Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Page 36

of the other. But how can I know the expectation of another person? Basically
from the expectation I myself show. There is, then, reciprocity in the sense
that both I and the other constantly have experience both of the expectation
of self-surrender and of the power over the other life. This is the reciprocity of
the Golden Rule. And hence in Norrn og spontaneitet (1972) Logtrup identi-
fies the ethical demand with the Golden Rule. At that time he had presented
his analysis of the sovereign expressions of life:
As the sovereign expression of life is radical the demand that so to speak
steps in for it, obviously is likewise. The demand is e.g. formulated in the
Golden Rule: What you want others to do to you, you must do to them.
(Logstrup 1972, 19).
In Norm og spontaneitet the Golden Rule to a large extent serves as founda-
tion for a social and political ethics. On the one hand, I think this marks a
significant change in Logstrup’s ethics. But on the other hand, as I have tried
to show, the ethical demand of 1956 is not only a radical demand in an ethics
of proximity. The demand also has a social-ethical function in creating social
responsibility, a function that is necessary because the changing norms are not
sufficient to guide our social life.
References
L0gstrup, K.E. (1950): Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verháltnis zur
Verkiindigung. Berlin.
Logstrup, K.E. (1962): Den etiske fordring. Sjette oplag. Kobenhavn.
L^gstrup, K.E. (1972): Norm og spontanitet. Etik og politik mellem teknokrati og dilettan-
tokrati. Kobenhavn.
Logstrup, K.E. (1996): Etiske begreber ogproblemer. Kobenhavn.
Logstrup, K.E. (1982): System ogsymbol. Essays. Kobenhavn.
Logstrup, K.E. (1997): The Ethical Demand. Notre Dame and London.
Wingren, G. (1971): Etik och kristen tro. Lund, Kobenhavn, Oslo.