Concern for the Other

The Danish philosopher K. E. Løgstrup is best known in the Anglo-American world for his original work in ethics, primarily in The Ethical Demand(original Danish edition, 1956). Løgstrup continued to write extensively on issues in ethics and phenomenology throughout his life, and extracts from some of his later writings are now also available in translation in Beyond the Ethical Demand. In Concern for the Other: The Ethics of K. E. Løgstrup, eleven scholars examine the structure, intention, and originality of Løgstrup's ethics as a whole. This collection of essays is a companion to Beyond the Ethical Demand, as well as to The Ethical Demand. The essays examine Løgstrup's crucial concept of the "sovereign expressions of life"; his view of moral principles as a substitute for, or inferior form of, ethics; his relationships to other philosophers, including the twentieth-century British moral philosophers; and the role of his Lutheran background in his ethics. Løgstrup also firmly advanced the controversial thesis, examined by several essays in this volume, that the demand for "other-concern" central to his ethics does not depend on religious faith. "The significance of Løgstrup's work is well demonstrated by the substantive criticisms made of that work by the essays here collected. Hopefully this book will encourage others to engage this significant but unfortunately not well-known thinker." - Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School "Svend Andersen and Kees van Kooten Niekerk have done a great service for everyone with the publication of this stellar book on the thought of Knud E. Løgstrup, the most prominent Danish theologian-philosopher of the last century. CONCERN FOR THE OTHER includes essays by renowned thinkers who critically engage Løgstrup's work with both insight and depth. The book thereby provides an engagement with this important thinker's ideas about morality, trust, and responsibility and yet also presents features of the current state of the debate within ethics. I enthusiastically commend this book to anyone interested in contemporary ethics and moral theory as well as the relation between theology and philosophy." - William Schweiker, Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics, The University of Chicago

Contributors: Svend Andersen, Kees van Kooten Niekerk, Hans Fink, Brenda Almond, Anne Marie Pahuus, Zygmunt Bauman, Ojvind Larsen, Alasdair Mac-Intyre, Svein Aage Christoffersen, Hans S. Reinders, and Jakob Wolf. Svend Andersen is professor of ethics and philosophy of religion at the University of Aarhus. Kees Van Kooten Niekerk is associate professor of ethics at the University of Aarhus.