samaritan’s compassion, which resulted in his tending to the assaulted



  

person, was at any rate mediated by a concrete issue, in this case through medicine. And we can further elaborate the story, and imagine that in the inn the Samaritan was told that around these parts solitary travellers were frequently assaulted. Therefore, the next time he came to the capital, the Samaritan drew it to the attention of the authorities that bands of robbers roamed the region and made it unsafe, and when the authorities refused to listen to his appeal, he attempted to rally popular opinion to put an end to this nuisance. Out of the compassionate Good Samaritan came the political Good Samaritan. His compassion inspired his politics; that connection is there. But there is also an undeniable difference. There on the road, he realized love for his neighbour, whereas in his political activity, the love for his neighbour only functioned as an idea. But does the latter make any sense at all? Is the commandment not subject to such transformations on the way from Jesus’s talk about its realization to a political conception of it as idea, that it loses its identity in the process? In order to be able to operate with the idea, no love is needed, nor is any neighbour required, any more than it entails any costs. But in that case is there anything left at all? Yes: the reversal of roles is still there. As has already been said, in the reversal of roles which happens when the love of neighbour is realized, there is an element of imagination because the realization does not consist in an individual coming to occupy the situation of the other, and becoming like the other. This would not constitute a reversal of roles, because the second person would then not come to occupy the position of the first person by the first coming to occupy the position of the second, but rather they merely both end up occupying the same position. It is therefore through the imagination that individuals put themselves in the place of the other, proceeding then to do what the other person would appreciate them doing. The realization of neighbourly love consists in the fact that the individual actually does this. The reversal of roles is formulated [45] in the Golden Rule: everything you want done unto you—implied: if you were in their place—you are to do unto them. This implied ‘if you were in their place’ is the element of imagination, whereas ‘you are to do unto them’ is the realization. The Golden Rule’s reversal of roles is illustrated with the parable in Matthew 25.iv What you want others to do unto you—if you were in prison, to visit you—you must do unto them: visit them. The realization does not consist in becoming the other, in going to prison.

        



That does not serve the other, for then they cannot be visited. Nor does the imprisoned person become free by the free person going to prison; the only result will be that both end up in prison. This is not the way to bring about a reversal of roles. No, the reversal of roles consists in imagining what help we would appreciate, if we were in the place of the other, in prison—and the realization consists in providing this help. A precondition for moving love of the neighbour from something realized to an idea is that in the realization there is an element of imagination, namely the reversal of roles. This is what is moved over. On the other hand, the works to which the role reversal is supposed to give rise are different. In the realization, works are performed in relationships between individuals, while in the idea they constitute an activity which has the social order as its objective. When the political Samaritan is inspired by the love of the neighbour as an idea in his attempt to gain influence on the social order, he is not in fact realizing any love of the neighbour. While undertaking his political work he may forget the people who have been assaulted and become preoccupied with what is necessary for the stability of the social order. Nor is society arranged in such a way that people are given the opportunity and scope to love their neighbour. Neither the politician nor the people do so, when love of the neighbour is taken as an idea. Then who is it who loves them? The answer is: no one. Again we must ask if in that case anything is left of the commandment. Yes, there is. Let me illustrate this with a contemporary and an historical example. [46] The reform of the arrangement of society in favour of a more equal distribution of income forces people to distribute consumer goods between themselves as though the strong loved the weak, while at the same time remaining unmoved by the fact that the strong gnash their teeth when their income is curtailed in favour of increasing the income of the weak. If we make political use of love of the neighbour as an idea, then no one loves the neighbour, but there are some who are coerced to behave as if they did. Perhaps the strong accept this on self-interested grounds which they clearly recognize, namely because they reason as follows: only through greater income equality can we avoid an explosion in which we too will be blown away. And if they oppose it, who cares? For although one can only love the neighbour voluntarily, people can very well be coerced to live as if they loved the neighbour, and this must be the purpose of a sensible policy. To use the Golden Rule as a political idea is



  

to arrange society in such a way that people behave as if they loved the neighbour, knowing full well that they do not. And now the historical example.¹ Around 1700 there was a struggle to raise the poor relief needed to provide them with food and shelter. One of the intentions was also to stamp out the blight of begging. The Danish government appointed commissions to find ways to come up with the necessary capital, and submitted proposals for making the door-to-door collections and the collections in the churches more efficient. Certain visionary members of the commission realized that the only thing that would truly make a difference would be a poverty tax, and that is what they proposed. Others would not hear of it. Charity had to be voluntary and to coerce charity out of people through a tax would be both immoral and un-Christian. Charity that is coerced cannot get you into heaven. After a compromise proposal that was still inadequate, the matter ended up with the Poor Relief Statute of 1708, which even though it did constitute progress, it too eventually proved insufficient. [47] This discussion shows that from a political point of view we cannot just accept that if the right motivation is missing, the works will not be performed. Politically, if the motivation is missing, the works must be coerced. It is important to make clear that no one loves the neighbour when we are politically inspired by the Golden Rule as an idea. Otherwise we entangle ourselves in a web of hypocrisy that would inevitably result in cynicism. Jørgen Jørgensenvi points out that in the love of ideas, not only is the idea valued positively, which goes without saying, but so too is one’s love of the idea. Not only is the object (i.e. the idea) valued highly, but also our sentiment (i.e. our love for it). We will therefore be inclined to make it look as though we really feel love for the idea, but only in order to win the esteem of others and secure our self-esteem. This in turn means that the goal is no longer to realize the idea, but to be regarded, in one’s own eyes and the eyes of others, as one who loves the idea (Psykologi på biologisk Grundlag [Psychology on a Biological Basis],

¹ Birgit Løgstrup, Fattigvæsnet i København omkring 1700 med særlig henblik på fattigforordningen af 24.9.1708 [Poor Relief in Copenhagen around 1700 with Special Attention to the Poor Relief Statute of 24.9.1708] (MA Thesis in History at the University of Copenhagen, 1967).v

        



Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1946, p. 517). The two shifts to which Jørgen Jørgensen draws attention become all the more fatal when the idea in question is love for the neighbour. For then a third shift comes in their wake: love of the idea is taken to be love of neighbour. And then, when we seek to make it appear as though we want to realize the idea out of love of the neighbour, we end up with massive hypocrisy. To sum up: it corresponds to the element of imagination in the reversal of roles that we, in the political use of the Golden Rule as an idea, through the coercion involved in the arrangement of society, make people behave as if they lived in accordance with the Golden Rule. Theodor Geiger’svii great idea in Die Gesellschaft zwischen Pathos und Nüchternheit [Society between Pathos and Sobriety, 1960], was that the community of emotions, love and sympathy, belongs within small groups and not in large ones. His claim is analogous to, if not identical with, the theological observation that love for the neighbour is a relation between individuals. On the other hand, the arrangements by which we manage our lives together in large groups become so technical and comprehensive that it exceeds the individual’s spiritual capabilities to have a sympathetic [48] relationship to the others with whom they have dealings or are directed towards in this way. The cooperation in the external interdependence can no longer be secured spontaneously through the emotional community of the inner interdependence and must therefore be secured by a purely objective order. Without sympathy we must learn to work together. Geiger is right about this. But he is not right in the conclusion that he draws, namely, that the ideas must be eliminated from political life, and ethics along with them.² Geiger failed to appreciate the fact that we can very well let the objective order be inspired by ethics without pretending to realize an emotional community. Politically we can and must arrange society as if we had sympathy for each other, even though we are well aware that we do not.

² This conclusion has other premises too, but I will disregard them here. I have dealt with them in my essay ‘Politisk ledelse og massehensyn’ [Political Leadership and Consideration for the Masses] in Kunst og etik [Art and Ethics] (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1961), pp. 128–49.

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  

And that is not all. We simply cannot but organize ourselves—either as though we wished to be concerned with another or as if we only wished to do away with one another. Geiger was caught in an illusion when he believed that the political order could be purely objective. This is impossible, it is always also ethical.

6 Duty [49] Duties are certain actions imposed on us, which arise from either the relations in which we stand to other human beings, or from our work, position, or membership of a larger community. For example, there are parental duties, professional duties, and legal duties. Duties are fixed in advance, and are fairly manageable. Day by day we can get them done, which is also the reason why we can talk about ‘doing’, ‘fulfilling’, or ‘neglecting’ our duty. A duty can only be what we are capable of doing. A task that exceeds our powers and abilities from the outset cannot be a duty, at most it can be our duty to try to do it. If we do not succeed because the task exceeded our powers and abilities, it would be completely out of place to say that we have neglected our duty. Quite frequently, the concept of duty serves to distinguish the actions that are imposed on us and that we are capable of performing, from the actions that we are meant to do, but which lie beyond the limits of our possibilities. Furthermore, duty means that we have no free choice, but we have to do the actions in question (or refrain from them), whether we want to or not. The action’s character of duty becomes especially clear, when we do not want to do it, which is the reason why the word is often used when we are in a conflict between duty and inclination. This does not rule out that at other times we want to do our duty and do it with pleasure. However, we would hardly have called an action (or its omission) a duty, if we did not assume that human beings frequently have no desire to do such actions. To make something a duty is to give human beings a motive to do what they would otherwise not have done (Nowell-Smith).i The philosophical use of the word is connected with the element of [50] necessitation that lies in the meaning of the word. ‘Duty’ comes to mean obligation as such,ii where ‘obligation’ is another word for ‘ought’, Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001





and it becomes the fundamental word in the ethical tradition which assumes that the good is a demand addressed to human beings. Ethics of duty becomes synonymous with deontological ethics. The concept of duty, to kathekon, breaks through in Stoicism. What makes this possible is the Stoic’s doctrine of the all determining natural law of reason in the universe. With it—retaining traditional Greek terminology—the emphasis in the understanding of the good is shifted from the life that flourishes to that of obedience. From being the end that realizes human nature, the good becomes equivalent to being in accordance with the law and reason of the universe through dutiful actions. Because the law and reason of the universe are also present in the individual human being’s reason and as their own nature’s law, the realm of nature and duty are connected with each other in Stoicism. In Kant they are separated in a radical way. His ethics is focused on duty understood as necessitation, and at the same time involves an exaggeration of the contrast between duty and inclination. Human beings are affected by sensual drives, by which Kant did not only mean hunger, thirst, and libido, but also e.g. striving for power, honour, knowledge, and the delight in spreading pleasure through benevolence. For this reason, the moral law, which pertains to pure reason, can mostly only make itself effective as an internal and intellectual compulsion. The action that the individual is necessitated to do by pure reason and its moral law, and which cuts across the inclinations, is called an action from duty. Therefore, through duty the human being rises above themselves as sensual beings to place themselves under the discipline of pure reason. But pure reason is not of this world, but of the intelligible one, and has the entire world of sensations beneath it, including human beings as sensual beings. The origin of duty is the human being’s personality, which consists in its independence from the entire mechanism of nature; therefore as sensual beings human beings are subject to their own personalities, through which they belong to the intelligible world. [51] However, inclination and moral law are not necessarily in conflict. It can happen that a human being performs actions out of inclination that do not conflict with the moral law of pure reason. Nevertheless, such actions are not moral, but only legal. Kant distinguishes sharply between whether actions occur out of respect for the law, so that the spirit of the law is in them, in which case the action is truly moral (an action from duty)—or whether the action is only in accordance with the law, but





otherwise caused by an inclination, so that the action only meets the letter of the law, in which case the action is merely legal (in conformity with duty). No inclination is good in itself, which is why Kant says that ‘many souls are of such a sympathetic character’,iii that they have no vain or self-interested ulterior motives in acting charitably, but simply feel an inner satisfaction in spreading joy around them and who delight in the pleasure of others insofar as it is the result of their action. All this is very admirable and in accordance with duty, but nevertheless without moral value, because these souls do it out of inclination and not out of a duty. Human beings have sympathy for others because it gives them joy. It is an inclination and is therefore ethically disqualified in advance. Only pure reason determines what is good and evil, which only the will can be, because only the will can be the organ of pure reason. However, Kant is aware of the fact that the action from duty cannot be accomplished without some sort of emotional drive, and he finds this in the respect for the moral law—I will return to this matter in the chapter concerning will, choice, and freedom. Respect for the moral law is a feeling that can neither be regarded as a form of pleasure nor of pain, and it is not due to the representation of an object either; it is due to the representation of the moral law. Of all feelings only respect does not have an empirical origin, in spite of its being an empirical phenomenon. On the contrary, it has an intellectual basis, that is, the moral law. At the root of Kant’s conception lies his strong and explicit aversion to all kinds of Schwärmerei. He claims that if we imagine the [52] moral action as an action that we of ourselves want to do and need not be necessitated to do, then we are indulging in a delusion because it is and will always be an illusion that our will’s agreement with the pure law of morality would become our nature, and the commandment would cease to be a commandment. In this illusion we would be denying our finitude. It may be very beautiful to do good out of sympathetic benevolence towards other human beings, or to be just out of love for the order of things, but it is nonetheless a presumption and a denial of our human limitation, as we, when we want to do it from inclination, imagine that we can disregard duty and make ourselves independent of the commandment. For Kant,iv the crucial argument against doing good from inclination is that in so doing we are drawn into illusions about our own nature. If we encourage human beings to do noble, lofty, and





magnanimous deeds, and this means to do meritorious actions and not actions from duty, we promote imaginings and indulge in the illusion that what matters is a voluntary goodness of the spirit which needs neither spurring on nor reining in. Furthermore, human beings end up emphasizing meritoriousness rather than their indebtedness.v Three objections against deontology must be put forward. (1) There is an implicit reasoning in it of the following kind: what is done from inclination is done in order to satisfy it. For this reason actions from inclination are selfish, even though the selfishness is masked when the inclination is, for example, benevolence or sympathy. This is unmasked when we become aware that the action from benevolence and sympathy occurs in order to satisfy the benevolence and sympathy as the inclinations they actually are, and which would make us feel uncomfortable were they not satisfied. From a psychological point of view, the basis of this reasoning is untenable. At its root lies the hedonistic fallacy. It has been noticed— and rightly so—that as regards the striving which arises from need, pleasure occurs when the need is satisfied and the object that was striven for is achieved or the situation that we aimed at is attained. [53] Then it is thought—wrongly—that ‘all things considered’, it is the pleasure which is the ‘real’ end for the individual’s striving. This is not the case. Normally, it is and remains the object and the situation that are striven for, and not the pleasure, regardless of the knowledge from experience that it will occur. But if it is not the satisfaction and its pleasure that are aimed at by the striving based on needs—by the inclination, to use Kant’s expression—then the defamation of the action from inclination, which is a prerequisite for deontology, falls away. Besides, there are inclinations, namely spontaneous expressions of life, which one cannot call needs—unless we take ‘needs’ in such a broad sense that the term is of no use to us phenomenologically speaking. For example, it would not be right to call trust a need—from a phenomenological point of view—because, as previously mentioned, it is not a teleologically determined expression of life. When Kant finds that inclinations want to be satisfied, all things considered, he is thinking of needs, for the correlate of need is satisfaction. But, to take Kant’s own examples, benevolence and sympathy are not needs and do not have satisfaction as their correlates.





(2) Kant lacks a sense for the fact that in the concrete situation before duty is an issue, a spontaneous expression of life is called for, which corresponds with the situation and has the sovereignty necessary to take it over. Only when the spontaneous expression of life—trust, compassion, and sincerity—fails to appear, is there a need for duty. It has to leap into the breach as a new and much needed motive, if the action is even to take place. Duty is a substitute motive for substitute actions.vi But, it should be noted, a substitute that we cannot possibly do without, because at the slightest excuse we shy away from submitting to the spontaneous expressions of life with their devotion to the ends and results of the action. Though inferior to the sovereign expressions of life, duty is of course better than indifference and heartlessness.¹ [54] (3) But Kant also fails to see that the necessitation that is integral to duty comes from and gets its content from the fact that it is integral to human nature and the world that as we grow up, we are forced to take part in each other’s lives in responsible relations; thus the individual, whether they want to or not, is faced with the decision for or against the other. Kant ignores the fact that the necessitation is caused by the fundamental condition of our existence, something we have no power over, namely, that one human being is delivered up to another: if we do not do what is necessary for us to do, and take care of that life which is delivered up to us, then we abuse our power and we make ourselves guilty of the destruction of life. Kant’s failure to see the ontological basis for the ethical necessitation is due to the fact that the entire terminology, which he had developed in connection with his critique of knowledge, is again set to work and applied to the data of moral life. Therefore, these do not get their own, unprejudiced interpretation, but are tucked into the straitjacket of the epistemologically developed concepts. For, the necessitation in duty Kant identifies with the concept of that which is absolutely necessary which he examined in his critique of knowledge. Since he there came to the conclusion that that which is absolutely necessary is that which has its a priori ground in the concepts of pure reason, as a consequence, that which is ethically obligatory must have its ground there too. Thus, it is impossible to find it in experience, ‘in the nature of the human, or in the ¹ I have given a more comprehensive account in my book, Opgør med Kierkegaard, to which here I simply refer.





circumstances of the world in which we are placed’ (Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 389),vii for that which has its ground in this can only lead to empirical knowledge, which as such can never be absolutely necessary. Human nature and the circumstances of the world in which we are placed are thus determined in advance by the epistemological contrast between pure and empirical knowledge. They are the object of empirical knowledge, and since this only concerns contingent data, the first thing that can be said about human nature and the world is that everything is contingent here. But this means, that in this way the fundamental conditions, which we are not in a position to change, are levelled down in advance to the contingent circumstances of our obedience or disobedience to the moral law. [55] From an ethical point of view, the ordering of human nature and the world into a unity of experience by means of the pure concepts of understanding, which was demonstrated in the critique of knowledge, is sheer disorder for Kant. Where the causality of natural laws reigns, what prevails ethically is lawlessness. Thus, in ethics reason must establish a new order, namely, a practical order, which in this way has nothing to do with the fundamental conditions of our existence, but is an order which reason itself provides. Reason alone is capable of creating the moral universe. For Kant, it is only reason’s purely formal determination of the will that is obligating. Otherwise, the will is conditioned by the causality of natural law through the inclinations. Kant has no knowledge of a third option, namely: a determination of the will that is neither purely formal as reason, nor natural law’s causality as inclination, but is at the same time material and obligatory, because it arises from the fundamental conditions of existence, of human nature and the circumstances of the world in which we are placed.viii

7 Responsibility [56] We become responsible when something comes to depend on us. Carrying out a job, performing a task, dealing with a situation, and so on, is down to you or is integral to the office entrusted to you. If we fail, we are guilty of not carrying out the job, not performing the task, not dealing with the situation, and so on. That responsibility stems from what has been made dependent upon us can be seen from the phrases in which the word is used. For example: you ‘bear responsibility’, it is ‘placed on you’, you ‘take on’ the responsibility, responsibility is ‘passed on to’ you, and you ‘shirk’ your responsibility. It is also said that ‘the responsibility is a heavy burden’. These expressions clearly indicate that it is a burden that can be placed on or moved onto a person’s shoulders. The fact that something depends on us can also be seen in the preposition that is connected to ‘responsibility’ and ‘responsible’: a human being is responsible ‘for’ their children, an engineer is responsible ‘for’ the carrying capacity of the bridge, and so on. They must vouch for that which they have been given or taken responsibility for. For this reason, responsibility always already puts us under a possible accusation, which is expressed in the phrase: ‘to run away from your responsibility’; because of the threatening accusation, we cannot run away too quickly, we wrench ourselves free from the shackles of the relationship and flee. To be ‘irresponsible’ is something much more serious than being ‘negligent’ concerning one’s duty. While in their nonchalant ways, people who are negligent can be agreeable to socialize with, it feels at once more insecure and more uncomfortable to socialize with irresponsible people. This is because irresponsibility puts others in some difficulty and perhaps causes harm. When characterized as ‘irresponsible’, it is the Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001





whole person who is condemned, we cannot trust them; whereas ‘being negligent’ only describes a weakness of character. [57] As mentioned before, it is usually determined in advance and reasonably clear what our duty is; but it is more uncertain what responsibility can bring with it. We can work through and complete our duties, but quite often you can work yourself further and further into the responsibility. The responsible person is increasingly bound. This does not mean that some actions are duty and others are responsibility; the two words do not constitute a classification, but are only expressions of two different points of view on the same situations in which individuals find themselves. Responsibility is a two-sided relation: (a) to be responsible for the other, and (b) to be held responsible before a third. The one who says ‘you shall’ to the responsible person is not the one for whom the responsible person is responsible, but on the contrary the one to whom the responsible person is held responsible. When, for example, Luther states that parents in their relationship to their children are in God’s place, it is the parents who are responsible, the children for whom they are responsible, and God is the one to whom the parents will be held responsible for how they have acted in their responsibility for their children. But the children, for whom the parents are responsible, are not the ones to whom the parents are held responsible. For it is quite possible here, as in any relation of responsibility, that our responsibility for the other person consists in doing the opposite of what the other wants from us and perhaps thinks is our responsibility. This involves the responsible person having power over the person for whom they are responsible. It is then just the case that responsibility relations consist in the fact that with this power the responsible person shall serve the person for whom they are responsible. If one overlooks the tension in responsibility between power and service, then one imagines the responsibility relation to be void of insight and power, which is a tendency underlying Grisebach’s thinking.i While, thanks to Kant’s influence, the concept of duty became the fundamental word in most of the philosophical and theological ethics of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, after World War I it is replaced by the word responsibility. This is due to dialectical theology, I-Thou philosophy, and existential philosophy in general, [58] with their clear-sighted recognition that it is characteristic of our existence that we are mutually dependent on each other, and that this dependence is so deep that without it our existence would not be human at all.

