1. The concept of reality
2. Two levels of thought
3. The four mandates
Seminar: Abortion: biological, psychosocial, moral and faith-related aspects
Ethics II
Ethics is the science concerned with appropriate human behaviour. In a descriptive and prescriptive way, it studies motivation, methods, goals, and consequences, and its own ability to generalize both in an individual and communal sense. Immanuel Kant talks about the problem of “How should we act?” through the correlation of three questions: who is man, how do we know, and, what may we hope for? Thus the description of good behaviour can only be answered through the correlation of anthropology, epistemology and religious faith – rightly declared by moral philosophy. However, the source of Christian ethics is revelation. According to this, each act has the same motivation and measure: “that you may live a life worthy of the Lord” (Col 1:10). The aim of the subject is to make one aware that man, who simultaneously lives in the order of nature and grace, is basically a moral being. So long as he recognizes the good in God's revealed will and practises this in the community of his fellow man, he fulfils his mission, or on the contrary, he falls short of it.
Competences
Specific competences
Students becomes familiar with such basic ethical concepts as freedom, responsibility, conscience, norms, values, respect, autonomy, heteronomy, and human dignity and moreover with the different types of interpretation on morality, including Kant's ethics, utilitarianism, and contractualism, etc. Students will understand the common and differentiating traits of general morality and Christian ethics. During seminars, and based on acquired concepts and an ethical point of view, students will work with the key concepts of ethics, focusing on virtues, thus proving both their sensitivity to the problems, and their ability to apply their theoretical knowledge.General competences
The course will help students to identify moral dilemmas and often contradictory moral requirements in different life circumstances, and on the basis of a certain value system, to recognize the true sense of classical and theological virtues (wisdom, courage, righteousness, self-control; faith, hope, and love), and through practising these to be the creator of true values.Course structure
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Christ, reality and the issue of good
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Ethics as Christ's representation
1. Theoretical ethics and reality
2. Ecce homo
3. Dismissal of human beings
4. Man of success
5. The idolatry of death
6. Becoming Christlike
7. The concrete placeSeminar: Artificial insemination, surrogacy, and posthumous reproduction
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Heritage and corruption
1. Historical heritage in the Western Christian cultural sphere
2. Greek-Roman antiquity
3. Corpus Christianum and its breakup in the Reformation
4. The intellectual effect of the French revolution
5. The temptation of nihilism -
Sin, righteousness, regeneration – the ultimate and the penultimate reality
1. Confession of sin
2. Justification and wound healing
3. Justification as the ultimate word
4. The penultimate
5. Preparing the roadSeminar: Cohabitation and abstinence
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The natural life
1. Suum cuique
2. The right to physical life
3. Suicide
4. Transmission of life
5. The natural laws of spiritual lifeSeminar: Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia
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History and good
1. The structure of a responsible life (Representation, conformity with reality, The material world, The atonement of sins, the Conscience, Freedom)
2. The place of responsibility (The callings)Seminar: The Death penalty as a legal and moral issue
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The breach between God's love and the world
1. The world of conflicts
2. Shame
3. Shame and the conscience
4. The world of recovered unity
5. The Pharisee
6. Investigation of God's will
7. Action
8. LoveSeminar: Homosexuality
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Church and the world
1. Christ's exhaustiveness and exclusivity
2. Christ and good peopleSeminar: Marriage, adultery, and divorce
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How should the Church speak to the world?
1. Are there Christian solutions to the world’s problems?
2. Christlike attitude
3. Crusade against evil
4. The Church's word to the world - law and GospelSeminar: moral issues of war
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Ethical and Christian issues
1. Authorization to analyse ethical questions
2. God's lawSeminar: Can an economy be moral?
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The specific commandments and the divine mandates – The tenet of “primus usus legis” in the Lutheran creed
1. The concept of mandate
2. God's commandment in the Church
3. Primus usus legisSeminar: Morality and politics
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Church and State
1. Conceptual clarification
2. Foundations of authority
3. The divine nature of authority
4. Authority and the divine fundamental orders in the world
5. Authority and Church
6. Form of government and the ChurchSeminar: The legal, moral and psychosocial issue of transplantation
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Application of personal and material ethics
1. Personal or material ethics
2. New Testament
3. Confessional documents
4. Criticism of Dilschneider's dogmatics
5. Systematic theological viewpointsSeminar: Protection of Creation – eco-ethical issues
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What does it mean to say the truth?
1. Sitz im Leben
2. Truthfulness as dependent on the circumstances
Total estimated time
Classroom study
- 2 hours/week (Course: 1 | Seminar: 1 | Practice: 0)
- 28 hours/semester (Course: 14 | Seminar: 14 | Practice: 0)
Individual study
- Time for studying course notes and bibliography: 20 hours/semester.
- Time for further documentation in libraries, electronic platforms, or on the field: 10 hours/semester.
- Time for preparing essays, papers, or documentation: 10 hours/semester.
- Time for personal tutoring: 2 hours/semester.
- Total individual study: 42 hours/semester.
- Total estimated time: 70 hours/semester.
Examination
1. Szóbeli vizsga az előadásokon készített jegyzetek és a kiadott anyag alapján - 50%
2. Írásbeli dolgozat a bemutatott szemináriumi témáról - 50%