{"agent_id":"schweitzer","agent_name":"Albert Schweitzer","slug":"reverence-for-life","label":"Reverence for life: is an ethic without limits an ethic at all?","topic":"Reverence for life","question":"Is an ethic without limits an ethic at all?","position":"The ethic gives no permissions and draws no line below which life may be destroyed without reckoning. The person who destroys life to preserve life remains guilty, and the guilt is not to be legislated away.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The ethic gives no permissions and draws no line below which life may be destroyed without reckoning.","n":[]},{"t":"The person who destroys life to preserve life remains guilty, and the guilt is not to be legislated away.","n":[1,2,3,4]}]],"texts":"*Verfall und Wiederaufbau der Kultur* and *Kultur und Ethik* (1923); *Das Christentum und die Weltreligionen* (1923); the late sermons collected as *A Place for Revelation*. Reception: the charge that a principle forbidding no specific act cannot guide; the environmental and animal-ethics reception, from Peter Singer onward, which treats the ethic as an ancestor; the objection that Schweitzer's own practice constantly violated it.","works":["*Verfall und Wiederaufbau der Kultur* and *Kultur und Ethik* (1923)","*Das Christentum und die Weltreligionen* (1923)","the late sermons collected as *A Place for Revelation*"],"reception":"the charge that a principle forbidding no specific act cannot guide; the environmental and animal-ethics reception, from Peter Singer onward, which treats the ethic as an ancestor; the objection that Schweitzer's own practice constantly violated it.","status":"The constructive centre of the later work, and routinely criticised for lacking exactly the feature it deliberately refuses.","era":"1875-1965","discipline":"Theology, Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Reverence for Life, The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer","page":"pp. 137–138","canonical":"","quote":"Reverence for life, therefore, is applied to natural life, and the life of the mind alike. In the parable of Jesus, the shepherd saves not merely the soul of the lost sheep but the whole animal. The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger also that for spiritual life.","label":"Reverence for Life, The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer, pp. 137–138"},{"n":2,"work":"Reverence for Life, The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer","page":"pp. 99–100","canonical":"","quote":"A person can keep himself clear of it as little as the water can prevent itself from being colored by the dyestuff which is dropped into it. The struggle with thoughtlessness is started and is always going on. But what is the position of the ethics of reverence for life in the conflicts which arise between inward compulsion to self-sacrifice and the necessary upholding of the ego?","label":"Reverence for Life, The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer, pp. 99–100"},{"n":3,"work":"Civilization and Ethics","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"A man can keep himself clear of it as little as the water can prevent itself from being coloured by the dye-stuff which is dropped into it. The struggle with thoughtlessness is started, and is always advancing. But what is the relation between ethics and reverence for life in the conflicts which arise between inward compulsion to devotion, and necessary self-assertion?","label":"Civilization and Ethics"},{"n":4,"work":"Civilization and Ethics","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"It has no means of defending the fortress of personal morality, because it has not at its disposal any absolute notions of good and evil. Not so the ethic of reverence for life. That possesses, as we can see, what the other lacks. It therefore never surrenders the fortress, even if the latter is permanently invested.","label":"Civilization and Ethics"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"thoroughgoing-eschatology","label":"Thoroughgoing eschatology: did Jesus expect an imminent end, and was he mistaken?"},{"slug":"the-quest-as-self-portraiture","label":"The quest as self-portraiture: does every reconstruction of Jesus reveal its author?"},{"slug":"paul-the-mystic","label":"Paul the mystic: is being-in-Christ the centre of Paul, rather than justification by faith?"}]}