8 Choice, Will, and Freedom A Phenomenological Account of the Will [59] To will is not to choose, but to have chosen. The will is a striving that has left choice behind, because to will is to will something particular. ‘I will finish ploughing my field’, ‘I will understand this book’, ‘I will tell them the unpleasant truth’.i If that which we will is already available and does not require much of us, then this is a will in a weakened sense. In this case, the things we will do not need any real consideration, they call for no effort. And if we always only will what is familiar, what is within our reach, then we become blind to all that which would open us to new prospects. As with the will, so with the understanding. Just as many people do not understand what they have never heard about before, similarly, most people do not will what they have never willed or brought about before. This does not imply that they are inactive. On the contrary, it implies busy, but restless busyness. As Heidegger points out in another context,ii the more human beings are blind to new possibilities that regardless of personal success or failure would open new horizons, the more they become busybodies within the familiar which they are constantly reorganizing. Indeed, the restless manoeuvring about within the familiar—to be sure, something is being done!—camouflages the lack of a real will and initiative, which without being intimidated by the risks, challenges resistance. The restless busyness of political speakers or organizers can stem from the fact that they only say or do what they have said or done before. The massive output within an academic field can stem from the fact that academics in their diligence only understand what they have read before in some variation or other. [60] Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001

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, ,  

If obstacles appear, but we still only will that which costs us nothing, then the will becomes a wish. ‘I will’ becomes ‘I would like it to be the case’. If this does not happen, then the will in the strict sense produces in its coming into being an oppositioniii between that which it wills to achieve, and the resistance which it challenges and wills to overcome. Thus, it is precisely in this opposition and in the relation to the resistance which it produces that the will is characterized as strong or weak, as yielding or unyielding. The will of a human being is strong, if the resistance does not make them give up, and weak if the difficulties make them lose heart. The will of a human is unyielding, if struggle stimulates it, yielding if it lets itself be intimidated. It may be illuminating to compare this phenomenological characterization of the will to Kant’s characterization, and to that of psychology. Our life in activity and action is moved by that which Kant called inclination and desire, and which today’s psychology calls needs and striving, but for which we also have other words: urge, proclivity, aspiration, lust. Activity and action acquire a distinctive character through being willed—not, as Kant thought, because reason joins in and makes a rule out of inclination and desire,iv but because inclination and desire meet resistance and are sustained in face of the resistance. It is not necessary, as Kant thought, to generalize the conduct which our present inclination results in for the inclination to become will. For example, for conduct that consists in retaliation and which is brought about by the inclination for taking offence to become a will for revenge, it is not necessary that the conduct and inclination be generalized, that is, be turned into the instance of the rule that we will not let any injustice go by without revenge, and that we take it upon ourselves to follow this rule. It is sufficient that we meet resistance. Even if we do not think at all about the way we have acted in the past and how we will act in the future, but are completely caught up with the current dispute, the inclination to retaliate over suffered injustice can very well become a will to revenge, which it becomes if we cannot manage to get at the other individual, but [61] will it and stick to the inclination. Admittedly, when a person meets resistance, but persists with their undertaking and their will becomes an intensified will, it provides an occasion to stop and think. As long as things go smoothly and needs are satisfied as a matter of course, we may not think a great deal about the things we do. However, as soon as we meet resistance, we cannot avoid pausing to think about what we will to

     



do. Inevitably, questions arise such as: How can I best attain my goal? What means are necessary? Can I get round the obstacles? Is there a reasonable balance between the gains I win by achieving my undertaking, attaining my goal, and the effort I need to make to overcome all the difficulties? Kant is right inasmuch as our reason is active, when our desire becomes will. But the activity of reason is not what is primary. It is the resistance, and that is what gives rise to the reflection. And the deliberation does not necessarily have to consist in either making a rule out of conduct or giving a rule to conduct. The deliberation may also be completely focused on the inclination, the conduct, and the goal in this particular instance. A similar objection can be directed at the psychological characterization of the will. Jørgen Jørgensen labels that kind of striving as ‘willed’ in which we are conscious of the goal, and in which we have imagined the goal in advance of our striving and have intended to carry out the action that leads to the goal. The more difficult it is to reach the goal, the more obstacles and inhibitions that must be overcome, the more our striving is characterized as will. The purposeful element in the striving, which is called ‘will’, can either consist in a decision which is the result of a deliberation process, or in a choice between different possibilities (without a previous deliberation process being necessary), or just an intention (which can emerge purely impulsively without a previous decision) (Psykologi på biologisk Grundlag [Psychology on a Biological Foundation], pp. 402–7). It is rightly said that the more obstacles and inhibitions that must be overcome, the more our striving attains the character of being willed, but still purposefulness is considered as what is primary. By contrast, I believe that the primary element is the obstacles and inhibitions, and the [62] purposefulness of the will only appears, as a result, after they have manifested themselves. As long as things go of their own accord we do not need to envisage the goal; however, as soon as we encounter resistance we cannot avoid doing so. Similarly, resistance is also needed for us to intend to perform the action that leads to the goal.

The Idea of a Disengaged Will In everyday speech we hardly ever call the will free. When we do, as in this one phrase ‘I did it of my own free will’, the usage is illogical and perhaps philosophically suspect. This is because the phrase means that

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, ,  

I have not been forced—but that is an illogical way to express the matter, since it implies that the will can be forced at other times, which, however, in the nature of the case it cannot. I will return to this point. ‘He lacks will’ does not mean that he does not have freedom, but it means that his will is weak and yielding. ‘He has will’ and ‘he has a free hand’ have nothing to do with each other, inasmuch as willing something is having left the position where we have a free hand. As already mentioned ‘I will . . . ’ is always to will something in particular and presupposes that I have taken a stance towards it, and no longer have a free hand. Therefore, to say that the will is free is tantamount to the rash undertaking of characterizing the will before and apart from the resistance against it, which is to say, before it even exists. This is why sane and sensible understanding does not call the will free in everyday speech— apart from the already mentioned exception. Only in philosophy and theology is it called that. But there is good reason to be suspicious of a philosophical or theological terminology that finds no support in everyday speech. And in our case the suspicion is confirmed. This is because, a freed (absolute) will that wills nothing in particular is abstracted from the opposition that the will creates first, and with which creation it also first manifests itself, only to make this disengaged will that wills nothing consist in choosing between alternative possibilities. The will is turned into an ability to choose. How does this happen? [63] Where are these alternative possibilities coming from? The answer is that one of the options is what we willed originally, while the others are possibilities found in the resistance against what we willed originally. Resistance has, so to speak, been turned into one or more possibilities, which, beside what we originally willed, we can now (will!) to choose between. Imagine, for example, that I have begun reading a text that is very difficult as regards its language or intellectual content. And now it does not happen that the subject’s refractoriness transforms my desire to work with the text into a will to overcome all the difficulties; rather, I am tempted to give up. In this situation, there is no lack of good reasons and suggested alternatives. Perhaps, I simply—resigned or relieved—observe that my abilities do not suffice. Or perhaps, I convince myself that as the text is not all that important for my studies, it is not worth investing the effort required by the text to understand it. Or, I will estimate that the investment of all the time needed will not pay off; after all we must admit

     



that its ideas and significance are passé. Or I postpone it all to a later date when I shall be better qualified to understand it, while at the same time knowing somewhere in the back of my mind that I will never resume working with it again. Briefly put, I stand here having to choose between continuing working, or giving up or postponing. The option of continuing working is the original will that is dissolving. The giving up or the postponement of the work is the resistance against the original will, transformed into two other possibilities. But it is meaningless to call ‘will’ the refraining within our will and the wavering produced by the resistance, just because the resistance can be regarded as an alternative possibility to the original will. This is nonetheless very often what is done, when we operate with the will as a free will to choose. What happens is so abstruse that it is precisely the lack of will, the failure of the will, that is made into the will par excellence. But in the will to something, we do not choose between opposed [64] possibilities, since the opposition is created by the will as it challengingly qualifies something as resistance. The opposition is not there before the will, neither is the will present before the opposition, since the will only manifests itself as the challenging qualification of something as resistance. This connection is abstracted from, when the will is called free. For this reason we must distinguish between the actual will and the free will. As I said before, the actual will produces in its coming into being an opposition between what it wills and the resistance that it challenges. In the thesis concerning the freedom of the will, a free will is elevated above this opposition, which then becomes two opposed possibilities between which this free will chooses. What the real will wills on the one hand and the challenging resistance on the other, for the free will merely become different possibilities. They are considered to be there before the will, to lie in front of it—for it to choose between. But in the actual will, one of the different possibilities is that which the human being wills—and the other or others are the resistance, which the actual will challenges. And here there is no choice, since the one set of ‘possibilities’, being the one part of the opposition, is already qualified as resistance in the emergence of the opposition. With the qualification of the opposition as resistance, choice is ruled out in advance. The opposition is an opposition in advance between the will and its resistance, because ‘I will’ is always I will something in particular. And for the same reason, the fact that different possibilities are open for choice means that

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, ,  

I do not will anything yet—because ‘I will’ always means that I will something in particular. But by the characterization of the will as free, we perform the trick through abstraction of producing a will that is exclusively characterized by the fact that in its absolute nature it does not yet will anything. The disengagement, which is incompatible with willing, manifests itself in a doubling of the concept. The question is not what we will, but what we will to will, namely whether the will as ability to choose wills to choose what we originally willed—or one of the other possibilities. In the disengaged free will, to will is to be at a distance from that which we possibly will to will. [65] If it is correct that the resistance constitutes the will, then it is obvious that in one way or another we must be intent on what we will. What we will, the will must be keen on, for otherwise the will would not stand firm to the resistance and stay alive. Even Kant was aware of this, despite the fact that he characterized the good will as the will opposed to inclinations and desire. He expresses this idea by saying that the will always has its state of mind, which is finding pleasure in that which we will.v This is straightforward when the will is not good, but simply is the result of making the desire into a rule. But this is equally true, according to Kant, when it is the moral law that determines the will. But then, what is the pleasure of the will when the will is good and thus wills the good in spite of inclinations and desire? Kant’s answer is that the pleasure of the good will is respect for the moral law. Respect is the element of the good will that finds pleasure in the good, that is keen to will it. Kant even explicitly rejects the idea that desiring might simply appear as an effect of the will and what it is determined by, and emphasizes that the desiring is identical to the state of mind of the will. This is again straightforward when the will is not good, but merely a desire made into a rule. But according to Kant, this applies equally to the good will. It is true that the respect is respect for the moral law, but it does not appear only as the effect of the will willing the good; the respect is, on the contrary, identical with good will’s state of mind (Critique of the Power of Judgement §12, 5: 221–2).vi Why is Kant so keen on rejecting the ideal that pleasure might simply appear as an effect of the good will and what it wills? Well, because if this were the case, then the will—before the pleasure appeared and until it appeared—could will something without

  



finding pleasure in it. But what we will, we will because we find pleasure in it. If the pleasure is not there, we do not will it either. There is no such thing as not finding pleasure in that which we will. What is strange about Kant is that in the middle of his highly constructive thinking his sense of reality breaks through and disturbs his construction, at times indeed with the result that it becomes even more complicated. [66] But let me return to the problem of the disengaged will. In sum, it is not only meaningless to talk about the will as an ability to choose because to will is always to will something in particular, and thus to have left the choice behind, but it is also meaningless because to will something is equivalent to being intent on it, being keen on it, having a desire for it.

Luther and Erasmus It is curious to see how Luther rejects any conception of a disengaged will thanks to philosophically clear thinking and thanks to temperament— they work together splendidly in this case. This takes place in the discussion with Erasmus.vii Erasmus’s definition of the free will, which Luther quotes and polemicizes against, reads: ‘Furthermore, by free will in this context we understand a power in the human will by which a human being can turn towards what leads to eternal salvation, or turn away from it.’viii Luther complains about the indeterminacy of the definition. ‘But these words are like throwing punches blindfold: “turn towards”. Likewise: “what leads to”. Likewise: “turn away from” ’. And Luther presents his own view as follows: ‘Thus, the power of human will is called, I believe, “capacity”, or “faculty”, or “ability”, or “aptitude”, for willing, not willing, selecting, scorning, approving, disapproving, and whatever other actions of the will might exist. But what it means for the same power to “turn towards” or “turn away from”, I do not comprehend.’ Erasmus’s definition of the free will is based on a line of reasoning we know because it is brought up repeatedly in the theological discussion: but surely we really must will to accept God’s grace, we really must will to say yes to it, we really must turn towards it. In opposition to this, Luther sticks to the word ‘will’ in its strict sense come what may. The power of the human will is ‘to accept or to slight, approve or reject, love or hate’. ‘It is impossible, if you will or do not will a thing, that you should not be able by that will to achieve at least

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, ,  

something.’ In other words, to will is to make ourselves [67] one with that which we will, it is to challenge the resistance and go into battle. Luther has far too much linguistic sensitivity to let the word ‘will’ in its full meaning slip out of his grasp for even a single moment. Luther does not know what will is, if it does not challenge resistance and is not a struggle. ‘But what it means for that same power to “turn towards” or “turn away from” I cannot see.’ For Luther this is a will that, therefore, after all, does not will anything. And this is the contradiction into which Luther forces Erasmus’s statements by sticking to the word ‘will’ in its strict sense time and time again. Erasmus operates with a will that by itself, in virtue of being free, has desire and urges, but without being able to achieve anything with this desire and urge. Luther asks what sort of odd thing it is that Erasmus is talking about. ‘But perhaps the Diatribe is dreaming that between the two options, willing the good and not willing the good, there is a midpoint, which would be absolute willing, whose nature would neither be for good nor for evil’. In other words, with his claim that the will is free Erasmus gives up speaking of the will in its strict sense, because in its strict sense to will is already to be capable of achieving something, namely to challenge resistance and struggle against it, since the will only comes into being with the challenge and the struggle. A will that is not capable of achieving anything, and which Erasmus is operating with, is by definition no will at all, because it is a will that wills nothing. The thesis concerning the freedom of the will, and that means freedom of choice—‘liberum arbitrium indifferentiae’—is the presupposition of a disengaged will that neutralizes the resistance into a mere option of choice, which is meaningless since will consists of having engaged ourselves with something. Luther calls the disengaged will ‘velle absolutum’, it is released, absolutus, from the engagement in which it was first conceived at all. It is a midpoint will, ‘medium velle’, in which we do not yet will or not will something: ‘purum et merum velle’ (De servo arbitrio, WA Abt 1, 18: 661–9/LW 33: 102–11).ix As is well known, Luther denied freedom of the will and claimed it is bound. By this, he does not mean that the will is bound by its nature and could be experienced as coerced. This is [68] excluded by the fact that to will is to find pleasure in what we will. A coerced will does not exist, since to will something is to be keen on it. It cannot be said that a will is coerced to will something.

  



By contrast, a human being can be coerced to act. The action can be either coerced or willed. And the coerced action is precisely the sort of action we are coerced to do against our will. Thus in his protest against the thesis concerning the freedom of the will, Luther does not put forward another philosophical conception against it, according to which the will is bound and coerced by nature. But, then, what does Luther mean when he claims that the will is bound? He states an historical fact. As it happens, human beings are bound, and therefore so is their will. This means that the bondage of the will is something we know about our will, but not something we know from our will. The bondage of the will means that what we desire and are keen on, and consequently will, is not something that we are capable of deciding ourselves. What we will is decided before we will it.

Coactio and Necessitas The claim concerning the freedom of the will and the claim concerning the bondage of the will are, therefore, not claims on the same level. Erasmus’s claim that the will is free purports to be ‘une vérité de raison’. Luther’s claim that the will is bound is ‘une vérité de fait’. Luther makes clear that the bondage of the will is not a quality of experience, but on the contrary a fact, by putting the concept ‘necessitas’ in opposition to the concept ‘coactio’. Therefore, I say ‘necessarily’ (everything we do is evil, when God is not present in us with his work), rather than ‘coerced’; but, with the necessity of immutability (as it is called), not by coercion. This means, therefore, that human beings, when they are without the spirit of God, do not do evil against their will, and under force, as though they were taken by the scruff of the neck and dragged into it, like a thief or a footpad being dragged off against their will to punishment; but they do it of their own accord and with a ready will. And by themselves human beings cannot relinquish, tame or change this desire or will, but they continue [69] to will and desire.

What is the difference between necessity and coercion? The necessity is something that must be established. The force is something that is experienced. Now, when the will wills evil with necessity, but not through coercion, this means that the will does not decide for itself what it wills. In their will, human beings are not their own masters, but they will what they will—with a necessity that they themselves cannot



, ,  

change. ‘This is what we mean by the necessity of immutability: that the will cannot change itself, nor turn itself towards something else; but rather the more it meets resistance, the more it is provoked into willing (evil)’ (De servo arbitrio, WA Abt 1, 18: 634–5/LW 33: 64; WA Abt 1, 18: 702–21/LW 33: 164–95, cf. Luther: An Open Letter on the Harsh Book Against the Peasants, 1525, WA Abt. 1, 18: 394–5/LW 46: 76–7).

