Levinasian Ethics

Abstract

We all are ethical in some sense or the other. Our society influences our ideas, thinking. Our social and political ideologies are based upon the problems we see around us. A question can be raised that do we really know what is being ethical? Or is ethical really ethical? Different people will define ethics in ways different from others. What is ethical for one may or may not be ethical for others. One of the continental philosopher Emmanuel Levinas provides us with an ethical theory whereby he talks about the “other”, the “infinite”, “same”, “finite”, and links it with our everyday experiences, history, beliefs and action. He calls ethics to be the first philosophy, such that ethics come before ontology, metaphysics, epistemology. While talking about ethics he mentions as to what he think of a society. He calls a society - the third party. The paper aims to discuss the conception of ethics according to Levinas. The paper also attempts to comprehend his idea of ‘other’ in relation to ‘same’.