Philosophy: Ethics: Person, Practices, Society - from the immediate and local, to the structural and global

A major international academic symposium was held this summer 2005, August 15 thru 19, sponsored by the Association for Reformational Philosophy and concerned with the broad theme of Ethics. It was held in Hoeven, the Netherlands, and may be called the Hoeven Ethics Conference, 2k5. The conference produced a concluding statement which follows. I recommend it, and suggest it for study and reflection, not least of all by secular Humanists who authentically want to be in dialogue with a dialogical but committed Christianity in the public square and the interface of civil concern and the spheres of private life. - Owlb

Ethics: Persons, Practices and Society

Centre for Reformational Philosophy, the Netherlands
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FINAL STATEMENT

The background

We came together as Christian philosophers from five continents, conscious of the importance of a Christian response to the ethical problems of today's world. We recognized these problems existing on a personal level (e.g., as a disconnection from sources of truth and morality), on the level of practices (e.g., as a subordination of human values to technical procedures) and on the level of society (e.g., as a mounting anxiety about failing communal relationships and bonds of solidarity).

We proceeded from the conviction that, from a biblical standpoint, the good to which we find ourselves drawn is deeply connected with the world as it was meant to be. Ethics cannot be considered as a set of rules apart from the deep purposes and callings given by God in the order of creation and renewed in redemption through Jesus Christ. From such a standpoint, questions of ethics are not confined to certain ‘values’ that we bring to created reality, but concern the ways human beings respond, in many particular situations, to the normed reality of a created, broken, but redeemed world. Thus we have identified what can be called an ‘ethics of listening and response’ as a key concept in Christian ethics: it reminds us that we are called to ‘attend to’ and ‘take care’ of such a world. Such an ‘ethics of listening and response’ also enables us to discern common ground with our fellow human beings. Our ethical motivation, and our understanding of the content of the norms guiding human life, should certainly reflect an authentic Christian confession. Yet because we confess that the whole of reality is God's creation, we confidently expect to find many areas of shared concern and cooperation with those of other faiths. Our vision has particular roots, but its scope is universal. Thus, it is possible for us to recognize many valid insights in the ethical conceptions of those of other faiths, and why some of our ethical conceptions and stances can be recognized as valid by others.

Reformational philosophy has always considered ‘the ethical’ as something that pertains to all kinds of human actions, relationships and practices. However it has been recognized that reflection on ethics has been relatively undeveloped in our tradition and that there is more to do (and other traditions to learn from) as we seek to make reformational insights more fruitful for our contemporary situation. For example, many Christians still see their work or profession as something separate from their ethical convictions. In the meantime we allow technological and economic forces and global processes to distort God's good creation. We have also identified the need to reflect more fully in our philosophizing both the depth and scope of human suffering and human evil, and the call to respond attentively and with compassion to victims of suffering and evil. An ‘ethics of listening and response’ is, in part, an attempt to respond in a more radical way to this need, even as we were reminded of the limits of the possibilities for change and healing in a broken world - a world in which we always bear the mark of the Cross.

Our Symposium has enabled us to take some steps in responding to the challenges just described. We explored ethical challenges in philosophy, theology, anthropology, and ecclesiology, but also in many concrete sectors of social and professional life where acute ethical challenges arise.

What did we gain?

1. In an ‘ethics of listening and response’ we focussed on the human capacity to respond to the presence, needs, and ‘otherness’ of all God's creatures. We also reflected on the structure of and need for deep moral sensitivity, something which we identified as a precondition for the way we act in particular situations. This human capacity needs to be discussed and formed, through practical experience, educational encounters, inter-cultural dialogues, and so forth. It was suggested that what is often talked about as personal ‘virtues’ can be understood in relation to this moral sensitivity.

2. We reflected on the role of the church, the worshipping and believing community of Christ's disciples. We were reminded that the church is called to receive, proclaim, discern and concretely embody the summons and call of the Word of God in its own common life and in the virtues thereby formed in its members, and to witness to the truth and shalom offered by that Word in the world.

3. A new and creative element in our discussions was the consideration of normative social and professional ‘practices’ and the integral role of ethical considerations in those practices. In panels and workshops we addressed urgent questions arising in practices including business, education, medicine, social work, family life, politics, media and information technologies, and agriculture, and issues arising from environmental degradation, multicultural tensions, and religious and moral conflict. We also recognized that, underlying many of these questions are deeper and often destructive cultural and religious forces and patterns. Thus, in each of these areas, not only are new approaches to specific ethical problems required, but a new ‘ethos’ - a new basic orientation - is called for. Profoundly damaging consequences will follow if our societies persist in distorted ways of acting and thinking.

4. We also highlighted the importance of a global ethics, acknowledging the ever-widening circles of responsibility to which we are now increasingly called. Here also the appeal of the ‘golden rule’ of Jesus Christ was heard - His call upon us to do more for the other than we are merely obliged to do. Our global experience of encounters with other very diverse cultural and religious contexts also commanded our engagement. Such a response will involve a careful `listening' to and recognition of the ‘otherness’ of our many, diverse, fellow human beings. Then also the call to faithfulness to a Kingdom vision, through compassionate and sensitive discernment of normative pathways, were sounded clearly.

What next?

We were conscious of not being able to address many important questions adequately (for example: the status of the discipline of ‘ethics’ within reformational philosophy in which it has long had an ambiguous position; the possible place of ‘virtue’ within a reformational ethics; the continuing challenge to articulate a biblically and philosophically compelling account of ‘creational norms;’ the need to integrate a creational ethics with an ‘ethics of the Cross’). Yet participants came away inspired to work further on these and other challenging issues, in future conferences, study groups, and publication projects, by offering our specific expertise as philosophers seeking to work out of the inspiration of the Gospel.

19 August 2000, Bovendonk, Hoeven.

The drafting group (Peter Blokhuis, Jonathan Chaplin, Gerrit Glas, Young Ahn Kang, Roel Kuiper, Bennie van der Walt)

A few further thawts: This statement of communal orientation of the Christian, coming especially from a Protestant milieu and a Reformed originating movement of Christian scholarship, does not in itself solve all problems. For instance, it does not solve the problems of journalism; it does not solve the problems of political possiblity in regard to war and peace (among other mattters). On the latter pair, refWrite remains resolutely neo-Constantian as against pacificist for the ethical horizon of those in power and under oath to protect the survival of democratic nations and way of governance, as well as the expansion of democracy where its lack threatens world stability. Thus, the reality that people die in war, has to be shouldered by refWrite's versoin of Christian ethics and the writing of fact and opiinion that touches on the condcut of a war (Iraq, for example), the preservation of a peace (the countries of the former Yugoslavia), the work to overcome impasses (Israel / Palestine) - and, of course, many others in areas of armed conflict around the world today. Journalism, and a Christian practice of blogging such as refWrite seeks to pursue, need not cast asside the tools of satire, sarcasm, and praise, and outrite loyal support for various trends, policieis, and persons. It's this edge that makes a somewhat-journalistic blog indeed a blog. Enuff said for the nownce! - Owlb