SCHWEITZER, ALBERT

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) was born in Kaysersberg, Germany (now part of France) on January 14, and became a theologian, physician, musician, and philosopher whose ethical theory argued the centrality of reverence for life. After a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Strasbourg (1899), Schweitzer received his licentiate in theology (1900), and from 1901 to 1912 held administrative posts in the Theological College of St. Thomas. In 1913, having earned an M.D. degree, he founded a hospital at Lambaréné, French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon). As a German citizen, he became a French prisoner during World War I, but returned to Lambaréné in 1924, where he spent the remainder of his life expanding, administering, and improving the hospital. Recipient of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, Schweitzer worked during his later years in the struggle to end the proliferation and testing of nuclear weapons. He died on September 4 and was buried at Lambaréné.

From Music to Philosophy

In 1905 Schweitzer, an accomplished organist, wrote a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), and in 1906 The Quest of the Historical Jesus established him as a theological scholar. As a Christian, his faith guided his life as a physician at Lambaréné, where he unselfishly treated thousands of patients, including lepers. Although successful in diverse fields, Schweitzer considered his contributions to philosophy to be his most important achievements.

Schweitzer's philosophy of culture and ethics sought to reorient material progress toward humanity as a normative ideal. In his The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization (1923) and Civilization and Ethics (1923)—brought together in The Philosophy of Civilization (1949)—Schweitzer interpreted World War I as the sign of a deep-rooted crisis of European culture. The Enlightenment ideals of progress and rationality had decayed and lost their ability to control the trajectory of science and technology. Philosophy and religion no longer provided intellectual and spiritual guidance. Human powers had outstripped human capacities for reason.

This asymmetry between human powers and the ability to wisely constrain and channel those powers for compassionate action underpinned Schweitzer's ethics. In Civilization and Ethics, he writes:

The disastrous feature of our civilization is that it is far more developed materially than spiritually. ... Through the discoveries which now place the forces of Nature at our disposal in such an unprecedented way, the relations to each other of individuals, of social groups, and of States have undergone a revolutionary change. ... Advances in knowledge and power work out their effects on us almost as if they were natural occurrences. ... Paradoxical as it may seem, our progress in knowledge and power makes true civilization not easier but more difficult. (pp. 86–87)

He did not conceive of his own ethical theory as completely novel, but rather as the revitalization and reformation of the ethical legacy of humanity in the twentieth century. His goal was to restore the binding character of humanity and humanitarianism as the common assets of world civilizations. Schweitzer drew not only from the Christian commandment of love but also from Asian philosophies. He held that his main principle of "devotion toward life born from reverence for life" was a plausible ethical guideline for any individual regardless of his or her culture or religion.

In contrast to the rational a priori approach of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Schweitzer grounded his ethics in the experience of life as an empirical hypothesis, and is in this sense closely related to Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860). Reflecting upon life in this way, Schweitzer believed, would lead to the perspectives of reverence and responsibility. An experience of one's own "will to life," and the effort to avoid pain and seek pleasure, rationally compels an individual, under the auspices of a quasi-Kantian truthfulness, to acknowledge the same volition in others (see Meyer and Bergel 2002). This consciousness of being connected with other lives demands that people respect the moral rights of others, including plants and animals.

Schweitzer's ethics is contextual and situation-oriented and leads to a practical law that serves "concrete" humanity. He does not require an unbounded ethical responsibility beyond one's capability, but rather insists that it is most important to practice reverence for life within one's scope of action. He believed "abstraction is the demise of ethics" and that concrete humanity should always be promoted.

Ethics and Technology

Schweitzer was aware that life presented conflicting demands and that technological and scientific developments in modern civilization posed difficult challenges for practical responsibility. Yet he did not believe that this warranted the construction of dubious hierarchies and theoretical rankings of values that only solve problems in the abstract. His ethics does not promise a methodical and self-evident solution to difficult problems. Instead, the principle of reverence for life should be used as a general guideline for the process of critical thinking.

Schweitzer's ethics serves as a compass in the complex geography of modern problems to orient practical action toward responsibility and reverence for life. In his autobiography, Out of My Life and Thought (1990), Schweitzer describes the moment when the concept of reverence for life dawned upon him as he traveled through an African jungle in September 1915. He remembers, "Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase 'reverence for life.' ... Now I had found my way to the principle in which affirmation of the world and ethics are joined together!" (p. 155).

Although he did not develop a special ethics for science and technology, Schweitzer's humanitarianism and reverence for life can be easily transferred to the moral problems in this field. For instance, he argued that because nuclear technology could not be controlled, it could by the same token not be responsibly used—a position that would, of course, have to be qualified by specific situations and contexts (Schweitzer 1958). In general, Schweitzer's advice for solving ethical problems, including those presented by science and technology, was to rely on and use practical reasoning, individual responsibility, and the ideal of concrete humanity.

CLAUS GÜNZLER HANS LENK

SEE ALSO Development Ethics;Environmental Ethics;Life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Groos, H. (1974). Albert Schweitzer—Größe und Grenzen [Albert Schweitzer: greatness and limits]. Munich, Basel: E. Reinhardt.

Günzler, Claus. (1996). Albert Schweitzer: Einführung in sein Denken [Albert Schweitzer: introduction to his thought]. Munich: C. H. Beck.

Lenk, Hans. (2000). Albert Schweitzer: Ethik als konkrete Humanität [Albert Schweitzer: ethics as concrete humanity]. Münster, Germany: LIT.

Meyer, Marvin, and Kurt Bergel, eds. (2002). Reverence for Life: The Ethics of Albert Schweitzer for the Twenty-First Century. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Includes excerpts from Schweitzer on the concept of reverence for life, contributions from others assessing the concept, and a concluding section on its import for education.

Miller, David C., and James Pouilliard, eds. (1992). The Relevance of Albert Schweitzer at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Especially relevant to science, technology, and ethics, with chapters on nuclear arms reduction, medicine, human rights, and the environment.

Schweitzer, Albert. (1949). The Philosophy of Civilization, trans. C. T. Campion. New York: Macmillan. His major philosophical treatise, composed of The Decay and the Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics, both originally published in 1923 as Verfall und Wiederaufbau der Kultur and Kultur and Ethik.

Schweitzer, Albert. (1958). Peace or Atomic War? New York: Henry Holt. An essay divided into three parts—nuclear tests, atomic war, and negotiations—originally delivered as three broadcasts from Oslo, Norway.

Schweitzer, Albert. (1965). The Teaching of Reverence for Life, trans. Richard Winston and Clara Winston. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Begins with a basic treatment of ethics and develops Schweitzer's ethic concerning personal relations, culture, and atomic weapons.

Schweitzer, Albert. (1971–1974). Gesammelte Werke [Collected works], ed. R. Grabs. 5 vols. Munich: C.H. Beck.

Schweitzer, Albert. (1990). Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography, trans. Antje Bultmann Lemke. Rev. edition. New York: Henry Holt. Originally published in 1931.

Schweitzer, Albert. (1995–2005). Werke aus dem Nachlass [Posthumous works], ed. Richard Brüllmann, Erich Gräßer, Claus Günzler, et al. 9 vols. Munich: C.H. Beck. Includes the main philosophical work "Die Weltanschauung der Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben."

Schweitzer, Albert. (1999–2000). Kulturphilosophie III, ed. Claus Günzler and Johann Zürcher. Munich: C. H. Beck.

Steffahn, Harald. (1979). Albert Schweitzer. Reinbek, Hamburg: Rowohlt.