Two Different Questions The question whether the will is free or bound can be the sort of question that appears of itself, because it arises in a tense situation where I must do a specific thing. Whether we will it or not, only appears as a question for one thing at a time, and every time only regarding something specific. This is the question Luther is asking. On the other hand, Erasmus is asking whether the will is free or bound by nature, while abstracting from every possible object of the will. Luther and Erasmus do not each have their own answer to the same question of whether the will is free or bound, but each of them has his own question. Luther asks: ‘Do I will the good, the words and works of God that I have to do?’ And he answers no: ‘Without the spirit of God, my will is bound to willing evil.’ Erasmus asks: ‘What does willing mean as such?’, thereby disregarding all the particular things that we can will. As a result, Erasmus does not ask himself: ‘Is my will that wills this particular thing free or bound?’ But then the questions ‘Is my will free or bound?’ and ‘Is his or her will free or bound?’ amount to the same thing. We are in the realm of universal truths. Luther also does not answer only for himself, but rather for everyone. Yet his answer is not a universal truth. But then, how does [70] he know that not only his own will is bound, but also that of all other human beings? We would expect that either he can only answer for himself, or if he answers for everyone, then his answer must be based on a universal truth concerning the nature of the will. However, Luther can answer for everyone, without stating a universal truth that the will is bound by nature, because he knows from the word of God that human beings are sinners and can only be saved by grace. It is solely because it is God’s truth that it applies to everyone. For this reason, Luther cannot exchange his ‘I’ for a ‘him or her’ either—despite the fact that it is true that the will of all human beings is bound—as could be done, if it were a matter of

  



universal truths. God is the only one who can say a word that applies to all, without what is said becoming a universal truth that applies to anyone as a representative of all.

Displacing the Battlefield and Making It Internal to Human Beings The resistance, which is necessary for my striving to become will, can stem from a lack of ability. If I give up immediately, I do not know whether I was capable of doing it, had I truly willed it. However, it can also happen that I try to overcome this lack of ability, through applying my will in a strict sense—but still I come up short. I will, but I cannot. As one might put it: ‘the will is willing, but the abilities are lacking’. This is now applied to the ethical sphere. According to the thesis concerning the freedom of the will, the good is at the same time both an object for the will and an ability. The will is free to turn towards and turn away. We will the good of ourselves, of our own free will. But we are unable to achieve anything with the will, we cannot do anything through our own effort. We will to, but we cannot. The ability for good is lacking. And our will cannot do anything against this lack, no matter how good it might be. We are placed in a conflict between will and ability. But then human beings are no longer understood in their relation to the world in which they exist. They are not absorbed by what they are doing, whether this is through a will for good or a will for evil. But when the good is a special ability that we lack and which the will is in conflict with without being able to prevail, then the battlefield is displaced and made internal to human beings. Luther’s experience is wholly opposed to this conception. The [71] lack of ability to do the good, which Erasmus operates with, is in Luther’s view a will to do evil. And the free will, which according to Erasmus’s conception wills the good powerlessly, is in Luther’s view a delusion. Perhaps one might agree with Luther’s claim that what we were inclined to call a lack of ability to do the good is in reality a will to do evil— without, however, being prepared to give up the idea that we have a free will, which is a will to do the good. The idea is, then, that the free will to do the good is powerless against a stronger will to do evil. The battlefield

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, ,  

that is internal to human beings is now the domain of the will. The will is at odds with itself. Thus, when the free and pure and absolute will is not capable of anything, this is not due to the fact that it is bound by a power outside of human beings, so that human beings willingly and with pleasure will what that power wills. Rather, the reason is that it is weak and yielding, no matter whether it yields to the lack of ability to do the good or to a stronger will to do evil. Therefore, Luther also says of it: ‘But more properly it [the free will] should be called “the turnable will” or “the mutable will” ’ (WA Abt 1, 18: 662/LW 33: 103). The will’s distinguished title as ‘free’, and its elevated stature as ‘pure’ and ‘absolute’, do not match very well its real weakness and tendency to yield. Its titles are hardly particularly appropriate. Luther calls them pompous and empty arrogant designations. What lies behind all this fuss about the conflict between the will and the ability to do the good, or behind the talk about the will being at odds with itself, is in reality the fleeting and questionable aspiration that I ‘am keen—I guess—to will’ the good and God’s word and work. When the ability to do the good is lacking or the will to do evil is stronger, then ‘the will’ to do the good is a mere aspiration, and in an aspiration we can tell ourselves all sorts of things. When the will to do the good is not able to achieve anything, the only way to know that we will the good is by experiencing it. The will is experienced as something good and weak, which succumbs. All the characterizations that can be used to determine the nature of the will are turned into qualities of experience. The entire scenario is displaced [72] and made internal to human beings. The individual person does not know the bondage of the will from their existence in the world, but experiences the will’s weakness in their own interior. The pure will, which cannot achieve anything because in its purity it wills nothing definite and therefore can only be experienced, is the will of disengaged human beings, who can afford and have the time to abound in experiences by observing their stream of consciousness. Descartes’s concept of the will is on a par with Erasmus’s; Descartes’s concept is just clearer and freed from the internal contradiction which Erasmus’s account suffered from, a problem that Luther kept insisting on to Erasmus. Kierkegaard’s concept of the will is on a par with Luther’s,

’     



although a completely new problem appears which is caused by the emergence of a new battlefront.

Descartes’s Concept of the Disengaged Will In the fourth meditation, Descartes declares that the will of human beings is as unlimited as that of God. In itself, God’s will is not greater than that of human beings; this also is why the likeness of human beings to God consists first and foremost in the will.¹ Of all the abilities that human beings possess, only the will cannot be conceived of as more perfect than it is. The argument for this is two-fold: (a) the will consists exclusively in the fact that we can either do or not do the same thing, i.e. we can either confirm or deny it, pursue it or flee from it. In other words, we are not coerced when we either confirm or deny, pursue or flee from the things that our intellect suggests to us. (b) According to its nature the will is whole and undivided; we cannot subtract anything from it without destroying it. The reason why Descartes equips the will with perfection in this way is thus that, all things considered, he has reduced the will to a disengaged ability to choose, so that the question what human beings are capable of is not a matter of the will but of other abilities, first and foremost [73] of understanding. Because the understanding is limited, what human beings are capable of is limited. This is the same concept of the will as we find in Erasmus, though with two modifications. The contradiction in Erasmus’s concept of will—that the will can both achieve something and not achieve something—is resolved, because the conception of a disengaged will has been taken to its ultimate consequence. Because it is only an ability to choose, the will can will anything. Its perfection consists in being disengaged. Therefore, all things considered, it does not detract from the perfection of the will when it wills the false and evil, which happens when it goes beyond the limits of understanding. The perfection of the will is something purely formal, and it has nothing to do with the object of the will.

¹ The reason why the will of God nevertheless is far and away greater, more firm and more efficacious, is because of its combination with God’s knowledge and power, but also because as its object, it has an infinite amount of things.

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, ,  

The second modification consists in the fact that, while for Erasmus freedom was the will’s own nature, for Descartes freedom is something that knowledge gives to the will, and which has nothing to do with its perfection as the ability to choose. Descartes argues: to be free is not the same as being indifferent when choosing between opposite things. On the contrary, the more I am inclined to choose one of them, because I know in an evident manner that it is true and good, the more free my choice is. Natural knowledge in no way diminishes my freedom; on the contrary, it increases it. On the other hand, a choice out of indifference is the lowest degree of freedom, which is due to lack of knowledge. If I know clearly what is good and true I will not doubt my judgement and my choice; therefore I am perfectly free without being indifferent. The will is thus equally perfect whether it wills what lies within the limits of the understanding and follows what is clearly known by it, or whether it wills what it has chosen to will in an indifferent choice. Yet, this makes a big difference when it comes to the will’s freedom. The will is free to a high degree when it follows the understanding in its clear knowledge, and to a small degree when it is an indifferent choice that is made.² [74] Yet the question arises whether there is not a contradiction in Descartes’s conception too, though of a different sort. When the perfection of the will consists in its ability to choose, then the perfection must manifest itself in the freedom of choice, i.e. in the indifferent choice. But since freedom of choice is equivalent to free will of the lowest degree, then the perfection of the will manifests itself most clearly when the will is least free.

Kierkegaard Like Luther, Kierkegaard dissociates himself from the notion of the free and disengaged will, ‘liberum arbitrium’. But as pointed out earlier, their conceptions differ too. Kierkegaard faces a battlefront that Luther did ² The way Descartes uses the word ‘free’ varies: (a) whether the object is clearly known or not determines whether the will is free or not, and as mentioned before, this is a sort of freedom that has nothing to do with the perfection of the will. This is the proper meaning. (b) But sometimes Descartes also uses the word free as equivalent to perfect, namely, as the ability to choose. This, however, I will disregard.





not, namely determinism. Unlike Luther, Kierkegaard has to fight on two fronts, so to speak: both against the free will, liberum arbitrium, and against determinism. Therefore, he is forced to make a new distinction, i.e. the distinction between the free and disengaged will, liberum arbitrium, and the freedom which existence is. Freedom, which existence itself is, he puts in opposition to both liberum arbitrium and determinism. As a result, we could formulate the difference between Luther and Kierkegaard in the following way: while Luther dissociates himself from liberum arbitrium in the name of the will, Kierkegaard dissociates himself from liberum arbitrium in the name of freedom, namely, in the name of the freedom which existence is. As the individual turns themselves inwards, they discover freedom, not a freedom to choose between one thing or another (i.e. liberum arbitrium), but the fact that they themselves are freedom (The Concept of Anxiety, SKS 4: 410/KW 8: 108).x The fact that existence itself is freedom means that its distinguishing feature is choice and decision. Kierkegaard can express this by claiming that freedom only exists in concreto, [75] never in abstracto. He polemicizes against making freedom something abstract, namely liberum arbitrium. ‘When we give freedom a moment to choose between good and evil without ourselves being part of it, then exactly in that moment freedom is not freedom, but a meaningless reflection’ (The Concept of Anxiety, SKS 4: 413 note/KW 8: 111–12 note). These are the words of Vigilius Haufniensis, but they could just as well have been Luther’s. It is the will as a midpoint will, as a medium velle, from which they dissociate themselves. And what Kierkegaard calls the abstract character of liberum arbitrium is in Luther called a ‘velle absolutum’, a disengaged will, ‘merum et purum velle’. With this talk about the freedom of existence, Kierkegaard wants to say that human beings use their freedom to render themselves unfree. Kierkegaard’s purpose is to maintain at one and the same time both that the individual’s existence is freedom, and that they live unfreely, i.e. in guilt. The claim that human beings live unfreely is equivalent to Luther’s claim that the will is bound. But whereas Luther restricts himself to claiming that humans are guilty because their will and desire is for evil and that this is not changed by the fact that their will is bound, Kierkegaard wants to show that human beings are guilty in their unfree lives, because their existence is freedom. Whereas Luther’s thoughts are focused on the will, Kierkegaard’s thoughts are focused on freedom, as



, ,  

Kierkegaard faced a task that was unknown to Luther, namely, to steer clear from and refute the deterministic view of the human psyche. This is because Kierkegaard distances himself from determinism using the same distinction between liberum arbitrium and the freedom which existence is itself. Determinism corresponds with liberum arbitrium, the freedom of existence corresponds with guilt. In other words, liberum arbitrium wants to break with determinism, but is not able to because it presupposes determinism. It suffers from an internal contradiction; hence Kierkegaard can leave it to determinism to destroy liberum arbitrium in order to assert the freedom of existence. [76]

Determinism and Indeterminism Indeterminism reasons in the following way: if a human being’s choice is determined by nature and nurture, then it makes no sense to pass an ethical judgement on the choice and the actions which result from it; it only makes sense if the choice is not determined. But since we assume that it makes sense to pass ethical judgements, it is concluded that the choice is not determined. Determinism can mean two different things: out of the acknowledgement that the choice of human beings is determined, they are exonerated from responsibility and guilt. The fact is that the more we get clarity over how biological inheritance and social environment have determined the personality and character of a human being, the less we take account of their responsibility and the less guilt we attribute to them. The judge experiences this when the social environment of the accused is described, and the psychiatrist experiences this when they become acquainted with a human being’s psychopathological constitution. Thus, this kind of determinism shares with indeterminism the view that it makes no sense to speak of responsibility and guilt, if the will and the choice are determined. It just does not share indeterminism’s point of departure, that it must make sense to pass ethical judgements, and for this reason neither does it draw indeterminism’s conclusion that the will and the choice are not determined. It takes the opposite point of departure, that is, that the will and the choice are determined, and draws the conclusion that responsibility and guilt are illusions. But in our day another form of determinism is reasonably prevalent, which maintains that to call an action intentional and to judge it as either

  



good or bad, it is sufficient that the human being in question could have acted differently if they had chosen to do so. The reason why it makes good sense to condemn a crime is that the criminal would not have committed it, if they had wanted to abstain from committing it. And the reason why it usually does not make sense to condemn a person for falling ill is that they would have fallen ill even if they would have wanted to avoid it. Responsibility is not abolished by the principle of causality, by the determination of the will; it [77] would only be abolished by the claim that all actions are unintentional, so that there is no difference between committing a crime intentionally and falling ill unintentionally (G. E. Moore).xi Indeed, this view is the complete opposite of the conception that indeterminism and the first kind of determinism have in common. Only if the choice is determined does it make sense to make an ethical judgement concerning it, inasmuch as the ethical judgement is made hoping that it will be a new factor, among other factors, which determine the choice of the human being in question. On the other hand, if the choice is not determined, it does not stem from the agent’s personality but is purely arbitrary, and therefore we cannot hope to influence this personality and their choice, so that it makes no sense to make ethical judgements. It is characteristic of the discussion between indeterminism and determinism that despite indeterminism’s arguments being inferior to those of determinism, the former never ceases to rail against the latter. This is because indeterminism takes human existence to be threatened by determinism, but its argument against it only takes the form of negating determinism and consequently shares its presupposition that the will is a psychological function. The fact of the matter is that when we conceive of the human psyche as a connection of functions, this is in order to uncover natural laws. In other words, if we understand the will as a psychological function, we presuppose that it is determined. For this reason it is a contradiction to ascribe freedom to the will understood as a psychological function, a contradiction that indeterminism is guilty of from the very beginning. Furthermore, this meant that indeterminism became a rather meagre enterprise. When it accepted determinism’s understanding of the human psyche, it could obviously not develop an understanding of how human existence might be when it is freedom. Freedom was only understood as a breach in the connection of functions. [78]

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, ,  

Since in the nature of the case it is ruled out that theologians could have endorsed the first kind of determinism, which considers responsibility and guilt as illusions, and since indeterminism upheld concern with the ethical character of human existence, over time many theologians have endorsed it. Not all of them, however. In one respect Luther and Calvin’s view is on a par with the second kind of determinism. When it claims that as the will is determined, the action remains nonetheless willed, and for this reason either good or evil, the Reformers make the corresponding claim that the bondage of the will does not abolish human responsibility for who they are and what they do. Therefore, both deploy the difference between necessity and coercion. Both the determination of the will in the causal sense and the bondage of the will in the sense that without God’s Spirit human beings do evil, mean that human beings necessarily will what they will, but that this necessity does not abolish human responsibility. Only coercion does that. But the will cannot be coerced, only the action. However, the Reformers’ view differs from that of the second kind of determinism in two other respects: (a) bondage and determination are not the same thing. It is the human being as a whole who is bound, while it is the single psychological event that is determined. Thus, while the Reformers presuppose that the human being is a whole, talk of determination presupposes that the human being is a series of psychological events connected together by causal laws. (b) The Reformers made a distinction that cannot be found in the thinking of determinism and indeterminism, and since it is this distinction that gives the meaning to the word ‘free will’ for the Reformers, this meaning cannot be found in determinism and indeterminism either. In Luther the distinction is as follows: (a) God has revealed his personal will to human beings in his commandments and commands. In the encounter with this will, human beings experience in faith and recognition of sins that their own will is bound. (b) On the other hand, God has not revealed to human beings his will in an ontological sense, with which God in an impersonal way, that is without commandments and commands, leads the will and [79] actions of human beings. Therefore, regarding God’s will in an ontological sense, human beings experience their own will as free—in the absence of commandments and commands. Human beings can do what they will, notwithstanding the fact that God’s will ontologically speaking also leads human beings in those actions which in civil matters they undertake out

     



of free will. Thus ‘free will’ means here neither, as in indeterminism, an absolute, uncaused will; nor, as in the first kind of determinism, an illusion; nor, as in the second kind of determinism, that the will unlike the action cannot be coerced; but rather ‘free will’ here means that human beings in an ethical-religious sense have a free hand.

Existential Philosophy The idea that existence is freedom, or (as Kierkegaard expresses it) the freedom which the individual is themselves, is in existential philosophyxii expressed as the idea that existence is possibility. By asserting this, existential philosophy no more adopts an indeterministic position than does Kierkegaard. Along with Kierkegaard, existential philosophy swaps round the basis for our explanation and what is in need of an explanation. Contrary to the indeterminist, the existential philosopher assumes that human beings are freedom and possibility, and what they think must be explained is how it can be that a human being uses their freedom and possibility to live in a determined way. For example, part of what Heidegger explains is that human beings live lost in the crowd.xiii But since the existential philosopher assumes that human existence is possibility, is freedom, they become able to unpack all that this implies and is connected with. We can certainly not claim that, for example, Heidegger’s analysis of the constitution of the human existence is meagre.

The Undivided Nature of the Will Descartes claimed that the will was one single entity and could not be divided. Consequently, by its very nature we cannot subtract anything from it without destroying it. In other words, if we will something, then we will it fully and entirely by the very nature of the will. [80] The moment we waver or falter, we no longer will it. Either-or. There is no such thing as both willing and not willing something. However, is this not quite unrealistic? Obviously, the will is hypostatized here. It is treated as if it were an entity in our mental life. This view comes under the critique put forward by philosophers such as Jørgen Jørgensen and Gilbert Ryle against the mythical conception of mental life in popular psychology.

