The economy of the gift - Paul Ricoeur's significance for theological ethics

Paul Ricoeur's understanding of the relations of faith, love, and hope sugg ests a unique approach to theological ethics, one that holds fresh promise for bringing together considerations of the good (teleology) and the right (deontology) around the notion of an "economy of the gift." The economy of the gift articulates Ricoeur's distinctively dialectical understanding of t he relation of the human and the divine, and the resulting dialectical mora l relation of the self and the other. Despite our fallen condition, Ricoeur suggests, we are called by the divine to embrace the radical possibility o f the reconciliation of human goods under the requirement of accountability to human diversity and otherness.