RT Article
T1 Kultur des Todes - Kultur des Lebens: Moraltheologie zwischen Rezeption und Kritik der modernen pluralistischen Gesellschaft
JF Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie
VO 120
IS 3
SP 290
OP 301
A1 Römelt, Josef 1957-
LA German
PB Echter
YR 1998
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/596688687
AB The encyclical Evangelium Vitae speaks of the sharp contrast between the 'culture of death' and the 'culture of life', between the culture of secularized, pluralist societies with their liberalized ethics, and a moral ethos of Christian humanism reflected on in the light of faith. This article assesses the charge that the ethics of modern culture tends towards a 'culture of death'. Modern culture, on the one hand, makes possible a technical approach to life's problems, an approach which brings about, in many spheres, life-enhancing relief. Equally, however, a culture of liberal rationality pursued to the extreme, where life's burdens are always something to be removed by technical means, threatens to land up-given a context of pluralist, libertarian ideas-in inhumane paradoxes. Such a culture – as clearly appears in the case of ante-natal diagnosis – can come to work against the interests of life itself. Theological ethics must certainly respect the autonomy of the different spheres of human life if it is to judge situations in ways appropriate to their reality. But for its part secular reason must respect the theological dimension. Otherwise it degrades human dignity precisely at the points where it is most radically under threat: the beginning and end of human life, and situations of unavoidable conflict.
K1 Moderne Gesellschaft
K1 Ethik/Sittenlehre
K1 Theologie
K1 Katholische Kirche
K1 Ethische Argumentation
K1 Lebensbegriff
K1 Pluralismus
K1 Modern Society
K1 Ethics
K1 Theology
K1 Catholic Church
K1 ethical argumentation
K1 concept of life
K1 Pluralism