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, ,  

They object to a double misunderstanding: (a) the will—and also the drives with which the will is considered to be struggling—are turned into independent forces by popular psychology in order to personify them, as it is imagined that they work in the same way as human beings do. But this means that the ‘explanation’ of human activity, which thus is given by means of the will and the drives, strictly speaking merely comes to consist in a doubling of the same activity. (b) The second misunderstanding found in popular psychology consists in the fact that the will is located within the organism in a distinct mental world and is considered a distinctive act by which consciousness turns its thinking into action: we think about accomplishing something, but since our thinking is a non-performing act, a new act is required, i.e. the will, to carry out the performance. Thus, a movement in the physical world is explained as willed by the fact that an act of the will as a movement in the mental world was its cause. However, this explanation is illusory, in part because we do not get to know anything more than what we already know from the behaviour itself, i.e. from the movement in the physical world; and in part because the mental world, within which the act of will allegedly belongs, is at the same time regarded as being outside the causal system of the corporeal world, though it has to provide the cause of an action in the physical world (Jørgen Jørgensen, Psykologi på biologisk Grundlag [Psychology on a Biological Basis], pp. 402–7; Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson, 1949), pp. 61–81). The philosophical critique of the idea of the will as a special mental entity of this kind is supported by the fact that we know from our experience that the will is an ambiguous phenomenon. Nevertheless, there is no getting away from the fact that in [81] some way or other it is integral to the nature of the will that it is whole and undivided. In some way or other, Descartes is right. But then the question is, from where does the idea of the whole and undivided will originate, when in experience we only know it in its dividedness and ambiguity, which strictly speaking transforms it into its opposite? My answer is the following: when we call an action ‘willed’—just as when we call a behaviour or a disposition ‘truthful’, ‘loyal’, or ‘trustful’— we have invested it with a requirement. We simply cannot give them a name without at the same time posing a requirement that requires of them that they live up to their name. The sheer naming is in itself a

     



requirement to what is named. Language, in its sheer naming, is ethical. We know the unbroken and unambiguous character from the name, and the requirement for wholeheartedness that is contained in the name. When it is said that the will ‘strictly speaking’ is whole and undivided, then the strict speaking is language’s strict speaking. By contrast, wholeheartedness is not something we know when we look retrospectively at the will, truthfulness, trust, etc. as psychological events. What we can observe in this way is something completely different, i.e. mixed, ambiguous phenomena, a trust that might as well be called mistrust, a love that might as well be called lovelessness, a will that might as well be called lack of will. So it seems that what we call will, truthfulness, love, faithfulness, trust are two very different things. They are (a) the psychological phenomena which we can register retrospectively, and which are fleeting, fluid, and changeable; but they are also (b) the disposition, behaviour, action in the light of the linguistic requirement on them that they be constant and wholehearted. In this way, the name and the requirement for wholeheartedness in the name give rise to an understanding of what is named: will, loyalty, truthfulness, etc. are conceived of as independently working powers in mental life. Popular psychology with its mythical conception and personification of the processes of mental life is, therefore, also a fruit of the ethics that is contained within language. [82] But the name’s inherent requirement has also had other effects than giving rise to a mythologizing psychology. As a matter of fact, most of the mental phenomena for which we have a name are compounds. But one of the factors that have contributed to compounding the phenomena is the requirement that the name contains. To an eminent degree, language has contributed to constituting our minds. When sometimes the striving of a human being is characterized by a will to go on targeting the goal which it has set itself and keeping at it despite all hindrances and difficulties, then the requirement for wholeheartedness which lies in the name ‘will’ has its part therein. The will is a compound phenomenon. It is a striving that has got a resistance to overcome, as the resistance has given rise to the occasion to focus on the goal and the effort. But one factor that has been instrumental in creating the less compounded phenomenon of striving from the more compounded phenomenon of will, is the requirement for undividedness, concentration, pulling oneself together, endurance, which lies in the very word ‘will’ itself.

9 Choice, Decision, and Resolution [83] In choice we are the masters of the situation. To the possibilities between which we can choose, another possibility is added, which is the possibility to refrain from choosing. This has as its precondition that the person is faced with the different possibilities which the choice offers, standing at a distance from them, so that the indifference does not create a new situation for the person. By refraining from choosing, the person remains in the given situation that they happen to be in. In decision, there is no possibility for indifference. We delude ourselves when we believe that we can refrain from deciding. The decision is stronger than we are. The pretence of refraining from the decision is itself a decision—perhaps a failure—since the refraining brings the individual into a new situation. In the decision, whatever we do or refrain from doing is fateful. The word ‘decision’ has a greater weight than the word ‘choice’. A choice can be made based on just whatever we happen to find to be good,i but not a decision. This is because in the decision too much is at stake. It cannot be undone. The difference is confirmed when we compare theoretical and practical decisions. For, the word ‘decision’ is used not just about a ‘choice of a radical significance, turning point and critical situation’ (Danish Dictionary), but the word is also used in purely theoretical scientific matters. ‘The insightful philosopher has sought to decide this matter through experiments’ (ibid.). Here, ‘to decide’ means to attain clarity about something. The clarity, won through insight, decides the theoretical doubt and uncertainty. Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001

, ,  



What in the decisions of practical life settles doubt and uncertainty is not only insight or clarity, but a personal effort. But, as before, this also rules out pursuing just whatever we happen to find to be good. [84] All this does not mean that some situations are choices and others are decisions. The same situations can be taken either as a matter of choice or of decision. The situations arrange themselves in a long sequence according to the weight which the element of decision has in them—all the way down to the weight of the decision is zero, where the matter is something quite trivial, where we are dealing with a pure choice.¹ In resolution, the process of deliberation is brought to a conclusion, so that we can move on. We cannot remain in the deliberation, the situation intensifies, and the resolution is made. It is a push forward. We dismantle the past to tackle that which the future offers. Jørgen Jørgensen makes the following distinction between choice and resolution: a choice is between several possibilities, but can be deliberate as well as undeliberate. We can make an unpremeditated choice. On the other hand, a resolution is the result of a process of deliberation (Psykologi på biologisk Grundlag, pp. 404–5). We can be the initiator of the resolution, while the decision, as mentioned before, is our master. We ‘make’ a resolution, but we ‘are placed in’ a decision.²

¹ Quite characteristically, Kierkegaard uses the word ‘choice’ in Practice in Christianity, as long as the presentation is preliminary. The possibility of offence forces human beings to choose between believing or not believing. But when the presentation becomes more focused, when the stakes are raised, and what is really meant comes out, then the word ‘choice’ is involuntarily replaced by the word ‘decision’ (SKS 12: 141/KW 20: 138 and the previous pages). ² Regarding the role that a time limit places on a decision, permit me to refer to the section on ‘Decision and Resolution’ in my work The Ethical Demand, §9.1.

10 Politics The Replacement of the Estates-Based Society with Civil Life [85] The question concerning the limits of the power of the state is an old one, and was previously formulated in the following way: How far does the arm of the worldly authorities reach?i This question became relevant for Luther and his answer was: the worldly authorities go too far in their exercise of power when they intervene in the kingdom and regiment of God, by which he understood in this connection the Christian proclamation. The kingdom of this world must be ruled by the worldly authorities, the kingdom of God by Christ. The regiment of the worldly authorities concerns body, property, and in general everything external on earth—and nothing else. By contrast, the soul is of no concern to the worldly authorities; God wants to rule it himself. Therefore, if the worldly power presumes to give laws for the soul and force people to a specific faith, then it encroaches on the regiment of God (Luther, On Secular Authority, 1523). His understanding and formulation is determined by the historical situation, where a number of Catholic princes tried to stop the spread of an evangelical understanding of Christianity with force. Luther’s conception of the problem was—perhaps—good for his time; at any rate the contemporary conflict rendered it appropriate. But if we carry it over to later times, it falls short. This already becomes clear when we see that for Luther the question of the limits of the power of the state coincides with the question of the relation between state and church. This is obviously not the case for us today! It is no longer that simple. We cannot draw the limits of the power of the state with the dichotomies of

Løgstrup: Ethical Concepts and Problems. Translated by Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos, with an introduction by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, and notes by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern. Oxford University Press (2020). © the Estate of K. E. Løgstrup 1917. Translation © Kees van Kooten Niekerk and Kristian-Alberto Lykke Cobos 2020. Introduction © Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk 2020. Editorial notes © Bjørn Rajberg and Robert Stern 2020. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198859048.001.0001

 -    



‘internal–external’ and ‘soul–body’ and, besides, neither can we separate the domains of the state and the church from each other. There are two main reasons why we cannot settle for [86] Luther’s conception of the problem. The internal domain or the domain of the soul, to use his expression provisionally, becomes too narrow, when it is circumscribed by the human being’s stance on the Christian proclamation—in faith or lack of faith. As if there was no need for soul or internal life for anything else than loving the neighbour and contemplating the salvation of the soul. As a matter of fact, we do actually need the soul and internal life for performing most of our temporal and worldly tasks too. If we are to raise our children in a way that is at least adequate, it is not sufficient for parents to love them, neither is it sufficient for Christian parents to raise their children with Christian teachings; insight and judgement are necessary, both pedagogically and psychologically. If our professional life is to succeed, it is necessary to have the will to listen to our opposite party, the ability to comprehend the thinking of others, and a sense for their concerns. And we could go on with examples like these. In all relations between human beings mediated by matters of objective concern,ii there must be respect for the opponent’s independence, which checks us in attempting to force the other over to our side, if we are to have any hope that the matter of objective concern is to be resolved appropriately. ‘Soul’ and ‘interiority’ are both old-fashioned expressions that need to be translated, and perhaps we could say that what we are dealing with here are tasks that can only be performed, human relations that can only succeed, if the whole person is engaged with them. This stands in contradistinction to things that can be done, duties that can be fulfilled, either by following habit or by merely following external prescriptions like observing the speed limit, arriving on time, paying our taxes. These things are not done more poorly, if we are not absorbed in them. On the contrary, it is best if we follow the traffic regulations automatically, and it is a waste of energy to come in time or pay our taxes out of any other motive than habit. Just because a piece of information or an insight addresses a matter of objective concern, this does not mean that for that reason it is external. To get to grips with matters of objective concern, with what is reasonable and appropriate, individuals must still engage their mind and powers. But in Luther there is a tendency that was typical of his time to include all

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

that is required for deliberation on matters of objective concern, and to deal with them, under what is external and corporeal. [87] There is a corresponding conception of worldly authorities which also leads to a simplification, if we apply it to our own times, and this is the second reason why we cannot settle for Luther’s conception of the problem. In Luther’s time, the purpose of the worldly authorities was to make sure that law and order were preserved and peace was kept, both internally in the country and externally in relation to hostile countries. The worldly authorities made sure of this by legislation and a threat to punish potential criminals and enemies, and by carrying out the punishment when the threat was not enough. Put somewhat pointedly, the instrument of the worldly authorities was the sword and only that. This rather simplistic view of the task of the worldly authorities contributes in its own way to the view that the worldly regiment should only be concerned with what involves the body and with what is external in general. Obviously the sword can only hew into the body and not into the soul, only hew into external things and not into the inner life. One presupposition for conceiving of the task of the worldly authorities in this simplistic way was that the people were peasants and villagers, and life in society was patriarchal and bound to estates. The bondage to the estate does not exclude individuals being there for their neighbours, the masters of the house for their servants, the servants for their master, the princes for their subjects, the subjects for their prince, but the bondage to the estate excludes that any man or woman—except the men who occupy the office of the worldly authorities—could take an initiative for the common good. No one complained about the bondage to the estate—not yet, as the people were peasants and villagers. A civil life, which in this context would consist in human beings having an eye for the tasks set by common life, and taking these up without any connection to an appropriate office, was unknown. However, it is known to us. Much social welfare has come about in this way. Much enlightenment, including education of adults, has arisen from an initiative independent of any office, I mean from a private initiative on a public level, e.g. Folkehøjskolen [folk high schools],iii Arbejdernes Oplysningsforbund [the Workers’ Education Association], followed by the other educational associations. It is also a civil initiative when a police superintendent and their constables arrange a street dance for the youth in Copenhagen in connection with their youth club, not because this has anything to do with their office, but they do so voluntarily. [88]

 

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In most cases at some point the state gets involved. What has been started is considered to be so important for common life that the authorities have to support the activity financially without which it could not continue to exist. Then the problem arises whether the state should not consequently also oversee what it supports financially. It would appear that the prevailing point of view is that the government and politicians say: we give the money, we set up the framework, but the content is your business. No oversight should be exercised on the outlook on life, on the political, social, religious, artistic points of view: it must be restricted to the minimum, namely that abuse of funds does not occur. Whether the state’s oversight exceeds this limit or not, is a question that everybody can only answer with regard to their own country, and with regard to the Danish authorities I can only answer that to my knowledge they have always shown the best of judgement in this matter. Let me give an example which I think is typical: nowadays no folk high school could survive without the support of the state. Until now, the person that the state has chosen for the office to monitor that no abuse of the funds takes place, has been a person from within the folk high schools, who did not only enjoy the trust of the authorities, but concerning whom the authorities attached just as much weight to the fact that the person enjoyed the trust of the folk high schools themselves. A collaboration of this sort between a civil initiative and political support was inconceivable on the terms of the society based on estates and the patriarchal structure. But wait, we might ask, what about Luther himself? He took a stand on all sorts of things: the Peasants’ Revolt, the war with the Turks, military service, economic life, governmental rule, school systems, and much else. Well, that is quite true, but the bondage to the estate and the patriarchal structure of society nevertheless still comes through. He felt obliged to give a justification for the fact that he meddled—much against his will, he claims—in all sorts of issues, which were normally matters for the worldly authorities to deal with. The justification was that he was a doctor; that gave him the right, indeed the duty, to do it. [89]

Cultural Policy The interaction between civil initiative and state support happens not least in cultural policy. It has its detractors, who argue that cultural life is

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suffocated by the support of the state. With respect to the arts, they say that first-rate works of art are created only by overcoming adversities and only under unconditional freedom. If the arts are organized as a planned culture as in a planned economy, then our cultural life would become really tame and mediocre, directed and controlled. To be sure, it might not turn out to be without talent, but it would become the golden age for those with little talent. In the argumentation above in favour of the separation of cultural life from the state, there are two points of view that are practically never distinguished from one another; the one is continually submerged within the other, the argument all the time slides back and forth. However, precisely these two points of view need to be distinguished from each other. The first point of view is that whatever the state supports it must also oversee, which is why it inevitably comes to direct it. The second point of view is that adversity, especially of the economic sort, is the decisive selective factor in the arts. What overcomes the adversity has quality, perhaps the quality is even born out of the adversity. What did not have the strength to overcome it was without quality. The first point of view contains an important problem; on the other hand, I consider the second to be no more than an inanity. Let us examine them separately. As I have already mentioned, state funding of cultural enterprises does not entail state control. One of the things that distinguishes the Nordic democratic tradition is the fact that the state provides the financial framework for a large part of our cultural life, but without demanding guarantees as to its content, concerning certain worldviews or political outlooks. Enterprises that are so expensive that they could not survive from one day to the next without state funding are nevertheless [90] given the greatest possible freedom, and we all consider this to be a matter of course. The ministry is only concerned with protecting us against sheer con-artists. We can only protect ourselves against censorship of opinions by giving apolitical expert committees the final say on awarding the grants and the selection of people to support. Of course, the expert and perhaps self-nominating committee or institution can degenerate, turn into a clique and represent an exclusive school. This risk is taken, and it must be faced, but it is not so great. This is not because members of expert committees have higher morals or a stronger will for objectivity than politicians, but because in the nature of the case they are obliged by

 

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something different from the politicians. Experts are obliged by their expertise, politicians by their political convictions. The difference is not a moral one, but a material one. By its very nature, what obliges politicians does not qualify them for the acts or assessments that are required of the committee. In other words, and for the same reasons, if they were to manage arts grants, politicians would not be able to avoid a conflict time and again between for example an artistic and a political consideration, and that is a conflict that an expert would not come to experience. Briefly put, people have to work in the field where their obligation lies, which has to be unambiguous, and it is on this they must be attacked when they fail it. As mentioned before, the second point of view which is at play when state support is said to suffocate cultural life, is that it only becomes strong through adversity. ‘Cultural life only thrives on a rocky field.’ If anything deserves to be called an inanity, then this statement does. If we look at arts funding, the inanity surfaces due to a transposition of the competitive mentality of the financial field into that of the artistic field. The argument goes as follows: what would this flourishing business have amounted to without struggle and competition! They were necessary as stimuli. This is also [91] true for artists. Adversity is necessary to force them to exercise all the energy within them. However, this transposition makes no sense, because the activities are too different. What is true for outwardly directed activities is not true for a work that demands immersion. Not only is it the task of the state to provide the external conditions for the creation of culture, but also to provide for the public’s engagement with the cultural goods. Already people’s increased spare time requires an expansion of the framework for the engagement with culture. Spare time is not a good thing unconditionally. For most people a rhythm between work and spare time is required in order to enjoy the spare time. This is one point. Another point is the fact that work must outweigh free time, if the spare time is to be enjoyed as a pastime, as play and recreation. If work time becomes too short for the spare time to be relaxing, play and recreation becomes boring and narcissistic. We are thrown back onto our own mood and state of mind, because there is no concrete matter to

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captivate them and absorb the power of the mind. When spare time expands to a certain point, in order to endure it we need to transform it into a sort of work, in the sense that study, the acquisition of knowledge, dedication to a cause, captures our mind and gives us the opportunity to exercise our mental powers. But the increased amount of spare time is not the only problem that has emerged in modern times. In order for democracy to be consolidated, so that the independence and self-assurance, without which a democratic constitution is just floating in the air, could become a matter of course for the individual citizen, enlightenment and the spread of cultural goods was needed. This was the purpose of the struggle of the nineteenth century. It was seen that if, as in earlier times, involvement in enlightenment and cultural goods in general was reserved for a small upper class, this would be incompatible with democratic life. A problem that people did not worry about, nor needed to worry about, when the struggle for equal access to enlightenment [92] and cultural goods was going on, was the levelling down that the eventual spread of cultural goods obviously makes tempting. The demand for quality is reduced, in order to bring everyone in. Previously, in the Victorian era, it was no problem for quality to connect with people. Cultural goods were created for the few, and the small upper class, which had privileged access to culture, gave prestige to quality. Today this is different. Maintaining the level of quality has become a problem. It is important that we do not consider new problems in terms of the old. The state should not replace the upper class by trying to provide what the old upper class used to provide. The state should not give prestige to quality in place of the old upper class. All the state should do is give quality the chance to flourish. Nor is the problem that just as previously the endeavour was to give everyone access to the cultural goods, the endeavour should now be to make everybody appreciate and accept quality. The difference between then and now is not that before only a few appreciated quality and now everybody should appreciate it, but the difference is that before appreciation for quality was limited to a special class, but now there are people who appreciate quality from all social classes. It is not an economically conditioned privilege. Everyone must have the opportunity, but no one shall be forced to take it. What matters is that everywhere, in every class and every institution, there are individuals who care about things, take

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care of them, and are capable of making an impartial judgement. It matters also politically that there are enough centres of spiritual energy, because it is the radiation from them that creates political life in a democratic sense.

