What Is Ethically Demanded?: K. E. Logstrup’s Philosophy of Moral Life

This collection of essays by leading international philosophers considers central themes in the ethics of Danish philosopher Knud Ejler Logstrup (1905-1981). Logstrup was a Lutheran theologian much influenced by phenomenology and by strong currents in Danish culture, to which he himself made important contributions. The essays in What Is Ethically Demanded? K. E. Logstrup’s Philosophy of Moral Life are divided into four sections. The first section deals predominantly with Logstrup’s relation to Kant and, through Kant, the system of morality in general. The second section focuses on how Logstrup stands in connection with Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Levinas. The third section considers issues in the development of Logstrup’s ethics and how it relates to other aspects of his thought. The final section covers certain central themes in Logstrup’s position, particularly his claims about trust and the unfulfillability of the ethical demand. The volume includes a previously untranslated early essay by Logstrup, The Anthropology of Kant’s Ethics, which defines some of his basic ethical ideas in opposition to Kant’s. The book will appeal to philosophers and theologians with an interest in ethics and the history of philosophy.

Contributors: K. E. Logstrup, Svend Andersen, David Bugge, Svein Aage Christoffersen, Stephen Darwall, Peter Dews, Paul Faulkner, Hans Fink, Arne Gron, Alasdair MacIntyre, Wayne Martin, Kees van Kooten Niekerk, George Pattison, Robert Stern, and Patrick Stokes.