This article will discuss different understandings of love. In particular, two modern perceptions of love will be differentiated: love as consisting of individual, often inconstant, emotions between human beings, and a Christian understanding of love, which is often expressed through caring for other members of the community. Aspects of Christian love will then be examined in ethical terms, emphasising the relevance of love for the diaconal dimension of the church. Before one is able to help one's neighbour, one first has (...) to be actively identified within the complex social structures of society. Next, the nature of diaconal action has to be defined and adapted to individuals who are in need, or who have become needy or been disadvantaged by society, for example, migrant workers, refugees or asylum seekers. A central aspect of diaconal action - in addition to meeting basic needs - lies in giving a voice to such individuals and in empowering them, including politically, to represent their own interests in public life. (shrink)

Kritisiert wird gegenwärtig viel - und auch Kritik wird kritisiert. In dieser Situation sucht dieser Sammelband auszuweisen, wie in einer christlichen Sozialethik Kritik betrieben wird: Sie zielt auf die Kritik der Unvernunft der die Menschen bestimmenden, zugleich von Menschen geschaffenen Ordnungen der Gesellschaft- und dies im Interesse an vernünftigeren Ordnungen ihres Zusammenlebens. Gesellschaftskritik als Vollzug praktischer Rationalität gibt es freilich nicht ohne Herrschaftskritik und nicht ohne Kritik von Ausschluss und Subalternität. Ausdrücklich wird in diesem Band der neutrale Vollzug »der Vernunft« (...) ausgeschlossen; stattdessen wird die in der eigenen Gesellschaftskritik vollzogene praktische Rationalität normativ grundiert.Mit Beiträgen vonMichelle Becka, Bernhard Emunds, Johannes Eurich, Gisela Kubon-Gilke, Torsten Meireis, Matthias Möhring-Hesse. (shrink)

Recognition is a basic precondition of participation. This article applies the dimension of recognition to business ethics. A case is made for normative stakeholder management as a voluntary commitment at the level of corporate leadership; this also meets management’s strategic demands. A vitality criterion is offered as a heuristic instrument, suggesting that any operation should be avoided which would violate the legitimate interests of stakeholders. For this reason, the recognition of mutually-conditioned stakeholder claims is understood as the central management idea.

This article highlights the challenges and opportunities of Christian social workers in the tradition of deaconesses and deacons in today’s Germany. Their professional self-conception as social workers between church and society is analysed. By this, a new approach of linking up a theological perspective with diaconal professionalism, is presented.

The introduction of market principles creates a basic change in managing instruments of social services. The economic rationality is often not mediated with rationalities of professional standards or theological programs. Due to economical pressure, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain a value oriented service. On top of this, the function of ecclesiastical welfare institutions as an advocate for socially week people is in danger to get lost. Looking for answers, the article concentrates on presently discussed concepts of restructuring (...) institutions of church welfare. These concepts are contrasted by actual developments within the domain of church welfare. (shrink)

Demographic change, change in family structures, growing ethnic plurality resulting from migration, social inequality and so on require new ways of addressing spiritual and social needs in many Western European countries. In view of these current social changes, increasingly more effort is being put into strengthening cooperation between church congregations and diaconal institutions at the local level. This article will focus on the reciprocal relationship between the church and its immediate local context by focusing on one of the church’s ministries (...) – diaconia – as a service of God’s people to the world. Although diaconia is part of the church, it has developed in organisations separate from the church and thus as a parallel structure to the institutionalised church structure in many countries. The current changes offer opportunities for the church and diaconia to join forces and to overcome cooperational difficulties at the local level. The objective of this article is to draw attention to the potential of the social space for collaboration, to analyse hindrances to collaborative efforts on a practical level and to point out what steps the church and diaconia may take to further local collaboration.Contribution: The contribution of this article is to analyse the social space with regard to the collaboration between local churches and diaconal organisations, and thereby to point out its potential for their further development in line with the journal’s focus on original ideas in practical theology. (shrink)

The health care sector is currently in a process of economization which, undoubtedly, has an impact on the relationship of physician and patient. In this article, elements of the new institutional economics are applied to the physician-patient-relationship in the sense of a descriptive heuristics. The authors find out that based on the principal-agent-theory paradoxical action settings ofthe physician can be located. 1t is necessary for policy makers involved in health care to consider these paradoxes. Furthermore, health literacy of lay persans (...) supported by widespread information technology lessens the information gap between physician and patient which changes their interaction with a Iasting effect. Based on this analysis the authors recommend not only to focus on individual ethics of the physician but rather to consider approaches of institutional ethics and incentive systems. (shrink)

In this article, the authors attempt to build a bridge between economic theory and medical ethics to offer a new perspective to tackle ethical challenges in the physician–patient encounter. They apply elements of new institutional economics to the ethically relevant dimensions of the physician–patient relationship in a descriptive heuristic sense. The principal–agent theory can be used to analytically grasp existing action problems in the physician–patient relationship and as a basis for shaping recommendations at the institutional level. Furthermore, the patients’ increased (...) self-determination and modern opportunities for the medical laity to inform themselves lead to a less asymmetrical distribution of information between physician and patient and therefore require new interaction models. Based on the analysis presented here, the authors recommend that, apart from the physician’s necessary individual ethics, greater consideration should be given to approaches of institutional ethics and hence to incentive systems within medical ethics. (shrink)