The Replacement of the Estates-Based Society with Political Life In the view of the Reformers, the worldly authorities had been bestowed with the power by God to serve their subjects. They thought that otherwise the worldly authorities could not punish or wage wars. When judges sentence criminals to their death it is not the work of the judge, but that of God, because only God may kill—and the worldly authorities through which God [93] acts. Likewise the wrath of the worldly authorities is the wrath of God, when the soldier goes to war at the bidding of the worldly authorities. The persons of the worldly authorities are, as Calvin expresses it, ‘lieutenants and vicars of God’.iv The idea that the worldly authorities have not only been entrusted with their power for the sake of the people, but also through the people, was alien to Luther as well as Calvin. It was beyond them that the power of worldly authorities should be delegated by the people, and this despite the fact that the idea of popular sovereignty was sufficiently known at the time. This idea played a role in the Middle Ages and it appears again in post-Reformation thinking, but the two Reformers bypassed it. Luther and Calvin set themselves apart from that tradition. This does not mean that the Reformers regarded the structure of society as a sort of power pyramid. Firstly, the possessors of public power were themselves subject to the enforcement of the law, for the sake of which they had been bestowed the power. Secondly, any worldly power was built into a complicated power structure in order to prevent unrestrained displays of power. Anyone who exercises power is also subject to power. One power holds the other power in check. The ordinancesv do not just sit side by side, but interconnect with each other. For example, the power of the worldly authorities has its source in the power of the parents. But this is an ethico-religious consideration. Just as the parents have been bestowed power over their children to care for them, the worldly authorities have been bestowed power over their

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subjects to care for them. However, the parents cannot function as a political authority. The worldly authorities have no worldly authority above themselves, or on the same level. Their power is not delegated in a worldly sense. And this is due to the patriarchal structure of society that happened to be the sociological guise that Luther and Calvin gave their socio-ethical ideas. By far the majority of the relations that human beings have to each other are official relations, and that means that they consist of an inferior and a superior party: children-parents, servants-masters of the house, assistant-master, pupil-teacher, subject-prince. However, this should not be taken too rigidly either. To be sure, the inferior party should obey the superior one, but not blindly. It is true [94] that Luther, while emphasizing that the worldly authorities have power over our external lives, body and property—tariffs, tax, fear, and honour, as he puts it—at the same time stresses the duty to obey the worldly authorities, but he does not do so unconditionally. Refusal to obey can become a duty, not only when subjects are being forced into a faith, but also when they are commanded by their prince to do something that they consider unjust. The subjects should make up their mind independently whether to obey the command the prince gives. If the prince’s war is unjust, the soldier should refuse to obey them. Therefore, it is quite possible to replace the guise of the patriarchal estate society, which Luther gave his vocation-ethics, with the sociological guise that we wear today. A contribution in this direction has been offered by H. Østergaard-Nielsen in his Luther study (Scriptura sacra et viva vox [Holy Scripture and Living Voice], Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1957):vi he replaces the idea of the conditions of an office relation as a relation between inferior and superior parties with the idea that in their mutual relation, the parties each have their own responsibility, which is distinct, but corresponds to each other. The responsibility of the mother is different from that of the child, but the responsibility of the mother corresponds to the child’s and vice versa. But of course the change that has come about since the sixteenth century is enormous. Today there is no worldly authority that does not have an authority besides it. This is because we assume that public power is delegated, so anyone who has power must be accountable for how they have exercised it. If they have abused it, it can be taken away from them. Power is divided, the power of each domain is carefully limited, and there are instructions for how to exercise it. Montesquieu’s division of power

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into a legislative, executive, and judicial power has become the established practice. But furthermore, new political institutions have appeared. At that time, three of the five institutions that political science reckons with today—a legislative body, a government, and a court of law—were concentrated in one hand, while two of them—the political parties and the NGOs (trade unions, employers’ associations, and trade associations)—did not exist yet. Not to [95] mention the fact that the administration has made itself independent, so that it is to be considered a ‘political institution’. Today, the division of society into estates corresponds to the division of society into NGOs and organizations. They act as pressure groups, something the estates could not do, because the division into estates was too rigorous, as it was grounded on a metaphysical conception of power. No matter how unfairly treated and oppressed an estate felt, it could only make reference to Christianity as a social ideology, and if the oppression became too much to bear, rebellion was the only last desperate way out, something we know from the peasants’ rebellions of the Middle Ages and the Reformation. In the estates-based society, only princes and their retinue engaged with politics; today everyone engages with politics, more or less. Political struggle goes on continuously as an attempt to alter or sustain the given distribution of goods, to use Poul Meyer’s definition of politics.vii Before, the princes and their retinue were judged on how they discharged their office, and it was mainly a moral judgement. The worldly authority must be admonished for its vices, but Luther adds that only someone who holds an office suitable for admonishment can admonish, e.g. a preacher; everybody else should stay quiet. Today, by contrast, we all voice our opinions, both morally and as members of some pressure group or another. Yet another difference between now and then is the fact that back then the social order was largely accepted, no one thought about criticizing it or changing it—except the Schwärmers. Only the abuse of power was condemned. Today the struggle for the distribution of goods is also a struggle over the social order. When, today, political parties divide themselves into liberals and socialists, what they disagree on is the social order, for that is what the labels ‘liberal’ and ‘socialist’ mean. And if we ask what the criteria to evaluate the structure of society are, both current society and the one we aim for, there are probably mainly three: (1) Does it tackle social problems? (2) Is it efficient? (3) Does it offer freedom? [96]

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The Statesperson’s Loss of Power and the Formation of Public Opinion It is integral to democracy that individual citizens give their opinion not only on domestic policy, but also on foreign policy. Also, when the public sphere concerns foreign policy, private initiative at a public level is needed. There are special reasons for this. Time and again on matters of foreign policy, prime ministers and their governments have to stick to formalities and not with a single word touch on what is actually happening. For example: the Nordic prime ministers are silent—and forced to be silent—about the documented fact that the American military uses the war in Vietnam to test new and horrifying weaponry, even weapons that only make sense if used against a civilian population, that they operate with a scorched earth policy, and that in their warfare they violate the rules of international law. Here we meet the paradoxical fact that at the same time as politicians, members of the government, prime ministers and foreign ministers, are invested with power, they are also divested of power. They can no longer say what they mean, in this respect their absolute political power makes them more powerless than any one of us. Moreover, gagged and bound, they even have to pretend to be able to say their heartfelt opinion about everything at any time, and pretend that they actually do say it. However, they had better not really say it! If today the prime minister or foreign minister uttered just one word of condemnation concerning America’s way of waging war in Vietnam, they would no longer be prime minister or foreign minister tomorrow. These are tough conditions, but such are the rules of the game. Another result of the same loss of power: in a crisis situation and concerning a controversial matter, a government may not contact the opposition in another country, even if it has all its sympathy. Suppose that the prime minister or foreign minister does not have any sympathy for the government in another country; they must nevertheless stick to it and ignore the opposition. [97] This is required by the game of diplomacy. There are exceptions, but these are few.¹

¹ Greece, after the military coup d’état, is such an exception. The Nordic governments have been able to contact the opposition, the suppressed democratic majority. But the Nordic governments cannot contact the American opposition that subjects the American

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None of us think much about the loss of power which is a result of political office, a loss, which is the greater the higher the office, and the greater the power it has in other respects, and often this makes us quite unfair towards politicians. We ignore the conditions under which they work. Statespersons can rarely act promptly because the room for manoeuvre does not already exist; they first have to fight for it. A crisis can create it, but even then it can be quite limited. The loss of power that all politicians suffer when placed in an exposed position, and which consists not least in the loss of freedom of speech, is accepted by them in order to be able to exploit the opportunities for diplomatic negotiation which their office gives them in return, and only to them, and in this consists the absolute power of the office. But when politicians must pay for their opportunity for direct engagement in foreign negotiations with loss of their freedom of speech, it becomes even more important that others speak up. The things that the politician must be silent about, others must say. Simply because things must be called by their name. This is the first condition for changing them. Foreign policy cannot be left to the politicians alone. No one who enters into politics with an idea of how the state of things can be improved, and with a will to implement reforms, escapes the realization of just how bound he or she becomes. Politicians cannot do what they consider to be right, actually, they cannot even say it, as mentioned before. In their diplomatic activity, prime ministers and foreign ministers may feel annoyed and obstructed by the things we shout about. [98] But they have to accept this for the sake of the matter at hand. It is simply the case that political decisions are not determined by negotiations among the politicians alone. Negotiations take place under the influence of public opinion, both consciously and unconsciously, something that no politician is unaffected by. Psychologically speaking, it is understandable that, with the office they have, the politicians in executing foreign policy abstract from the influence that public opinion also has on the political agenda, but this is and remains an abstraction. If we take into account just how sensitive the superpowers sometimes are about their prestige, then we cannot rule out that they take into consideration public opinion government’s policy and warfare in Vietnam to the fiercest criticism, even though it is the opposition that has the undivided sympathy of the Nordic governments.

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that is widespread in many other countries. Indeed, are we not often struck by the idea that the politicians of the superpowers exaggerate the significance that they ascribe to their nation’s prestige? For its sake, they stubbornly keep going following the wrong path which they have taken. But since prestige plays the part it does, we might as well play on it, which in this case means using it to our advantage for the sake of a good cause. Political life takes place on two levels, and there is an uninterrupted interaction between them; we could call them the diplomatic level and the level of public opinion. Let me stay with the example of the Vietnam War. The American government can only for a time ignore the consequences of the distrust towards the political position of the United States that is spreading in the West because of the war in Vietnam, and which threatens to isolate the United States. It happens from time to time that politicians cannot bring themselves to avoid suffering the fatal consequences of their own wrong decisions, because then they would have to admit that they were wrong in the first place. When this is the case, we must hope that public opinion can force the politicians out of their captivity in their own wrong decisions and their consequences. Not least in times of crisis, cooperation between the oppositions across borders is required. And when the politicians in one country are prevented from contacting the opposition in another country, at any rate others must have the freedom to do so. Quite often the same goals are pursued, though each on their level: on the level of diplomacy and of public opinion. [99]

The Right of Resistance Neither Luther nor Calvin lacked a sense of to what extent princes behaved in an unbridled way, and that one had to be prepared for the worst from them. Calvin says in The Institutes of the Christian Religion: Most of the princes go astray; some are lulled by pleasure and a lustful way of life without giving their duties a thought, and others are obsessed by greed, and turn laws, privileges, rights and sentences into objects for sale, while others tax the poor people harshly only to live a uninhibited life of excess themselves, and others carry out planned robberies, rape virgins and married women and kill innocent people.viii

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Neither do the two Reformers have any delusions about how the states have been created or have been taken into possession; usually this has happened through plunder, violence, and injustice. But all this does not mean that the subjects do not owe obedience to the worldly authorities. No matter how brutally the worldly authorities behave, none of the Reformers accepts that the injustice committed by the worldly authorities justifies the subjects in opposing them. The reason is that the worldly authorities have their power from God, and consequently whoever uses the authoritative person’s abuse of their office as grounds to overthrow them is thereby rebelling against God’s ordinance. God has bound his will to the worldly authorities, and obeying them is to obey God. There is certainly a tremendous contrast between the ordinance’s divinity and the tyrants who usually hold the office. But abuse of the office does not abolish it. The worldly authority can behave badly, raging wildly and uncontrolled, but it remains the worldly authority, it still has its power from God, and the office is still there. Therefore, Luther says to the peasants in his works occasioned by the Peasants’ Revolt that no matter how much injustice the worldly authorities do to them, they must nevertheless obey and honour them. Calvin says the same thing to the reformed congregations in France during the religious persecutions. Luther is very straightforward when he scolds the princes and condemns them fiercely for their actions, yet in his vehemence there is no shred of rebellion. The condemnation of [100] the person takes place out of respect for the office, and on this the behaviour of the governing person is measured. Consequently, Luther can as a matter of course scold the worldly authority fiercely and yet at the same time express his submissiveness. In one and the same breath. The fact that the worldly authorities’ abuse of office does not justify the right of resistance does not mean, as already mentioned, that the subjects may not refuse to obey the worldly authorities. They have to, when the worldly authority commands them to renounce their faith. It is just that the refusal to obey must never be active, only passive. If the prince punishes their passive disobedience, they are not allowed to offer any resistance, but must suffer injustice and let the prince rage. These are the words of Luther. And Calvin’s position on the persecutions in France is exactly the same. When the king wants to force the reformed people to hold their service according to the rites of the Catholic Church, they have

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to refuse to obey him and continue to hold their reformed service. But they may not rebel. Their disobedience may only be passive and only concern this matter. In everything else that the king commands they have to obey and honour him. Obviously, the subject should not only refuse to obey the worldly authority when it commands them to renounce their faith, but also when it commands them to do something unjust. It is a question of both a religiously and an ethically justified refusal to obey. But active resistance is also not allowed when it is a matter of injustice, because the power in virtue of which the tyrants are the enemies of God and act against him, has been bestowed upon them by God. Therefore, subjects may not overthrow them, nor refuse to obey their other commands. An important presupposition of this way of thinking is that all power that exists, and which is exercised by one human being over another, is God’s. Whether it is the worldly authority that has power over its subjects, or the parents who have power over their children, this power is either exercised in obedience to God on his behalf, or usurped from God and now used as if it were their own. If princes think the ground and origin of their power lies in their own will, so that they do not exercise it on God’s behalf, [101] they have seated themselves on God’s throne, as Luther puts it. Thus there are not two kinds of power: one divine and unlimited and one human and limited, which we should take care not to exceed in an exaggeration which makes it inhuman. According to its own nature, power is unlimited, because there is no power that is not God’s. Power is only limited by the particular and specific task for which human beings have been bestowed with the power of their office by God. The reason why offices exist, is because power by its nature is divine. A human being cannot exercise any power except on God’s behalf—for the sake of the task God has given them to fulfil with the office. For the same reason, the power in the hands of the authorities that do not respect their task and office, becomes an open usurpation from God. The specific task for which the worldly authorities have been bestowed with power is the enforcement of the justice they themselves are subject to. The understanding of power serves as the most important, but not the only, argument for Luther and Calvin against the right of resistance. Another religious argument states that God has sent the tyrant to the

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people to punish their injustice. To get rid of the tyrant through violence is therefore a way to avoid the punishment that we deserve. But political arguments of a more practical nature are put forward too. Thus, Calvin argues that there is no tyranny, no matter how terribly it behaves, that does not also contain good elements. After all, the tyrant serves in some way to uphold human society, so that even the most terrible tyranny is preferable to anarchy. And Luther has no doubts that the mob which comes to power through rebellion will turn out to be ten times worse than the worst of tyrants. The threat of anarchy makes the two Reformers accept any order whatsoever, no matter how bad, just because it is order and not anarchy. An argument to which he attaches great importance and which he revisits time and again, Luther derives from natural law. A part of its content is the fundamental rule for all judicial ruling that no one [102] may be the judge of their own cause and take matters into their own hands. The individual must leave this to the worldly authorities. To be in the wrong and to punish a wrong are two different things. Anybody can be right and wrong. On the other hand, to adjudicate between right and wrong you must be under command, and only the worldly authorities are in that position. If the person who suffers the wrong takes it upon themselves to punish the wrongdoer, then there will be neither order nor justice left in the world. But what if it is the worldly authorities who commit the injustice? In that case, the principle of natural law still applies, that no one can be the judge of their own cause. If the matter concerns a worldly authority which commits injustice, and a people who suffer injustice, the worldly authority is God himself. Hence, to rebel is to judge and take revenge in a matter in which the people itself is a party, and that amounts to intervening in God’s office. If we take a look at the Peasants’ Revolt in Germany one is struck by one thing: the Christian justification given by the peasants for their revolt. As in all earlier revolutionary movements, there is also here a set of slogans that recurs: divine law, the law of the Gospel, divine justice, and Christian or Evangelical freedom. With these slogans, the peasants want to justify their cause and fight their battle. This is what Luther criticizes with such vehemence in particular. To be Christian is to suffer injustice and endure evil. The Christian is a martyr on earth. Therefore, if the peasants do not

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want to suffer evil and injustice, then the least they should do is give up calling themselves Christian, since they are not fighting like Christians, but as people who want what is theirs. The issue at stake between the two parties is worldly rights and wrongs, and temporal goods, and not something Christian. Luther thinks that his cause is most seriously compromised by the peasants’ Christian justification for their revolt. When the peasants still want to call themselves Christians, despite their brutality, then at this point their issue also becomes an issue for Luther. Then they become his enemies, who will obstruct the Gospel more than the Pope and the Emperor ever did, because in that case the peasants fight against the Gospel in the name of the Gospel. There can no longer be any devils left in hell, for they must all have taken possession of the peasants, that’s what Luther thinks. [103] By this, he is not saying that it is only Christians who may not rebel, while non-Christians may. He only wants to say that Christians should be the last to fall for the temptation to revolt. But neither Christians nor non-Christians have the right to actively resist the tyrant. Calvin agrees with Luther on this matter. He does not want the reformed congregations in France, which were subject to persecutions for their faith, to resist the king, and he argues against the idea in the same way that he argues against any sort of revolt whatsoever. Furthermore, something else played a role for Luther. He was indignant at the papal church’s conflation of the spiritual and worldly regiments, which in reality meant that the church encroached on the tasks of the worldly authorities. Luther aimed at strengthening the worldly authorities. He claimed that no one ever worked as hard as he to do this, but it goes without saying that these efforts too were thwarted by the Peasants’ Revolt. It is not possible to make a revolution without slogans and ideology. But back then there was no other place to find slogans and ideology than in Christianity. However, it goes without saying that a historical consideration of this sort was not possible in the sixteenth century. I leave aside Calvin’s view of ‘the inferior magistrates’,ix which is a precondition for his approval of the active resistance that the French Protestants exercise in a particular situation, just as I leave aside Luther’s claims concerning the princes’ right to armed resistance against the Emperor. They do not shed light on the difference between the views

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on the right of resistance back then and now. The same is true of the ethics of exception which they both recognize, and which applies when a hero with a special calling from God and a special ability punishes an unjust ruler and liberates a people. For this reason, I leave this aside as well. The Reformers’ argumentation against the right of resistance is not relevant to us today. They only envisaged personally experienced injustice as a ground for active resistance. Therefore, Luther can argue against revolt by applying the principle of natural law that [104] no one can be the judge of their own cause. It lay beyond their horizon that the revolt could happen for the sake of the people, so that those who appear from outside to be rebels, elevate themselves to judges not of their own cause but of that of their neighbours, because they have responsibility for them. The difference is due to the fact that we nowadays have the idea that individuals are co-responsible for the life of the people to which they belong; an idea that did not exist in the sixteenth century. The view of the Reformers could be as simple as it was, because they lived in an estatesbased society in which the estate limited the individual’s responsibility, so that it was even impudent to be interested in the common good. As they saw it, their rejection of the right to resist was based on their view of Christianity, but that was a delusion they had; their rejection of the right to resist was in reality based on the structure of the society in which they lived. From the theological insight that all power which exists is God’s, it only follows that the worldly authorities exercise an office which God has given them, but it does not follow that they are the representatives of God on earth to whom the subjects owe unconditional obedience. In the time of the Reformation, people drew this conclusion only in virtue of the estates-based society in which the responsibility of the individual was limited in a completely different way than is the case in modern society. For us, things are very different. When individuals obey the worldly authorities, they do so because they are co-responsible for the legal order, which is served by the regulations of the worldly authorities. God’s command does not come to the individual reflected in the command of the worldly authorities, but it comes to the individual in the responsibility for the cause, a responsibility which the worldly authorities and the citizens share. Therefore, obedience is never unconditional; today, this would abolish the individual’s responsibility.

