| Abstract: | Contemporary Christian ethics encounters the challenge to communicategenuinely Christian normative orientations within the scientificdebate in such a way as to render these orientations comprehensible,and to maintain or enhance their plausibility even for non-Christians.This essay, therefore, proceeds from a biblical motif, takesup certain themes from the Christian tradition (in particularthe idea of social justice), and connects both with a compellingcontemporary approach to ethics by secular moral philosophy,i.e. with Axel Honneth's reception of Hegel, as based on Hegel'stheory of recognition. As a first step, elements of an ethicsof recognition are developed on the basis of an anthropologicalrecourse to the conditions of intersubjective encounters. Theseconditions are then brought to bear on the idea of social justice,as developed in the social-Catholic tradition, and as systematicallyexplored in the Pastoral Letter of the United States Conferenceof Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice For All (1986). Proceedingfrom this basis, aspects of a Christian ethics of communityservice with regard to long-term care can be defined. |
