A. Schweitzer does not conceive hirnself as the author of a totally new ethics, but as an ethicist revitalizing the ethicallegacy of humankind in order to gain a new impact of the normative idea of humanity as a common asset of world civilizations. Starting from the all-today experience he elaborates his main principle of devotion towards life bornfrom reverence for life as a plausible guideline for any individual person independently of culture and religion. Thus he presents a model of normative (...) ethics that includes the Christian commandment of Iove as weil as the ethical traditions of the different cultures. This is why Schweitzer's contribution to the modern debate about ethics cannot be ignored. (shrink)