Abstract

Ethics and legal design currently seem to be involved in a “vortex of temporality” (Jürgen Habermas), which, according to the understanding of many, integrates them into a modern way of life. Examples are the protection of life (Embryo Protection Act and abortion, reinterpretation of Article 1 of the Basic Law in the Maunz/Dürig commentary by Herdegen), the promotion of plural family forms and sexual relationship worlds (“marriage for all“, life stage partnership), assisted dying (judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on assisted suicide). Apparently, it is always about the dismantling of traditional taboos and the establishment of legal regulations that are intended to correspond to a new ethical consciousness and plural ideological worlds.

The discussion in ethics theory and legal theory in this situation has agreed on a model of the gravitational fields of liberal self-execution, in which cultural development in ethics and law should find its moral support and at the same time its legal ethical dynamics. According to this understanding, a basic consensus is maintained in the execution of liberal debates (also on moral and legal questions). It is articulated in human rights principles, which themselves must be discussed again in open conversation in their meaning, but which at the same time bring themselves to the fore as irrefutable exactly in this social process.

Theological ethics maintains a certain distance from this interpretation. The understanding of freedom must then be structured for the lifestyle of society in such a way that the one-sidedness of individualism and abstract overemphasis, even exaggeration, is avoided. The aim is to integrate social integration, reference to natural framework conditions and realistic border awareness in ethics and law. Moral theology can be based in this on the further development of social science.