Browsing by Author "Huber, Wolfgang"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    After Fukushima : the precautionary principle revisited
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2012-12-06) Huber, Wolfgang
    Etienne de Villiers, more than other theologians, elaborates on basic elements of a Christian ethics of responsibility. He distinguishes between retrospective and prospective responsibility. The prospective aspect attracted awareness after the nuclear accident in the Fukushima reactors on 11 March 2011. The question on how to respond in an ethically responsible manner to catastrophic risks was put back on the agenda. The article takes up this question and discusses the answer given in the international debate by the introduction of the ‘precautionary principle’. The principle is described with its background in the ‘heuristics of fear’, proposed by the philosopher Hans Jonas. Four criticisms are discussed in detail relating to the problems of scientific uncertainty, the burden of proof, the weight of damages and the perils of precaution. That leads to a reformulation of the precautionary principle as a concrete element within an ethics of responsibility.
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    Dietrich Bonhoeffer : Christian existence on the edge of the future
    (Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2014) Huber, Wolfgang
    This paper deals with reflections on the relevance of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s legacy for Christian existence in our present world. To do so, the author first concentrates on a specific aspect of Bonhoeffer’s life, the continuous movement of return and new beginning, which is displayed by three stations of his life. Following, the author describes a single characteristic of Bonhoeffer’s theology, the priority of questions over answers, shown likewise by three of his central questions. As in present times Christians are confronted with innumerable challenges that ask for an answer, this paper concludes by taking Bonhoeffer’s three just interpreted questions as indicators for three case studies en miniature on Christian responsibility with regard to the future. In this way, the author wishes to present suggestions for an ethics of responsibility as part of public theology, inspired by the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
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    Ethics of responsibility in a theological perspective
    (Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2020) Huber, Wolfgang
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the article the author explicates his own view of a theological ethics of responsibility in dialogue with other proponents of such an ethics. A distinction is first made between an “ethic or responsibility” and an “ethics of responsibility”. Attention is then given to the emergence of the key term of “responsibility” in Western culture and its theological origin pointed out. It is argued that responsibility as an ethical concept implies the accountability of human persons for their deeds before an ultimate instance of accountability and thus with inner necessity depends on an affirmative understanding of autonomy and self-determination. What is, however, also implied is dependence on human interaction and communication. From this follows the conclusion that the ethics of responsibility is based on a relational rather than an essentialist anthropology. This conclusion is confirmed in an extensive discussion of the views of the two most important representatives of a theological approach to the ethics of responsibility, namely Dietrich Bonhoeffer and H. Richard Niebuhr. In the last part of the article it is argued that what distinguishes theological ethics of responsibility is that contrary to a purely future-oriented ethics – as is the case with, for example, the ethics of responsibility of Max Weber and Hans Jonas – it is an ethics that intertwines the three modi of time: past, present and future.
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    Human rights and globalisation : are human rights a “Western” concept or a universalistic principle?
    (Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2014) Huber, Wolfgang
    This paper represents an edited version of the authors’ STIAS lecture at the Stellenbosch University in 2014. It deals with the global human rights discourse, as the integrity of human persons all around the world is at stake, showing the necessity and the universality of human rights. Therefore the author explores two basic kinds of attitudes towards human rights, namely 1) forms of human rights optimism – e.g. the argument that globalisation as such leads to a universal acknowledgement of them – and 2) variants of human rights scepticism, in which the author sees those rights practically disregarded, the “Western” concept challenged, and a human rights exceptionalism spreading. Subsequently he asks for what kind of universality of human rights we may argue and how cosmopolitan ethics may support this universality.
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    Overcoming violence - a basic task of Christian churches
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2011-12-12) Huber, Wolfgang
    In this article – based on the second of two keynote lectures at a conference on violence – the view is developed that the task of the church with respect to violence consists mainly in overcoming violence. In the first part of the article dealing with the basic tasks of the church it is argued that the task to overcome violence is close to the essence of the church. The point of departure is taken in Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession, which understands the church as the ‘communion of saints’ and names the pure proclamation of the gospel and the right administration of the sacraments as the two characteristics of the church. The Christian message that the church has to proclaim the gospel entails a preferential option for nonviolence that includes the responsibility to put an end to existing violence. In the second part of the article attention is given to the implications the basic task of the church in overcoming violence holds for the practice of the church. It is argued that the starting point is that the church has to proclaim the gospel of peace and as a community of faith become a community of peace herself. Some of the most important practical consequences the proclamation of the gospel of peace has for the church as a community of action, for her work in education, for her promotion of justice and for her solidarity with those in need, are discussed. © 2011.
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    Protestantism and economic ethics : an example for the interaction of faith and fabric?
    (Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2017) Huber, Wolfgang
    This text addresses a specific religious and ethical tradition, namely the protestant version of Christianity, and a specific field of what is currently referred to as ‘applied ethics,’ specifically economic ethics, in order to find out in which way this tradition and this field of applied ethics are interwoven and it does so in a situation in which both parts of this pair seem to be in trouble.
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    Why ethics?
    (Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust, 2015) Huber, Wolfgang
    In this address, the author explores the necessity of ethical reflection on our moral responsibility regarding the challenges of today’s globalized world and the future of humankind in the midst of God’s creation. In this context, the differentiation of modern ethics is seen as accompanied by the task to reintegrate the ethical discourse by means of an interdisciplinary exchange and to further especially the dialogue between theological and philosophical ethics. By agreeing on Hans-Richard Reuter’s characterization of theological ethics, the author sees no shortcoming in its recourse to the Christian ethos but a representation of the general case that there is no such a thing as an ethics without position. Putting its emphasis on the element of self-transcendence of the human person in his or her relations of responsibility is what marks theological ethics as specifically “theological”. That includes an understanding of the human person as a relational and communicative being, and of theological ethics as an integrative ethics of responsibility.