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‘The right of resistance’ is the classical term, which referred to the right of the oppressed to revolt against their tyrants. But today it is about something else: namely, for the sake of the oppressed, the duty to confront the oppressors with an iron fist. The issue has become transformed into something new: not the right of resistance, but the duty of resistance. The question is not whether the oppressed should submit to everything, but [105] whether, faced with oppression, we are allowed to be outsiders and confine ourselves to look on passively and neutrally. Power is not only a public phenomenon. One person’s life is so entangled with the life of another that, in an immediate way, all relationships between human beings are relations of power. For this reason, there are many areas in our lives together where law and order do not reach and should not reach, but which, nevertheless, are relations of power. The difference between the abuses of power that law and order can deal with, and those it cannot, is not a difference in degree, but a difference in kind. For it to be possible to legislate against abuse of power and subject it to legal prosecution, it must be objectively demonstrable, e.g. purely tangible things must be at stake, such as money or property. But the abuse of power which cannot be demonstrated purely objectively does not become any less destructive by the fact that it is and should be disregarded by the law and the courts. In this case, is there also a right to resist or a duty to resist? Kjeld Abell has presented this problem in a provocative way in the play Anna Sophie Hedvig.x Here he transfers the duty to resist from the political world to the small world of a school. In the political world, the issue is resistance against the government of a country, whose most significant task is to secure the rule of law. Since this is the main reason why the government has been given power in the first place, the rule of law is dissolved if it abuses its power. And in such a case, since only the political rulers have the office to secure the rule of law, the people have to take matters into their own hands with all the risks that this might imply. For ultimately, these risks may prove smaller than those which a tyrannical and mad government may itself inflict on the rule of law. This is the justification of the right and duty to resist, which in this way is of a purely legal character. However, it is not only governments that abuse their power. Private persons do so too. But in these cases, the victims do not have the right to

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take the law into their own hands, which is also true for witnesses; they are not allowed to intervene with physical force to stop the abuse of power either. For this [106] would dissolve the rule of law. Even if an injustice would be compensated for in the specific case, in the long run all law would be dissolved and turned into pure vigilantism. In the long run, law can only survive if there is an office that stands up for the rights of the injured party with physical force. However, the event in Kjeld Abell’s play on which everything is focused and which triggers the entire plot, consists in the private person and teacher Anna Sophie Hedvig’s intervening with the ultimate physical power, i.e. murder, just in time to stop a colleague, Mrs Møller, from her hateful destruction of the school. From a legal point of view, Anna Sophie Hedvig’s action, to which the whole play is a clear tribute, is an attack on the rule of law. When Mrs Møller ignores Anna Sophie Hedvig’s plea and does not want to have herself be dissuaded from her revengeful behaviour, Anna Sophie Hedvig becomes distraught and before she knows it, she has pushed her over the landing on which they are standing and killed her. The story is exciting, dramatic throughout, and the milieu and the generational differences are characterized convincingly and vividly through their attitude to Anna Sophie Hedvig, but I leave all this aside. Kjeld Abell has taken the problem of resistance to its highest degree. And we cannot disregard the heightening by saying that Anna Sophie Hedvig’s action in the small world of the school is only meant as a symbol of revolutionary action in the political events of the larger world. It is true that the play is meant as a symbol, which is clearly stated with an epilogue, to which I will return in another context. Kjeld Abell wants to say that what happened then, in 1939 when the play was first performed, in Franco’s Spain and Hitler’s Germany, involves us all; indeed we are all party to this matter. We do not want to accept this, even though it is true. We do not want to face the fact that we live peacefully and comfortably at the expense of those who are oppressed and suffer, and we do not want to realize that our passivity affects others and abandons those who lose their lives in the battle against oppression to their fate. But Anna Sophie Hedvig’s action should not be exclusively conceived of in [107] symbolic terms. In that case the symbol would not work, because we would have to object that Kjeld Abell had overlooked the crucial legal difference between revolutionary resistance, whose goal

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is to restore legality, and the resistance of a private individual, which ends up undermining it. But does the heightening mean that the problem becomes absurd? Not at all! The heightening serves to disclose something important. And it is quite clear what it is. The abuse of power is as destructive in our small world as it is in the large world, but in our small world we can fight against it, while we can be cut off from intervening in the large world. At times for the individual it is ‘so far away’. We probably know there are limits to how much oppression, exploitation, and violence that law and order can hold in check. And here I am not thinking so much of how the law is being broken and circumvented, as I am thinking that there are large areas of our mutual life that are not covered nor should be covered by law and order. But here we are inclined to believe that, after all, the worst violence and exploitation is prevented by law and order, so that the abuse of power that is left over, so to speak, which lies beyond the reach of law and order, in the end is not that destructive—though admittedly bad enough. Briefly put, when thinking superficially, we believe that there is a difference in degree between the evil and destruction within the jurisdiction of law and order, and that which lies beyond their reach. But this is a misunderstanding. The reason is that it is only one kind of abuse of power that can be legislated against and which can be made the object of prosecution. As mentioned before, either something tangible must be at stake or the abuse of power must be objectively demonstrable. However, the question is, whether the violence and exploitation that does not infringe on human possessions and which cannot be demonstrated purely objectively, still nonetheless at times intervenes most profoundly in the lives of human beings and has the most disastrous consequences. Power-hungry individuals are sufficiently ingenious to destroy their victims in a purely legal, even almost innocent way, and if necessary they are sufficiently patient to wait for the legal opportunity. Legal crimes can quite easily be the worst. As already mentioned, power is not [108] only a public and political phenomenon, but all relations between human beings, including the purely everyday ones, indeed especially these, are relations of power and offer opportunities for an abuse that is just as unheeded as it is effective. This is the precondition of Anna Sophia Hedvig’s action. She knows what Mrs Møller’s maliciousness can bring about, and she knows that no authority can hold it in check. Through her very action, she poses the

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question to us whether we should not offer resistance against an evil which is by no means less real and destructive by being, and having to be, unheeded by law and order. And we answer: ‘certainly!’, but then we add: ‘resistance only in words’! But Anna Sophia Hedvig’s words are lost on Mrs Møller, who goes so far as to be downright inhuman, in pretending that the person walking right next to her, speaking to her, and intruding on her, does not exist at all. Then Anna Sophia Hedvig becomes desperate and sees no other way out but to stop the course of evil with murder. Whether words have effect or not depends on many things. In certain cases, words do not accomplish anything. People with authority can accomplish a lot. Those who lack authority can only accomplish very little, perhaps nothing. Also in this respect, Kjeld Abell has heightened the problem by making Anna Sophia Hedvig an individual that no one notices and whose words count for nothing. The events and the lack of authority of Anna Sophia Hedvig’s personality put her in a situation where she cannot fight a legal evil without herself coming into conflict with the law. If she desists from taking the law into her own hands for the sake of the rule of law, she saves herself, but delivers her colleagues and the children of the school up to the lust for power of a hateful and vindictive human being. No one could reproach her for anything, but regard for the rule of law and her own conscience—for you shall not kill! – would become a cover-up for saving her own skin through impartiality. If she resists in the only way left open to her, she is heading for her own ruin. There is no solution. [109] Kjeld Abell’s play is a genuine tragedy. The conflict is inevitable, and the human being who is tangled up in it does not take advantage of the unresolvable nature of the situation to retreat from it, in order to take up a neutral stand. She faces up to the conflict and perishes.

The Manageable Destruction Absolute democracy, by which I understand unlimited participation in decision making, cannot be implemented in society as a whole for the simple reason that society is too big for that. Political decisions concerning the organization and transformation of the entire society can only be made in a representative democracy. But there are plenty of institutions that are sufficiently small or divisible to enable unlimited participation, precisely because of their small size—only limited by issues of funding,

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the provision of which is a matter of the larger society of course. Nevertheless, I am not persuaded. Two things stand in its way. Before even absolute democracy is established, it will dissolve into demagogy and futile debate. Democracy builds on the judgement of both the voters and the elected. If this fails democracy turns into demagogy. This danger is ever present and democracy can never escape it. But when it comes to judgement, it cannot be developed and keep demagogy at bay, unless a certain standard of debate is constantly upheld. The word ‘bourgeois’ has acquired a derogatory meaning, not far from meaning the same as reactionary. If we link quality with what is bourgeois in this sense, so that it is also considered reactionary to demand quality, then we have given way to demagogy. The crucial issue now is that judgement and the setting of standards, by which democracy stands or falls, cannot be secured in a democratic way. If someone suffers from this delusion, then they believe that democracy can uphold itself by pulling itself up by its hair. It cannot [110], so the more we democratize, the more we need authorities that have no other mission but to demand quality and set standards, and to do this in all areas. Committees are needed, by which I understand a limited group of individual persons educated to take care of an issue and give it the best conditions to thrive, under the assumption that the persons in question have the necessary qualifications to do so. For this purpose, they are provided with limited and controlled power, and from area to area the question is exactly where this limit is and how the control can be exercised. The power of the experts is not absolute. But neither is participation in decision making. From area to area, they function on different terms, which necessarily places limits on them. The tasks to be solved are different, and consequently the conditions of participation are different too. What matters is to find a balance between what the accomplishment of the tasks requires on the one hand, and participation in decision making on the other. Let me give an example from the educational institutions, where the conflict is particularly noisy, both in schools and secondary education, folk high schools, and in institutions of higher education as well. For teaching to be successful, teachers must be on top of the subject they are teaching, and they must have had time to prepare and study the subject,

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and teachers must teach what captivates them. The accomplishment of the task, proper teaching, excludes unlimited participation in decision making. Then to this it is objected, that if pupils and students have to wait before they take a stand on the subject matter and approach of the teaching until they have been taught, then before they even realize it, they will already be part of the system. Admittedly, this happens inevitably. On the other hand, it is equally true that we do not become free from prejudice by taking a stand against things before having been informed about them. Consequently, we are in a dilemma which is just as unsolvable theoretically as it is easy to solve practically. The freedom, which the pupil and the student have, does not consist in him or her getting the lessons they call for, but it consists in getting the opportunity to take a stand on the teaching that is offered to them, and their being treated as [111] equals in the discussion. What matters above all is the attitude in the teaching. Briefly put, what I want to say with this example, is that in any educational institution as well as in other areas, we cannot avoid making a compromise between participation and expertise. To be sure, the supporters of absolute democracy believe that we can avoid a compromise. As a matter of principle, they believe that judgement and standard will always be able to win through debate, without the help of expert authorities and committees, and without giving them the functions and the power that follows with those functions. I find this unrealistic. Power cannot disappear through democratization. If we take the power from one person, it passes on to another. It cannot be parcelled up in such a way as to make it disappear. No matter how much we divide power into different hands, it will always end up concentrated in the hands of the few. And the consequences of this can be more severe in absolute democracy than in representative democracy. In absolute democracy, if the many fail to take an interest, power is exercised unchecked. To the degree that participation in decision making is unlimited, likewise power becomes unlimited to the same degree, if it is nevertheless concentrated. The person who has appropriated the power or has succeeded in making the many indifferent by demagogic means, will then not be accountable for his or her exercise of power. The introduction of absolute democracy will give the demagogues among

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the laypeople and the experts—the latter are the worst—greater opportunity than they have had so far. However, who says that the many keep quiet and stay away? If something like this is on the rise, then the task becomes to activate them. I am not so sure that this is feasible, and I am not even sure that this is the task. It depends on what the cause for their passivity is. It might not be laziness; the cause may also be that those who keep quiet or stay away are preoccupied with things, which they consider to be more important than idle debate. The danger of absolute democracy is that it comes to make the most interested people lose interest. For two reasons. They cannot stand the futile [112] debate. And as for the educational institutions, these cannot accept that attention shifts from the content of teaching to secondary issues. This is how things are. In democracy, we do not assume that everybody is equally knowledgeable. We do not believe that we can live without expertise. But on principle and ideally, in democracy we assume that the laypeople must have an equal say to that of the experts. The laypeople must have the right to give their opinion and to contribute to taking the final decision on equal terms with the experts—trusting that the laypeople will yield to the presentation of the facts and viewpoints by the experts. So the laypeople make their own decision based on their own understanding of the expert’s argumentation and knowledge. In the kind of democracy which realizes that it cannot uphold itself by pulling itself up by its hair, we know that the fundamental and ideal condition is not met. For several reasons. No matter how pedagogical the experts might be, there are and will always be many things that the laypeople will not be sufficiently capable of understanding and taking a stance on. And even problems that we probably would be able to understand, we must pass over, because we do not have the energy and the time to deal with them. We make up for these failings in two ways. In representative democracy, the elected are given a greater duty to study the matter at hand and a greater responsibility for the consequences than the electorate. That is the first thing. Secondly, as already mentioned, the committees of experts are given functions and a power that corresponds with the functions. On the other hand, democracy becomes absolute by pretending that the fundamental and ideal condition exists. Everything can and must therefore be debated. The consequence is a watered-down and endless debate. Pressing problems give way to non-pressing ones. In the worst

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case, the debate is introverted; instead of looking at the matter at hand, we stare at our own stance on the matter. The so-called youth and students’ uprisingxi is such a multifarious phenomenon that it is misleading to give it a unifying name. [113] It consists of mutually contradictory and incompatible tendencies. But at its best, it is carried forward by the realization that without fundamental changes in social and international life we are heading for disaster. Not the sort of disaster that humankind has experienced so often, but of a kind that will make the day after unliveable. Sven Holm has portrayed this in Termush, Atlanterhavskysten [Termush, the Coast of the Atlantic]xii in a sober, unsensational, almost muted way, which leaves an impression that does not disappear easily. We know the problems: the difference between the developed and underdeveloped countries that will end with an explosion, if an equalization does not happen; the integration of the arms race into the economies of the Great Powers; the undermining of nature by technical production and its anarchistic increase, without which neither consumers nor producers can sustain physical life. In the long term, the problems of overpopulation appear. However, we can only hope to solve the looming problems step by step. If we do not have the patience for that, and often we do not, we look for manageable reforms and then the institutions become the culprits. They are on the side of the existing order or the establishment, they obstruct the radical change that we need in order to survive—so they say. Some of the institutions must be abolished, others transformed from scratch. Whether for better or worse does not really matter, the main thing is to create the revolutionary conditions in which everything is possible. It is indeed true, the institutions do not belong to the permanent, but to the changeable part of our existence, which means that from time to time they need to be reformed, and often thoroughly so. But the question is why one wants to reform them. To make them work better, or because they obstruct the solution of the fundamental problems. If the latter is the reason for reform, then I am afraid that the result will be the opposite of what is intended. The energy will be absorbed by the battle against the institutions, and the pressing problems will fade from view. There will be no energy left to deal [114] with the problems. Before one realizes it, what one aims at becomes merely the more manageable destruction.

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The Dangerous vs the Utopian When reading Luther and Calvin, we get a clear impression of just how radically the sentiments about life at that time differed from ours. They detested rebellion because they feared the threat of ruin and chaos, and they considered any pursuit of security ungodly, be it political or economic security, and both stances were based on their attitude towards the dangerous. Obviously, the difference between now and then is not that at that time existence was dangerous, as if it no longer is today. It is the experience of the dangerous that is different. For Luther and Calvin it was simply a part of existence that could not be different. It was inconceivable that we would one day be able to wake up in a virtually safe existence. The only thing we could hope for was to hold the dangers at bay. And actually, it was best like this, because it was part of the human condition of life, its finitude, that the only place where we could find security was with God. Any other—and imaginary—security was equivalent to ungodliness. Because the ever threatening chaos had to be held at bay, some people were entrusted with power. Their office consisted in guarding others against danger so life would not be rendered inhuman through rampant evil and terror. For the same reason, human beings also had to be unequal—unequal in the power which alone could prevent chaos from being unleashed. We, who live nowadays, cannot or will not give up the hope that our social life and the life between nations could be organized in such a way that it gives security. We do not give up the hope of preventing catastrophes, despite the fact that we have experienced them in wars and revolutions to a degree the like of which far from every generation in the history of mankind has experienced, and despite the fact that evil has raged in ways rarely seen in history. Imagine a thought experiment in which Luther with his sentiment of life [115] intact witnessed our view of the world. He would be appalled and say something to this effect: you regard danger as a temporary irregularity, an interim abnormality, which you must seek to overcome in order to return to the state of affairs which is normal in virtue of being free from danger. Today, in your experience of human existence, you only know one danger, which is present in life at every moment, that of disease. Therefore, you have no sense for why power is necessary,

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because there is no need for it in an existence without danger. It is superfluous, the less of it the better. To be sure, it is not completely dispensable, as you would readily admit, since there are still what you have come to see as abnormalities, such as crimes. On the whole you have grown accustomed to thinking that it is the task of the state to regulate human behaviour, on the streets, in trade, in conflicts, in schools, and so on. For you, to rule is not to use power against evil so that the tool of the worldly authorities is the sword, but rather for you to rule means the same as to regulate, so that the tool of the worldly authorities is the use of circulars. But it is clear that if the appreciation for why power is necessary is lost, then the need for inequality between human beings is lost, and in that case one can be as careless about the right of resistance as you are, and even talk about the duty to resistance. In this thought experiment, I have left out of account the change in social life and the conditions of life that have happened from the sixteenth century onwards until today. However, unfortunately time and again Lutheran theologians have been guilty of this abstraction. Luther himself had the opinion that his view on the worldly authorities, power of parents, inequality, and right of resistance, was dictated by his theology, despite the fact that it was actually dictated by his acceptance of an estates-based society. But Luther’s authority has been so great for many Lutherans that they have taken over his misunderstanding and added their own new misunderstanding. They thought that Luther’s conception of power and his view of the organization of society was the only theologically justifiable one (a misunderstanding they shared with Luther), so that they were committed to maintaining it under the totally changed conditions of power and society (a new misunderstanding which was their own). This led to [116] the ecclesiastical and theological view that since we could not turn the clock back, which would have been best, we could at least hold on to the existing order. Out of pure Lutheranism they became un-Lutheran. If we set out to merely repeat ideas of past thinkers in the terms of a new era, then we are betraying them. Any inspiration from a previous thinker, even the greatest of them, that does not force its way through a critique of them, leads to ruin. But let me return to the point of departure: the experience of danger. On the opposite pole from the watchful appreciation of danger, is the striving for utopia—and which therefore many theologians regard as the

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ungodliest of all ungodly things. However, as far as I can see this is a false alternative. The matter itself is quite straightforward. In the midst of the struggle with a problem, we are involuntarily caught up in the illusion that if it could be solved, we would have one problem less among all the problems which we have had to struggle with, and the more pressing the problem, the deeper we are stuck in the illusion, and the more unproblematic the future appears which the solution opens up. How many people struggling with poverty have not been convinced that they would enter into an unproblematic existence if this problem was solved one fine day. From the point of view of the unemployment and economic depression of the 1930s, today we live in a realized utopia. So it is a misunderstanding to think that utopias never are realized and that they are just distant and unachievable goals that are only useful as incentives for our pursuits. As a matter of fact we realize utopia time and again. We get to the place where we wished to go. However, the inevitable and surprising thing is that the realized utopia turns out to be full of problems that we never dreamt of before. New problems appear, and it is not easy to understand that problems which have had a repressed and unheeded existence now move into the foreground—indeed, through the very solution of one problem, new problems arise. So it is no surprise that reactionaries are quick to put forward their reasons for clinging to the old problems. They do not think, for example, that humanity can do without [117] the threat of poverty; it constrains forces that would prove destructive—if the threat was lifted and the powers were unleashed. But this is not true: the forces that are unleashed, the new needs that appear, will only be destructive, if they are not faced with new tasks and new possibilities. But they are, to the fullest degree, by the new problems. It may be that the new problems that arise out of the solution of the old problems will offer even bigger challenges than the old ones. We have to be prepared for that. This means there is a greater opportunity for human potentialities to flourish, and at the same time a greater risk that we are destroyed; this is how things are. What we need to get accustomed to is the fact that progress is dangerous and abandon the illusion that progress will make our existence free of problems. Kjeld Abell’s play Anna Sophia Hedvig has an epilogue; a scene in the yard of a military barracks where a revolutionary sentenced to death is waiting to be shot. Anna Sophia Hedvig walks up to stand beside him and speaks to him. The epilogue emphasizes the play’s symbolism. But

