Abstract
There is a fundamental gap between a mainstream economics dealing with rational management of a society with selfish actors and economic incentives, and a Christianity appealing to peoples’ virtue and ethics. The Danish theologian K. E. Løgstrup is one of the philosophers who has most thoroughly analysed this basic problem in a market economy. This article describes and discusses both the conflict and Løgstrup’s position on it.
The author thanks Svend Andersen, University of Aarhus, Jakob Wolf, University of Copenhagen, Jørn Henrik Petersen, University of Southern Denmark and Ole Jensen for valuable comments and suggestions in relation to earlier drafts of this chapter. The translation of the Danish quotations and general correction of the language is done carefully by Charles Woollen. A very earlier version has been presented at the Porvoo Seminar “Economics and Ethics” in Bad Boll, November 2014; the participants in this workshop has contributed with many useful comments. The responsibility for error or opinions is of course only the author’s.
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Notes
- 1.
Danish Theology is by tradition oriented towards Germany but some of Løgstrup’s contributions are in both German and English. Løgstrup’s, Den Etiske Fordring (1956) is in German Die ethische Forderung, (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1968) and in English both The Ethical Demand, with introduction by Hans Fink and Alasdair MacIntyre, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997) and Beyond the Ethical Demand, with introduction by Kees van Kooten Niekerk, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). His Norm og Spontanitet – etik og politik mellem teknokrati og dilettantokrati (1972) in German Norm und Spontaneität, (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1989) and Solidaritet og Kærlighed – og andre essays (1972b) in German Solidarität und Liebe, in Christlicher Glaube in moderner Gesellschaft. Enzyklopädische Bibliothek Bd.16, (1982), pp. 97–128, Basel.
- 2.
Related problems are discussed in Danish in Kærgård (2001).
- 3.
K.E. Løgstrup and his pupils have sometimes been called “creation theologians” and their characteristic of the entwinement between people and between people and society seen as a result of the “creation”, see Chap. 11 in this book. Others had developed a “natural law of justice” on a secular basis. The relation between the theology of creation and a natural law of justice is an interesting question – to what extent shall natural law be interpreted as a result of the creation? But such questions shall not be treated in this chapter.
- 4.
Erling Olsen (1927–2011), professor in economics University of Copenhagen 1970–1972, rector at University of Roskilde 1972–73. Member of the Danish parliament 1964–68, 1971–1973 and 1975–1998. Member of the government 1978–1982 and 1993–1994 and Speaker of the parliament 1994–1998.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
The point of view according to which nature must be taken care of before all economic priorities can be found already in a well-known quotation from the writing of Oluf Chr. Olufsen (1763–1827), one of the very first professors of economics at University of Copenhagen: “Why do a country need to be beautiful can a cattle dealer ask. Just because not all are cattle dealers” Oluf Chr. Olufsen, “Danmarks Brændselsvæsen physikalskt, cameralistiskt og oeconomiskt betragtet”. (The Danish system of firewood physical, cameralistic and economic considered), Copenhagen, BiblDan.II.1014 (1811).
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Kærgård, N. (2023). K.E. Løgstrup’s Ethics: Is There a Christian Alternative to Economics?. In: Kærgård, N. (eds) Market, Ethics and Religion. Ethical Economy, vol 62. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08462-1_10
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