Fundamentals of ethics

When ethics is conceived not in terms of actions but in terms of social practices, the focus shifts and new phenomena and ethical questions come into view. 

A monograph on ethics based on practical theory is currently being prepared. In particular, it examines practices of subjectification and responsabilization, moralization and demoralization, as well as appreciation and degradation. 

Religion is more than and different from reason—but it can also be understood as a cultural technique for behaving rationally toward certain fundamental questions about how humans relate to the world and themselves.

Further reading:

• Moos, Thorsten (2024): Praktiken der Moralisierung und Entmoralisierung. Vorschlag einer theologischen Analytik des Verhältnisses von Politik und Moral, in: Ekkehard Felder et al. (Hg.): Moral und Moralisierung, de Gruyter, 231–256.

What can empirical social science research contribute to ethics?

Further readeing:

• Moos, Thorsten (2023): Ethik und Empirie in der Theologie, in: Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 67, 185–199.

In church and theology, reference is made to biblical texts in many different ways. What usually remains unclear is how and as what these are understood. This implies a question of power, as the authority of those who refer to the Bible is called into question. 

In various publications and also in teaching, the chair explores the question of how the handling of biblical texts, especially in German-speaking evangelicalism, is reflexively pursued and whether and how this reflection is reflected in concrete interpretative practice.