Contextual Ethics: Taking the Lead from Wittgenstein and Løgstrup on Ethical Meaning and Normativity

Abstract

A prominent trend in moral philosophy today is the interest in the rich textures of actual human practices and lives. This has prompted engagements with other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, literature, law and empirical science, which have produced various forms of contextual ethics. These engagements motivate reflections on why and how context is important ethically, and such metaethical reflection is what this article undertakes. Inspired by the work of the later Wittgenstein and the Danish theologian K.E. Løgstrup, I first describe one of the ways in which context plays a central role with regard to ethical meaning and normativity. I then examine how ‘context’ is to be defined, and finally I discuss some of the questions which arise when giving context prominence in ethics – namely, how to delimit the scope of relevant context, the relevant traits of a particular context and what ‘the ethical’ is.

Each Other’s World, Each Other’s Fate—Løgstrup’s Conception of Basic Trust

“…Løgstrup highlights that it is impossible for two people to have something do with each other without the one having a direct relationship to and possible control over the other. From a firstperson perspective, I expose myself to the responses of the other and the other's influence on my life, and this means that we can best characterise our basic relation to other people by 'using the metaphors of "having something of a human being's life in one's hands," and "that something of the other human being's life is delivered up to us"' (2020,23). Løgstrup is aware that the ways in which that we are delivered up to each other, that is, the ways in which our lives are intertwined, differs enormously.…”