Ethics niebuhr essay

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962) was a prominent twentieth-century American theologian. He was Sterling Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. He is known for his books The Responsible Self and Radical Monotheism and Western Culture.

Along with all of this Niebuhr noticed a terrible contrast between “moral man and immoral society.” He observed a great distinction between the relatively decent, good behavior of man as an individual and man as society. His analysis of this contrast led him to the roots of the contradiction of human nature. He cogently states,

Among those in the modern world to face this problem is the brilliant and influential theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. In partly solving this problem he resorts to a formula of “dualistic ethics.” In the present paper, it is our purpose to discuss this ethical dualism in the thinking of Niebuhr.

Niebuhr freely admits that justice is morally inferior to equality in love, but one still has the moral responsibility to choose a “second best.” One must realistically adjust himself to the fact that the ethic which controls the individual cannot inform the group.