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there was a difference between the performance in 1957 and the first performance in 1939. Anna Sophia Hedvig’s words to the man sentenced to death, telling him that he dies for a future in which it is wrong to kill, and where no one needs to either die for others nor blindly believe without knowledge—these words were omitted. The omission is not without insight, for as long as these lines were said, Kjeld Abell was weakening the tragic nature of the play a little by pointing to a future in which the fundamental conditions of our existence would have changed sufficiently for the sort of conflict his own play deals with to obtain no longer. Now however, with the omission, the tragic recognition of the unsolvable nature of conflict has been preserved. This is not to say that it is in vain to fight for a better future. Anna Sophia Hedvig fights in her own way and so does anyone who rises against oppression. The two things cannot be separated. Just remember how the German resistance, while planning and executing (failed) assassinations and attempted coups d’état also worked on constitutional drafts designed to avoid the flaws [118] of the Weimar Republic, of which the Nazis had taken advantage. An action does not become unrealistic either by its wanting to change the social conditions, or by aiming to change the very structure and give human beings new and better conditions to live under. It only turns unrealistic if we make ourselves believe that with the change of society and institutions we can change the fundamental conditions of our existence. Thus there are conditions that can be changed, and there are fundamental conditions that cannot, simply because our existence is limited by how it is. But one of the fundamental conditions is the fact that when we eliminate the unfortunate conditions of one kind of conflict, then new conditions arise for new kinds of conflict. New tragedies will be written. The life of one human being is too entangled with the life of another human being for our existence ever to be able to escape from conflicts— or to get away with just harmless conflicts that do not entail the destruction of the person who comprehends the conflicts fully and singlemindedly, and endures through them. Anna Sophia Hedvig says to the man sentenced to death that it is his faith that keeps the world alive and makes it as young as ever. But then it belongs to revolutionary faith, that his will to fight oppression is not weakened the slightest by his recognition that after him and his struggle,

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conditions will come that offer new possibilities of oppression, which will call for new revolutionaries. Indeed it must be part of revolutionary faith that he fights just as tirelessly, even though he knows that from the way by which he overcomes oppression new conflicts arise that he could not foresee. On the other hand, it cannot be part of the faith of the revolutionary to want to be the last revolutionary, and put society and human beings right once and for all. For, in that case part of being a revolutionary would be making the world old and cheating future generations from facing their own difficulties in their own way. [119] However, in the Western world we are witnessing a strange constellation. Alongside scientific and technical progress, with the defeat of poverty, and with the extension of life expectancy, the conviction that existence is empty and absurd is spreading. We find this conviction not only in individual people, but it marks entire intellectual movements, we find it where the understanding of life which is characteristic of this cultural epoch crystallizes, in the arts and in philosophy. Thus the understanding of life does not seem to be a function of the external conditions of life: in former times being at the mercy of the powers of nature, poverty, and the prospect of an early death did not shake the conviction of the meaningfulness of existence, whereas today the power over nature, economic security, and the prospect of a long life is accompanied by a deep conviction of the meaninglessness of life. I use the word ‘constellation’ deliberately, as I do not believe that there is a relation of cause and effect—something like the explanation that while poverty did not leave time or energy to speculate over the absurdity of existence, the more utopian conditions have given free rein to the feeling of absurdity. There is hardly such a connection, the conviction that existence is absurd goes farther back and has other roots, first and foremost religious ones; but I leave this aside. At any rate, the constellation is unfortunate, not to say dangerous. This is because the new problems that we face in the epoch of humanity’s history we live in today cannot be managed with the reflection that flows out of nihilism, as a one-sided worldview that one learns to live with. Neither can they be managed solely with expertise. To be sure, expertise is indispensable, and increasingly so, but expertise alone cannot do it; time and again—and this applies to all vital questions—there is a remainder that can only be dealt with through a form of thinking that differs from that of the expert.

Editors’ Notes Chapter 1 i. Max Scheler (1874–1928) was a German philosopher and, together with Edmund Husserl, a founder of phenomenology. His main work is focused on ethics, where he developed a theory of ethics based on phenomenology. A central point in Scheler’s ethics, which is found in his 1913–16 Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (cf. Max Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, translated by Manfred S. Frings and Roger L. Funk, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), is that there is an ontological order of material values, where ethical values attach to persons and are based on the realization of either higher and positive values (which is good) or lower and negative values (which is evil). In 1932, Løgstrup handed in his first major philosophical and theological work, a prize dissertation (comparable to a PhD dissertation) on Scheler’s ethics: En fremstilling og vurdering af Max Scheler’s ‘Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale Wertethik’ [An Exposition and Evaluation of Max Scheler’s Formalism in Ethics and Material Ethics of Value]. Here, Løgstrup accepts Scheler’s phenomenology as a valid approach to value theory, but he denies that ethics can be based on it, so that his later work on ethics is therefore not a development of Scheler’s position. For further discussion, see Bjørn Rabjerg, ‘Knud Ejler Løgstrup’s Reception of Max Scheler’s Ethics of 1932 and Beyond’, forthcoming. ii. Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950) was a leading German philosopher and proponent of critical realism. In his 1926 book Ethik [Ethics], he puts forward a theory of material ethics of value in which we can have moral knowledge of the realm of values through certain phenomenological acts. Løgstrup discussed Hartmann in his doctoral dissertation (similar to the Habilitation dissertation) in 1942 (Den erkendelsesteoretiske Konflikt mellem den transcendentalfilosofiske Idealisme og Teologien [The Epistemological Conflict Between Transcendental Idealism and Theology]), but focusing only on Hartmann’s earlier work Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1921 [Basic Features of a Metaphysics of Knowledge], and a short discussion is also found in Chapter 13 of Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand.

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iii. Løgstrup expands on this in his paper ‘Ethik und Ontologie’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 57 (1950), pp. 357–91; ‘Ethics and Ontology’, translated by Eric Watkins, in The Ethical Demand, translated by Theodor I. Jensen and Gary Puckering; revised with an introduction by Hans Fink and Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1997), pp. 265–93. iv. Martin Luther, On Secular Authority (WA Abt. 1, 11: 279/LW 45: 128). The German original is ‘Denn die Natur lehrt, wie die Liebe tut: daß ich tun soll, was ich mir getan haben wollte’, which might be more clearly translated as: ‘For nature teaches the same as love does: that I ought to do what I would have done unto me’. The bracketed part of the quotation comes from Løgstrup. For abbreviations used in references to works by Luther, see below Chapter 8, note ix. v. Løgstrup uses the same metaphor in The Ethical Demand, 91/124, and expands on what he means by it there. Chapter 2 i. We have chosen to translate the Danish word ‘barmhjertighed’ as ‘compassion’ rather than ‘mercy’: see the Translators’ Preface for further discussion. ii. Klaus Rifbjerg (1931–2015) was a Danish poet, novelist, and publisher. He wrote more than forty novels and more than thirty collections of poems and is seen as one of the first true Danish modernists. Rifbjerg’s first book Under vejr med mig selv [Coming to Know Myself], a collection of poems, came out in 1956, which is the same year as Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand. He became a member of the Danish Academy in 1967 where Løgstrup was appointed secretary from 1968 to 1973. His first novel, Den kroniske uskyld [Chronic Innocence], is from 1958. The novel Løgstrup mentions here, Operaelskeren, is from 1966 and is his second novel. iii. The first section of text that Løgstrup refers to here is available in translation by Susan Dew in K. E. Løgstrup, Beyond the Ethical Demand, edited by Kees van Kooten Niekerk (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), pp. 50–65. A translation of the full text by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. iv. This is a reference to Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81), who are both central figures in the German Enlightenment. v. Løgstrup translates this passage from German into Danish. For a current English translation, see ‘On Sentiments’, in Moses Mendelssohn, Philosophical Writings, translated and edited by Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 74–5.

’ 

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vi. In Danish, the word ‘umiddelbar’ (immediate) has two different uses: (a) it has a temporal meaning, as it does in English, where when something happens ‘immediately’, it means that it happens instantly or quickly; but it can also mean (b) that something happens ‘directly’ or without there being a medium, so that what happens immediately happens without any mediation. Therefore, if A responds ‘immediately’ to B, it can mean both that A’s response takes place instantly after B has happened, and also that there is no medium between A and B that affects A’s response to B. vii. Here Løgstrup is referring to what has been called his ‘two accounts doctrine’, namely that we have to draw a sharp distinction between the account of the ego (the anthropological account: what is down to the selfishness of the ego) and the account of our given life (the ontological account: what is given to us as possibilities in our human life): see Bjørn Rabjerg, ‘Løgstrup’s Ontological Ethics’, Res Cogitans, 12 (2017), pp. 93–110, pp. 101–9. Through this stark opposition, Løgstrup can maintain a position of anthropological pessimism concerning the selfishness (or ‘wickedness’) of the human ego while at the same time proposing an ontological optimism with respect to the goodness of our human life: where we fail to produce love, trust, compassion, and other sovereign expressions of life, and where we seem to only be able to corrupt them. Their very existence in human life is something given to us as possibilities in life which support our lives together, something which we cannot create, but can only receive. Løgstrup had not yet developed the idea of sovereign expressions of life in The Ethical Demand, however his thoughts here clearly connect with his earlier ideas concerning the goodness of human life, and the term ‘sovereign expressions of life’ thus provides him with a conceptual framework, enabling him to further develop the ideas of life’s inherent goodness. Cf. The Ethical Demand, §7.6: ‘The Wickedness of Human Beings and the Goodness of Human Life’, especially 121–2/161–2. Chapter 3 i. Løgstrup’s Danish formulation here, ‘være ved at være ligeglad’, is vague, because it is open to two different interpretations. It can either mean ‘almost’ (or ‘be at the point of ’) or ‘to admit’. Here, we have chosen the latter, because it seems to fit very well with the claim Løgstrup is making, and because it is a phrase Løgstrup uses regularly: for example, it is found eight times in The Ethical Demand and three times in Controverting Kierkegaard, and in none of these cases is it open to the alternative interpretation.

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’ 

Chapter 4 i. This is a reference to the British moral philosopher Patrick Nowell-Smith (1914–2006). The example comes from Nowell-Smith’s main work, Ethics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1954), p. 17. This book was widely read, and Løgstrup refers to it fairly often, as typical of the approach to ethical questions adopted by British philosophy at this time. ii. The Sachsenspiegel was the most important of the medieval compilations of Saxon customary law, and was published between 1220 and 1230. Løgstrup is referring to Luther’s discussion in Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments (1525), WA Abt 1, 18: 81/LW 40: 98. iii. Cf. ibid. WA Abt 1, 18: 80/LW 40: 97: ‘Thus, “Thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, steal, etc.” are not Mosaic laws only, but also the natural law written in each man’s heart, as St. Paul teaches (Rom. 2 [:15])’. Luther says in his discussion of the Ten Commandments in the Large Catechism: ‘We should prize and value them above all other teachings as the greatest treasure God has given us’ (WA Abt 1, 30¹: 182; The Book of Concord, translated and edited by Theodore G. Tappert et al. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), p. 410). iv. For a discussion of Løgstrup’s reference here to ‘estates’, see below Chapter 10 note i. v. Otto Møller (1831–1915) was a Danish theologian and pastor known in his time for his strong opinions against both Germany and the university. He wrote extensively on dogmatics and his contribution is rated as the most influential theological work between H. L. Martensen’s Ethik (1878) and F. C. Krarup’s Religionsfilosofi (1905). Løgstrup’s personal research library holds fourteen of Møller’s books, several of them clearly showing signs of use, and among them his work from 1900, En Opdrager til Christus for dem, ‘som ikke have Loven’: en Betragtning af de 10 Buds Forhold til Hedningernes Sandhedslov og Forsøg til Fremstilling af ‘danske Lov’ [An Educator to Christ for Those ‘Who Do Not Know the Law’: A Consideration of the 10 Commandments and Their Relation to the Law of Truth of the Heathens and an Attempted Exposition of the ‘Danish Law’] (Copenhagen: Lehmann og Stages Forlag), to which Løgstrup is referring here.

Chapter 5 i. Løgstrup is here thinking of the famine in 1932–3 in the Soviet Union which was a consequence of Stalin’s collectivization policy. ii. The Danish term here is ‘sværmeri’: issues concerning its translation are considered in the Translators’ Preface. iii. See Luke 10:25–37.

’ 



iv. This is a reference to the Parable of the Talents. v. Birgit Løgstrup (1941–) is Løgstrup’s daughter-in-law, married to his eldest son, Jørgen Løgstrup (1939–), who went on to become an established historian. Her main research is in the area of Danish agricultural reforms and rural society in the eighteenth century. vi. Jørgen Jørgensen (1894–1969) was professor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, 1926–65. He was originally influenced by the Neo-Kantian Marburger school, but he was drawn to Logical Positivism in the 1920s and became one of its main voices in Scandinavia. In 1942–6 he published Psykologi på biologisk Grundlag [Psychology on a Biological Basis] which Løgstrup often refers to. vii. Theodor Geiger (1891–1952) was a German-born sociologist and lawyer, who was Denmark’s first professor of sociology at Aarhus from 1938 to 1940; after the war he returned to the university where he was therefore Løgstrup’s colleague. Chapter 6 i. See Nowell-Smith, Ethics, Chapter 14. ii. In Danish, the word ‘pligt’ (duty) is part of the word ‘forpligtelse’ (obligation) meaning to be bound by or under duty, so the connection Løgstrup is making here becomes lost in the English translation. In German there is the same connection between Pflicht and Verpflichtung. iii. This is a reference to Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, 4: 398. References to works by Kant are given in the standard format, by volume number and page number of the Akademie edition, which is found in the margins of most translations. When he quotes from Kant, Løgstrup gives the text in German. iv. Løgstrup does not give an explicit reference, but it is likely that he has in mind Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, 5: 84–6. v. Here Løgstrup uses the Danish word ‘skyldighed’ which both includes a notion of debt, what is owed, and also guilt. vi. See also Controverting Kierkegaard, Chapter III.X: ‘Morality Is to Deliver Substitute Motives to Substitute Actions’ (translated in Beyond the Ethical Demand, pp. 77–81). vii. See above note iii for the way in which references to Kant are given. viii. This chapter on duty, and the next on responsibility, relate back to Løgstrup’s 1938 article ‘Pligt eller ansvar’ [Duty or Responsibility], Kirken og Tiden, 14 (1938), pp. 206–17; translation by Hans Fink and Robert Stern available here: https://ethicaldemand.files.wordpress.com/2016/ 05/logstrup-pligt-eller-ansvar-translation.pdf

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’ 

Chapter 7 i. Eberhard Grisebach (1880–1945) was an influential German philosopher who was one of the founders of I-Thou philosophy and also through his friendship with Friedrich Gogarten a founder, along with Karl Barth, of dialectical theology. In his doctoral dissertation from 1942 Løgstrup discusses Grisebach’s main work Gegenwart [Presence], and he also features in the ‘Polemical Epilogue’ in Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand.

Chapter 8 i. In Danish here, as in English, ‘ville’ (will) does not mean future tense, although in both languages it can be used this way too. Here it means ‘to will’ in the sense of ‘to want to’. To maintain the linguistic connection between the substantive ‘vilje’ (‘will’) and the verb ‘ville’ (‘to will’), in this chapter ‘ville’ will be translated consistently as ‘to will’. ii. Løgstrup’s reference to Heidegger here is hard to identify precisely, but it seems to be a comment on Heidegger’s suggestion in Being and Time that the inauthentic busy themselves with the everyday as a distraction device (see for example §38), while the reference to ‘new possibilities’ suggests that Løgstrup has the discussion of curiosity in mind specifically. The claim is that the inauthentic, who are closed off to both genuine innovation and recognition of Dasein’s distinctive past-future structure, distract themselves from creeping awareness of their finitude by throwing themselves into a pointless search for novelty (see for example §36). iii. We have here amended an error in the Danish text where Løgstrup mistakenly writes that the will in the strict sense produces a ‘resistance’ (modstand) rather than an ‘opposition’ (modsætning). It is hard to follow Løgstrup’s reasoning if the text is read with ‘resistance’, as it makes more sense to think that the resistance arises out of an opposition. There are also two further textual reasons to think ‘resistance’ is an error: (1) this is a rewritten version of an early article by Løgstrup on Luther and the will, and in the early version, Løgstrup writes ‘modsætning’ (opposition) in the corresponding sentence (cf. p. 131 of Løgstrup, ‘Om Viljesbegrebet i De Servo Arbitrio’, Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, 3 (1940), pp. 129–47)). (2) A few pages further down, Løgstrup refers back to this sentence but uses ‘modsætning’ (opposition) rather than ‘modstand’ (resistance), see below p. 54/p. 62. iv. This is a reference to Kant’s conception of maxims: cf. Groundwork 4: 420 note ‘A maxim is the subjective principle for action . . . [which] contains the practical rule that reason determines in conformity with the conditions of the subject (quite often their ignorance, or their inclinations); it is thus the basis on which the subject acts’.

’ 



v. We have translated ‘lyst’ as ‘pleasure’ here and in the following paragraphs; but ‘lyst’ also has an aspect of ‘wanting’, so that for example in the next paragraph, the sentence ‘But what we will, we will because we find pleasure in it’, also carries something of the meaning of ‘But what we will, we will because we want it’. vi. This section in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement itself can be best read against the background of Kant’s earlier discussion in the Critique of Practical Reason 5: 71–89, especially 5: 77–8, where Kant offers a subtle discussion of the relation between the moral law on the one hand, and displeasure and pleasure on the other. It is presumably this wider discussion that Løgstrup has in mind in the previous paragraph. vii. In this section, Løgstrup discusses the debate between Erasmus and Luther over free will. Erasmus initiated the debate in 1524 with his A Diatribe on Free Will (De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio)—where ‘diatribe’ here is used not in the modern sense, but in the earlier sense of looking for a consensus on probable opinion through discussion. Luther published his polemical response a year later with De servo arbitrio, which may be translated ‘On the bondage [or slavery] of the will [or free choice]’. Luther’s invective shocked and offended Erasmus, who responded with his two volume Hyperaspistes diatribae [Protector of the Diatribe] in 1526 and 1527, in which Erasmus’s language is almost as intemperate as Luther’s own. The first two texts can be found translated in E. Gordon Rupp and Philip S. Watson (eds), Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969). Translations of Erasmus’s responses to Luther can be found in Collected Works of Erasmus, edited by Charles Trinkaus, translated by Clarence H. Miller (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), vol. 76, pp. 91–298, and vol. 77, pp. 1–332. viii. In translating passages from Erasmus and Luther, we follow Løgstrup’s own translation from the Latin, which does not always fit with standard English translations, e.g. ‘turn towards’ here for ‘applicare’ is usually translated in English as ‘apply themselves’. Cf. Rupp and Watson, Luther and Erasmus, p. 47. ix. References to the works of Luther are to Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 65 vols in 127 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1883–1993), abbreviated as WA; and Luther’s Works, American edition, 55 vols (St Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress Press, 1958–86), abbreviated as LW. x. Løgstrup’s use of the word ‘experience’ is difficult to capture in English. In Danish, there is a difference between ‘oplevelse’ (which Løgstrup uses here) and ‘erfaring’ (which is the word also used for the empirical sciences), but they are both translated as ‘experience’. However, the former is a word also

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xi.

xi.

xiii.

xiv.

