Research

The fight against absolute poverty, combined with hunger, illness and the death of an enormous number of people, is probably the most important socio-ethical problem of our time. Every year, around 20 million people worldwide die from poverty-related causes, including more than 10 million children. If science is to not only describe this problem in view of the human rights of those affected, but also contribute to a sustainable reduction in absolute poverty, this requires an interdisciplinary endeavour. This lies both in a universal normative justification for the change of norms, institutions and social systems as well as in the reflection of their implementability. This challenges the competence of Christian social ethics, which has a concrete institutional-ethical orientation.

With regard to the empirical problem analysis of the poverty and inequality situation, (comparative) welfare economics is required. In view of the fact that around one third of the world's population belongs to Christianity, a comparative study of moral cultures in terms of the appropriate implementation of norms is also required, which can be carried out by Christian social and economic ethics. In terms of content, the central object of these three research approaches will be to bring together their results in a systematic global theory of justice on the problem of absolute global poverty, which develops application-relevant guidelines for combating poverty for those responsible in each case and establishes a systematic connection between ethical postulates of justice and concrete poverty reduction. The aim is to answer, on the basis of an ethical argument, why global poverty should be combated, on the basis of which socio-ethical norms and with which economically viable implementation strategy.

The project is based on the key question of how social security in Germany can be organized in an ethically responsible way in the face of economic, social and global change processes. The aim is to develop an idealized model of social security that will prove itself on three levels of justice in the long term:

(a) on a human rights level, which includes the basic right to a decent minimum subsistence level,

(b) a level of social justice with regard to macro and micro distribution aspects and

(c) on a level of social development with regard to the ethical claim to empowerment and participatory justice for all affected people.

Based on the need for reform of the current social system, different types of reform are examined with regard to their potential for justice and their fulfilment of Christian social principles, as well as their feasibility (economic and social). An ethical criteriology for a structural concept of social security will be established, which in future will guarantee human rights standards for all those potentially affected, ensure a social balance between them and enable them to participate in society. The structural concept should make a contribution to greater humanity in society and help to ensure poverty resistance, humane living conditions and the social system's ability to include people in the long term.

Scientists involved

Prof. Dr Elke Mack

Andreas Rauhut M.A./ M.Th.

Dipl.-theol. Bernhard Preusche B.A.

Adrian Papenhagen

A future concept of the welfare state must take migration movements into account in order to guarantee social justice, especially as these have taken on a new quality since 2014. However, a purely nation-state-benefit-orientated connection between migration and social security is highly problematic in terms of social ethics, as it reduces the needy and affected people to their functionality for Western economies and social systems. Beyond nation-state considerations of utility, Christian social ethics as a theological discipline is based on an anthropologically expanded view of migrants as human persons who have a right to help, freedom of movement and a life in dignity.

Therefore, the original socio-ethical concern to establish socially just institutions within societies must be embedded in a universal context. The dilemma between the research goals of national social justice and global justice can be avoided if the social and global dimensions of justice are not polarised, but considered together in a differentiated way. Taking into account the recent philosophical and Christian-social-ethical debate on migration, an ethical criteriology will therefore be developed to determine when, to what extent and in what form the admission of migrants is universally obligatory, normatively just and ethically equitable after thorough consideration of the resilience of the national social institutions of a Western welfare state such as Germany. An ethically consistent synthesis must be developed as to how humanity can be guaranteed under the existing conditions of social scarcity for both affected parties, nationals with civil rights and migrants with universal human rights within the framework of current and future, national-social and global human rights justice obligations.