Abstract

What are the prospects of a Christian ethics of responsibility? In the article the versions of a Christian ethics of responsibility that have been developed since the nineteen eighties in dialogue with the philosopher Hans Jonas by the four Protestant theologians William Schweiker, Wolfgang Huber, Johannes Fischer and Ulrich Körtner, are critically discussed. It is pointed out that the disparity of their views is the main reason why a responsibility ethics school within Christian ethics could not have developed up till now. An attempt is made in the article to identify common denominators for such an ethics by extracting from the views of the theologians a number of ways in which responsibility can and should today qualify Christian ethics fundamentally.