Friedensethik in Kriegszeiten

Abstract

Three days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke in a government statement of a „turning point in the history of our continent“. The question is whether it is acceptable that „power breaks the law“. Insofar as the relationship between power and law is one of the central problems of peace ethics, the keyword „turning point“ also marks a caesura for this area of applied ethics: In times of war, peace ethics – namely, Christian peace ethics – is under the pressure of realism. In recent decades, the theological and ecclesiastical mainstream of German Protestantism has focused primarily on war prevention, disregarding the question of what one can do when prevention fails. The three authors of this volume want to respond to the increased pressure of realism by presenting the peace-ethical drafts of Martin Luther and Immanuel Kant and by subjecting leading peace-ethical positions of German Protestantism to a critical revision.