’  connected to subjectivism (so more like ‘inner experience’ or fantasy), whereas the latter is tied to something more external, which is concrete and real. Løgstrup’s use here thus has connotations of inner subjective and more or less fantastical experience. References to the works of Kierkegaard are to Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols 1–28 and K1–28, edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn et al. (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1997–2013), abbreviated as SKS; and Kierkegaard’s Writings, edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978–2000), abbreviated as KW. This is a reference to the discussion in Chapter 6 of G. E. Moore’s Ethics, which was originally published in 1912. Løgstrup also discussed Moore in The Ethical Demand 157–8/209. In Danish, there is a terminological distinction between ‘eksistentialfilosofi’ and ‘eksistentialistisk filosofi’. ‘Eksistentialistisk filosofi’ refers to existentialism (as we find it for example in Sartre), whereas ‘eksistentialfilosofi’ (which is the term Løgstrup uses here) refers to existential philosophy or a philosophy of existentials, which refers directly to a Heideggerian approach to philosophy understood as an examination of the basic structures of human existence. This is a central theme of Løgstrup’s discussion of Heidegger in Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s Analysis of Existence and Its Relation to Proclamation.

Chapter 9 i. This is an unpacking of the Danish word ‘forgodtbefindende’, which can also be translated as ‘at our discretion’ or ‘as we please’. Chapter 10 i. The estates-based society existed in Europe from the late Middle Ages to early modern times. It consisted usually of three social classes or estates, each with definite rights and obligations: the clergy, the nobles, and the third class comprising the peasants and burghers. In Luther’s time this system was differentiated further according to people’s functions in society. This constitutes the background of Luther’s doctrine of the three estates, which he regarded as God-given orders or ordinances, which serve the maintenance of human life: ecclesia (the church), politia (the state), and oeconomia (the household, consisting of family life and working life). On the orders, see for example WA Abt 1, 43: 524/LW 5: 139, and on the estates see WA Abt 1, 47: 153/LW 22: 437.

’ 



ii. This is a translation of ‘saglig’: see Translators’ Preface for further discussion. iii. The Danish folk high school offers non-formal residential education for adults. Its main purposes are enlightenment about human life and promotion of democratic participation. It is accessible to all, irrespective of prior qualifications. Following an idea of the Danish pastor, poet, philosopher, and politician N. F. S. Grundtvig (1783–1872), the first folk high school was established in 1844. Gradually folk high schools have spread all over Denmark and beyond, primarily to the other Nordic countries. iv. John Calvin, Opera Selecta, edited by Peter Barth, Wilhelm Niesel, and Dora Scheuner (Munich: Kaiser, 1926–52), I: 425. Løgstrup reverses the order of the offices in Calvin’s text, which is ‘vicaires et lieutenans de Dieu’. v. This is a reference to the concept of ordinances (or ‘creation ordinances’), which is a concept that is adopted by both Luther and Calvin. According to Luther, at creation God ordered human life in three basic ways: ecclesia (the church), politia (the state), and oeconomia (the household, consisting of family life and working life). While each comprises different vocations (e.g. spouse, parent, and provider in the household), Løgstrup points out that the Reformers did not regard the ordinances as entirely unconnected, in ways that he indicates in the text. Luther’s conception of ordinances also relates to his doctrine of estates, which Løgstrup discusses in more detail in Chapter 10: see above note i. vi. Harald Østergaard-Nielsen (1910–77) was a Danish pastor and doctor of theology. His dissertation ‘Scriptura Sacra et Viva Vox’ on Martin Luther’s theology was defended in 1957 in Aarhus, the year after Løgstrup had published The Ethical Demand. Løgstrup refers to Østergaard-Nielsen in various places throughout his authorship, including in The Ethical Demand in 1956 and Controverting Kierkegaard in 1968. vii. Poul Meyer (1916–90) was a Danish lawyer and political scientist. In his article ‘Politik og etik’ [Politics and Ethics] from 1969, Løgstrup discusses the difference between neighbour love as an idea and as something realized in our life, cf. Løgstrup, ‘Politik og etik’ in: Politica: Tidsskrift for politisk videnskab, Institut for stadskundskab, Århus 2 (1969), pp. 12–26. The discussion with Meyer is part of the background of Chapter 5. viii. Løgstrup translates from the French original into Danish. For an English translation see The Institutes of the Christian Religion, book IV, chapter XX: Of Civil Government, section 24. ix. This is a reference to the Calvinist idea of ‘lesser’ or ‘inferior’ magistrates, while Calvin himself referred to ‘populares magistratus’ in Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.20.31. According to Calvin, their role was to curb royal excesses. Løgstrup uses the French terminology: ‘les magistras inférieurs’.

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’ 

x. Kjeld Abell (1901–61) was a Danish playwright. His play from 1939, Anna Sophie Hedvig, revolves around the theme of how an ordinary person can oppose a tyrant and thus also addresses the rise of Nazism and how it had already influenced Danish bourgeois life. Løgstrup administered Kjeld Abell’s funeral in 1961 at the request of Abell’s wife. xi. A reference to the student uprising of 1968, which at the time when Løgstrup’s book was published was only three years previously. xii. Sven Holm (1940–) is a Danish novelist. Termush, Atlanterhavskysten takes place in a post-nuclear war setting among a small group of survivors and revolves around the power struggles within the group.

Bibliography For a full bibliography of Løgstrup’s works, see: Hansen, Karstein M., K. E. Løgstrups forfatterskab 1930–2005: En bibliografi, edited and extended by Kees van Kooten Niekerk (Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2006), available at: http://loegstrup.au.dk/fileadmin/Loegstrup_ Forskning/ebog.pdf Primary Texts in English Beyond the Ethical Demand, edited by Kees van Kooten Niekerk, translated by Susan Dew and Heidi Flegal (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2007). Controverting Kierkegaard, translated by Hans Fink and Kees van Kooten Niekerk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). The Ethical Demand, translated and with an introduction by Bjørn Rabjerg and Robert Stern (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). ‘Ethics and Ontology’, translated by Eric Watkins as an appendix to K. E. Løgstrup, The Ethical Demand, translated by Theodor I. Jensen and Gary Puckering; revised with an introduction by Hans Fink and Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp. 265–94. Metaphysics, vols 1 and 2, translated by Russell L Dees (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1995). Primary Texts in Danish and German Den erkendelsesteoretiske Konflikt mellem den transcendentalfilosofiske Idealisme og Teologien (Aarhus: Klim, 2011, 2nd edition). ‘Ethik und Ontologie’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 57 (1960), pp. 357–91. Den etiske fordring (Aarhus: Klim, 2010). Etiske begreber og problemer (Aarhus: Klim, 2014). ‘Fænomenologi og psykologi’, in Religionspsykologi. Et teologisk-psykologisk symposium, edited by K. E. Bugge and Reimer Jensen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1970), pp. 111–30. Republished in Solidaritet og kærlighed, pp. 116–40. A translation by Hans Fink and Robert Stern is available at: https:// ethicaldemand.wordpress.com/resources-and-link/ Kunst og etik (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1961). Norm og spontaneitet: Etik og politik mellem teknokrati og dilettantokrati (Aarhus: Klim, 2019).

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Opgør med Kierkegaard (Aarhus: Klim, 2013). Solidaritet og kærlighed og andre essays (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1987). Vidde og prægnans. Metafysik I: Sprogfilosofiske betragtninger (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1976). ‘Viljesbegrebet i De servo arbitrio’, Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, 3 (1940), pp. 129–47. Further Reading Fink, Hans and Stern, Robert (eds), What Is Ethically Demanded? K. E. Løgstrup’s Philosophy of Moral Life (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2017). Lipps, Hans, Die menschliche Natur: Werke III [Human Nature: Works III], 2nd edition (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977). Luther, Martin, On the Bondage of the Will, translated in E. Gordon Rupp and Philip S. Watson (eds), Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), pp. 101–334. Niekerk, Kees van Kooten, ‘Løgstrup’s Conception of the Sovereign Expressions of Life’, in Hans Fink and Robert Stern (eds), What Is Ethically Demanded? K. E. Løgstrup’s Philosophy of Moral Life (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2017), pp. 186–215. Rabjerg, Bjørn, ‘Efterskrift’ [Afterword], in K. E. Løgstrup, Etiske begreber og problemer (Aarhus: Klim, 2014), pp. 121–47; translation available at https:// ethicaldemand.wordpress.com/resources-and-link/ Schnädelbach, Herbert, Philosophy in Germany 1831–1933, translated by Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Stern, Robert, The Radical Demand in Løgstrup’s Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Søe, N. H., ‘Den etiske fordring’ [The Ethical Demand], Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, 21 (1958), pp. 1–15. Søe, N. H., Kristelig etik [Christian Ethics] (Copenhagen: Gad, 1942). Wingren, Gustaf (ed.), Etik och kristen tro [Ethics and Christian Belief] (Lund: CWK Gleerup; Copenhagen: Gyldendal; Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1971). Wingren, Gustaf, ‘Förord’ [Foreword], in Gustaf Wingren (ed.), Etik och kristen tro (Lund: CWK Gleerup; Copenhagen: Gyldendal; Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1971), pp. 5–7. For a full bibliography of works in English on Løgstrup, see https:// ethicaldemand.wordpress.com/resources-and-link/

Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Abell, Kjeld xxxvi, 92–5, 102–3, 114 absoluteness of the ethical xxvi–xxvii, 3–4, 13, 29–33 afgørelse ix Aquinas, Thomas 5 Aristotle 3–5, 25–6 arts, the xxxiv–xxxv, 77–9, 104 Augustine of Hippo 5 barmhjertighed x beslutning ix Bollnow, O. F. vii, xxiii–xxiv busyness 51, 110 Calvin, John xx–xxi, 68, 81–2, 86–91, 100, 113 care for the other xxv, xxvii–xxviii, xxx–xxxi, xxxvi, 7–8, 36–7, 47 choice ix, xxv–xxvi, xxx–xxxii, 26–7, 43, 45, 51, 53, 55–8, 64–7, 72–3, 111 see also ethical choice Christianity and ethics, relation between xix–xxii, 11 Christianity and politics, relation between xxxii–xxxiii coercion 33, 41, 58–60, 68 compassion x–xi, xxvii–xxx, 12–13, 23, 37–8, 47, 106–7 Conrad, Joseph 24–5 creation xx–xxi see also ordinances cultural policy 77–81 culture xi Decalogue see Ten Commandments decision ix, 47, 53, 65, 72–3 demagogy xxxv, 95–8 demand x demand, the ethical xx–xxi, xxiv–xxvii, xxxvi, 13, 36 unfulfillability of xxvii–xxviii, 13 see also radicality democracy xxxiii–xxxvi, 30, 80, 84, 95–9

deontological ethics xxiv–xxv, 3, 6–7, 43–6 Descartes, René xxxi–xxxii, 62–4, 69–70 determinism xxxi–xxxii, 64–6 dialectical theology 50 distrust 12–13 doubling 56, 70 duty xxx–xxxi, 3, 6–7, 43–50, 109 conflict of 24–7, 109 conflict with inclination 43–6 egoism xxviii–xxix, 10–11, 17–18, 21–2, 35–7, 107 enemy xxviii–xxix, 9–10, 14–16, 76 entanglement see interdependence Erasmus, Desiderius xx–xxi, xxxi–xxxii, 57–64, 111 estates xxxiv, 32, 76–7, 81, 83, 101, 108, 112–13 ethical choice 26–7 ethical demand see demand, the ethical ethical rules 23, 25–7, 36–7 ethics and politics, relation between xxxiii–xxxiv, 35–42 eudaimonia 3–5 existence xii, xxii–xxiii fundamental conditions of xxv, xxxvi, 7–8, 29, 31, 47–8, 102–3 existential philosophy xxiv–xxv, xxxi–xxxii, 12, 50, 69 distinction from existentialism 112 existentialism 7, 12 experts xxxv–xxxvi, 78–9, 96–8, 104 expressions of life see sovereign expressions of life folk high schools 76–7, 96–7, 113 fordring x formidlet xii free choice see choice free will xx–xxi, xxxii, 53–4, 111 vs actual will 55–6

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freedom xxx–xxxii, 33, 45, 51, 54, 64–7, 69 of existence 64–6 see also free will Geiger, Theodor 41–2, 108 Gerhardsson, Birger xix–xx God xii, xxi, xxxiv, 5, 26, 50, 57, 59–63, 68–9, 74, 81, 87–91, 100, 108, 112–13 Golden Rule, the xxvi–xxvii, 11–12, 36–41 good, the xxiv, 3–5, 43–4 Good Samaritan x, xxxiii–xxxiv, 9–10, 37–8 see also political Samaritan Grisebach, Eberhard 50, 110 Grundtvig, N. F. S. 113 guilt xxxiii, 18, 47, 49, 65–8, 109 Hartmann, Nicolai 5–6, 105 heartlessness xxx–xxxi, 12–13, 47 Heidegger, Martin xxii–xxv, 12, 51, 69, 110, 112 Holm, Sven 99, 114 Husserl, Edmund 105 I-Thou Philosophy 50, 110 imagination 23, 28, 30, 36–9, 41 immediate xii indeterminism xxxi–xxxii, 66–9 insincerity 12–13 interdependence xxv–xxvi, xxix, 7–8, 11, 21, 41, 50, 92 Jesus of Nazareth xxi, xxviii–xxix, 9, 37 Jørgensen, Jørgen xxxi–xxxii, 40–1, 53, 69–70, 73, 109 Kant, Immanuel xxiv, xxx–xxxii, 6–7, 25, 44, 46–8, 50, 52–3, 56–7, 109–11 Kierkegaard, Søren xii, xxxi–xxxii, 7, 12, 62–6, 69, 73n.1 Krarup, F. C. 108 Law of Moses 30–3, 108 Lebensphilosophie xi Lessing, G. E. 15–16, 106 liberum arbitrium 58, 64–6, 111 life xii Lipps, Hans vii, xxii–xxiv, xxx–xxxii

liv xii livsytring xi love commandment see love of the neighbour love of the neighbour xx–xxi, xxvi–xxvii, xxxiii–xxxiv, 7–12, 14–15, 35–40, 113 Luther, Martin x, xii, xx–xxi, xxiv, xxxii, xxxiv, 7–8, 31–3, 50, 57–65, 68–9, 74–7, 81–3, 86–91, 100–1, 106, 108, 110, 112–13 Løgstrup, Birgit 109 Løgstrup, Jørgen 109 Løgstrup, K. E., other works of An Exposition and Evaluation of Max Scheler’s ‘Formalism in Ethics and Material Ethics of Value’ 105 Controverting Kierkegaard xxi, xxviiin.23, xxix–xxx, xxx–xxxi, 13n.3, 107, 109, 113 ‘Ethics and Ontology’ xxvn.19, 106 Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s Analysis of Existence and Its Relation to Proclamation 112 Norm and Spontaneity xxix–xxx, xxxiii, xxxvi ‘Phenomenology and Psychology’ xxii ‘The Epistemological Conflict Between Transcendental Idealism and Theology’ 105, 110 The Ethical Demand xx, xxii–xxiv, xxvi–xxx, xxxii–xxxiii, xxxvi, 8n.3, 73n.2, 105–7, 110, 112–13 Martensen, H. L. 108 mediation xii, 75 medlidenhed x Mendelssohn, Moses 15–16, 106 Meyer, Poul 83, 113 Montesquieu 82–3 Moore, G. E. 67, 112 moral law 56, 111 moral rules see ethical rules Mosaic law see Law of Moses Møller, Otto 33, 108 natural law 26, 31–2, 89, 91, 108 necessitation 43–8 necessity 59–60, 68

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Niekerk, Kees van Kooten xxviiin.23, xxxn.28 Nietzsche, Friedrich xxviii–xxix, 15–19 nihilism 104 Nowell-Smith, Patrick 28–9, 43, 108–9

revelation 11 Rifbjerg, Klaus 12n.2, 106 right, the xxiv, 3 Roman Catholic ethics xxiv, 5, 25–6 Russell, Bertrand 6 Ryle, Gilbert xxxi–xxxii, 69–70

obligation 26, 43–4, 48, 109 ontological ethics xxiv–xxvi, xxviii–xxix, xxxvi, 7–8, 47–8 ontology xxii–xxv see also ontological ethics openness of speech xxvii–xxviii, 12–13, 19 orders 112 ordinances 81–2, 87, 113

Sachsenspiegel 32, 108 Scheler, Max xxiv, 5–6, 25–6, 105 Schnädelbach, Herbert xi Schwärmerei xii, 36–7, 45–6 Schwärmers 83 selfishness xxvi–xxvii, xxix, 19, 46, see also egoism sincerity xi, xxvii–xxviii, 12–13, 23, 47 social norms xx–xxi, xxvi–xxvii, xxix–xxx Socrates 3–4 sovereign expressions of life xi–xii, xx–xxi, xxvii–xxxi, 12–23, 46, 107 absoluteness of 13 spontaneity xxvi–xxvii, xxx–xxxi, xxxiii–xxxiv, 9–21, 23, 46–7 state, limits of power of 74–5 statesperson, loss of power of 84–6 Stern, Robert xxixn.24 Stoicism 44 sværmeri xii–xiii, 108 Søe, N. H. xxin.7

Peasants’ Revolt 77, 87, 89–90 phenomenology vii, xxii–xxv, xxx–xxxi, xxxiii, 46, 51–3, 105 Plato 3–5, 25–6 political power xxxiii, xxxv, 35–7, 74–5, 81–3, 88, 91–2, 94, 96–8, 100–2 see also statesperson, loss of power of; worldly authorities political Samaritan 38–9 positive law 26, 31–2 power over others xxv–xxvi, 11, 35–6, 50, 92–4 pre-cultural xii proclamation 14, 37, 74–5 psychology 52–3, 67–71 pure reason 44–5, 47–8 Rabjerg, Bjørn xxixn.24, 105, 107 radicality xxi, xxvi–xxviii, xxxii–xxxiii, 10–13, 36–7 reason, faculty of 4–7, 28, 33–4, 44, 48, 52–3 see also pure reason reciprocity 11, 28–9, 36–7 refraction 7–8 relativism 13, 29, 32–3 resistance, duty of 92, 100–1 resistance, right of 86–95, 100–1 resistance to will see will, and resistance resolution ix, 73 respect 56–7 responsibility xxv–xxvi, xxx–xxxi, 26–7, 33–4, 49–50, 66–8, 82, 91, 98, 109

teleological ethics xxiv–xxv, 3–6, 25–6 Ten Commandments xx–xxi, 9, 30–3 tilværelse xii trust xi, xxvii–xxix, 12–13, 18–21, 23, 27, 46–7, 49–50, 70–1, 107 two accounts doctrine xxixn.24, 17–18, 107 umiddelbar xii unfulfillability see ethical demand, unfulfillability of unselfishness xxvii–xxviii utilitarianiam xxiv, 6 utopia 101–2, 104 valg ix values 5–6, 19, 25–6, 40–1, 105 Vietnam War xxxiii, xxxv, 84, 86 virtues 4–5

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will xx–xxi, xxx–xxxii, 6–7, 51–71, 110 and resistance 51–61, 71, 110 bondage of 58–62, 65–6, 68–9, 111 disengaged 56–8, 62–5 undivided nature of 69–71 see also choice; free will; will to conquer

will to conquer xxix, 19–21 Wingren, Gustaf xix–xx wish 52 worldly authorities 74, 76–7, 81–3, 87–91, 100–1 Østergaard-Nielsen, H. 82, 113