Die Ethik und der Krieg. Standortbestimmungen und Verunsicherungen

The ethical response to experiences of war and violence is deeply unsettled by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Radical pacifist attitudes are perceived as cynical and rejected as politically irresponsible. The article attempts to reconstruct different modes of speech in the current controversies about forms of peace ethics that might be still appropriate today. The lament about the lost peace and the admonition to renounce violence are to be distinguished from an argumentative justification of exceptions in the case of emergency. Ethical justifications must prove themselves in practice and at the same time point to the challenges of a message of peace that is articulated in the context of religion.