Sovereign is who decides; and who decides is responsible. The book develops these two arguments by comparing Carl Schmitt's and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theories of sovereignty.
Carl Schmitt was an influential jurist of Nazi Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran priest hanged for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. In many ways, the two men could not be more different. But they both struggled with the question of how to maintain order and how to prevent violence at times of crisis.
In this considered work, Jeutner brings these two thinkers into careful dialogue. They both agreed that order is established not by appealing to existing norms or general principles but by an individual's sovereign decision. Ascribing sovereignty to individuals communicates that they always have a choice and that they are always responsible for these choices. Thus, it is not just powerful individuals who have the choice to bring wars to an end or who can combat climate change.
This exploratory work reveals that, by making sovereign decisions, ordinary individuals, too, can work towards the peaceful resolution of conflicts or reduce their carbon footprint. Making such sovereign decisions is not easy for individuals who are taught to follow orders and norms. For this reason, this book supplements the comparative analysis of Schmitt and Bonhoeffer with an action-guiding decision-making framework. While the proposed framework departs from Schmitt's and Bonhoeffer's theses by recognizing the agency, responsibility, and sovereignty of all individuals, Jeutner argues that this acknowledgement of the universal sovereignty of individuals is the only way to bring about the orderly and peaceful world of which Schmitt and Bonhoeffer dream.

lgrsnf/Valentin Jeutner Sovereign Human Being Carl Schmitt, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Responsible Decision-Making.pdf

Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic

Cassell

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

T&T Clark Enquiries in Theological Ethics

Cover
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Parallel lives
2. Parallel questions
Part 1 Carl Schmitt’s Sovereign Führer
1. The exception
2. The sovereign
3. The decision
4. Summary
Part 2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Sovereign Superiors
1. The extraordinary situation
2. Sovereign superiors
3. The decision
4. Summary
Part 3 The sovereign human being
1. Unexceptional sovereignty
i. Exception as metaphysical phenomenon
ii. Exception as event
iii. The exception’s trivialization of the normal
iv. Times of exception
v. The ordinariness of exceptions
2. The sovereign human being
i. The alleged lack of sovereign agency
ii. The alleged incompetence of individuals
3. The de-cision
i. Decision as the sovereign act
ii. Process of decision
iii. The decision’s normative space
iv. Decision and responsibility
v. Decision and agency
vi. Decisions and Christianity
4. A Framework for Sovereign Decision-Making
i. Agency
ii. Knowledge
iii. Options
iv. Action
v. Responsibility
vi. Limitations
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

2024-11-01