EKKEHART KRIPPENDORFF AND THE JURIDICAL ANTINOMY BETWEEN ETHICS AND THE STATE

Abstract

Traditionally ethics and the State belong to two different normative spheres. Thinkers as excellent as Augustine, Luther and Hegel denied the fact that mundane power, the State, has to comply with ethical principles. The German professor of politics and peace researcher Ekkehart Krippendorff, after analyzing the genesis and development of modern State, thinks that as an institution based on violence, it is harmful and should be overcome. With educated and original arguments he proposes alternative models of life style based on ethics. He particularly criticises Max Weber’s ethics of responsibility, which at the end justifies the abuses of power. Krippendorff believes that ethics has to take into account the necessities of the citizens, instead of privileging the ambitions and the whims of powerful people. Ethics has to be the fundament of social and political life, as well as of law.

 Keywords: Ethics. State. Law.