The European Union challenges the European national state and its idea of the unity of nation and state. It is a transnational union of nation states in which, like in any un-ion, the member states must give up parts of their sovereignty. Regardless of the fact whether the EU is already a...

Intergenerational justice arises from the fact that generations stand towards each other in a relationship of obligation. Children owe their existence to their parents, and therefore the continuation of their own existence in children of the next generation. Self interest demands the constant...

The Social Market Economy has been seen as a third path between capitalism and socialism shaped by the principle of solidarity. The rhetoric of the third way can be mere mediation as indecisiveness or the consequence of a third conception of the economic order. Solidarism and personalism as the...

The origin of evil is one of the great puzzles of philosophy and theology. Evil is no objective of the world order since there can be no objective to fail to meet an objective. To assume that evil is part of the world order would, however, imply to assume that there is an objective to fail an...

Das Leitbild der Wirtschafts-und Sozialordnung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, die Soziale Markwirtschaft, wird durch die Idee des sozialen Ausgleichs von Einkommensunterschieden durch die progressive Besteuerung, durch die umlagefinanzierte Altersvorsorge, durch die Mitbestimmung der...

Konsumieren und Produzieren sind Formen, in denen sich das Selbst mit seiner Umwelt auseinandersetzt. Konsumieren ist bereits für den nicht-menschlichen Organismus notwendig. Jeder Organismus konsumiert aus seiner Umwelt, seinem äußeren Milieu, um sein inneres Milieu aufrechtzuerhalten. Nur...

Debt relationships are relationships of obligations. The paper analyses debt relationships in civil law and economic ethics as well as in theology. It starts from the German word for debt and guilt relationships Schuldverhältnisse. The German term Schuld does not distinguish between debt and...