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Document Details : Title: Inaugural Address Subtitle: What Animates our Society? In Search of a Theological Ethics of Political Emotions Author(s): VAN STICHEL, Ellen Journal: Louvain Studies Volume: 46 Issue: 2 Date: 2023 Pages: 123-143 DOI: 10.2143/LS.46.2.3292701 Abstract : This inaugural lecture takes its point of departure in the so-called 'affective turn' in social science and philosophy, the increasing academic interest in a descriptive and normative analysis of public emotions respectively. Taking (the public dimension of) emotions seriously without lapsing into sentimentality requires a critique, or at least questioning, of the Cartesian dichotomy between reason and emotion. Or rather, it requires a broader understanding of reasonableness that recognizes precisely both reason and emotion as legitimate sources of knowledge – and by extension, of ethics. Theologically speaking, then, what is at stake is not so much a theology of public emotions as a theological ethics of public emotions. The other side of the coin is that the development of a theology of (public) emotions in turn raises the question of the place of emotions in theology. By exposing the affectedness and vulnerability of theology and the theologian, theology comes a lot closer to what liberation theologian Jon Sobrino called 'orthopathy'. Not only discussing vulnerability and relationality as theological themes, but also (daring to) exposing one’s own vulnerability is a methodological track to the future of theological ethics, particularly if it aims to continue to speak out on issues such as social justice and current ecological challenges. |
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