Ethical and ontological foundations of justice in E. Levinas’s philosophy

Authors

  • Sergey V. Polatayko St. Petersburg National Research Academic University of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 8, Khlopina ul., St. Petersburg, 194021, Russian Federation
  • Vladimir P. Scherbakov St. Petersburg State Research Institute of Phthisiopulmonology of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation, 2–4, Ligovskiy pr., St. Petersburg, 191036, Russian Federation

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2020.105

Abstract

The issue of justice occupies one of the central places in the history of philosophy. On the one hand, this is determined by the significant social importance of justice, and at the same time it is problematic to reach social and scientific consensus regarding the very conception of justice and its attainability. Perhaps, this is the reason, why this problem has become an unsolvable one, a sort of eternal philosophical question. Despite this, scholars demonstrate little interest in it and it is located on the periphery of the research field. However, the issue of justice has not lost its topicality in political and social philosophy, and it is perfectly proved by a vivid discussion initiated by J. Rawls, in which the concept of justice has been infused with a considerable value. The present discussion about the foundations and principles of justice became the reason to once again turn to the phenomenological concept of justice of Emmanuel Levinas. He believed that ethics had a priority over ontology, and such a fundamental approach allows one to analyze his ethical ideas as one of the perspective areas for inquiry into the phenomenon of justice. Our paper considers the main tenets of Levinas’s social phenomenology, among which ethics takes priority over ontology. It analyses the relations with the Other that appear on the basis of compassion and love, which Levinas perceived as understanding and acceptance in the context of the ideas of rationalism and universalism. The paper argues that ethical formalism is inherent to rationalist philosophy, whereas in social phenomenology another understanding of justice is suggested, which defines with the transcendency of the Other. The latter is demonstrated as an ontological advantage and the possibility of recognition of each human being as a unique person, worthy of respect.

Keywords:

social phenomenology, theory of justice, ethics prioritizes over ontology, moral consciousness, ethical formalism, universalism

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References

Литература/References

1. Dimitrova, M. (2016), Sociality and Justice: Toward Social Phenomenology , Ibidem Press, Stuttgart.

2. Bauman, Z. (1995), Postmodern Ethics , Blackwell, Oxford.

3. Levinas, E. (1998), Entre nous: Thinking-of-the-Other , Columbia University Press, New York.

4. Buber, M. (1993), Dialogue. Between Man and Man , Routledge, London, New York.

5. Lyotard, J.-F. (1986), “Levinas’ Logic”. Face to Face with Levinas , Cohen, R. (ed.), State University of New York Press.

6. Levinas, E. (2000), Selected. Totality and infinite , transl. by Vdovina, I. S., Universitetskaia kniga Publ., Moscow, St. Petersburg. (In Russian)

7. Taylor, Ch. (2005), Debates on Contemporary Philosophy , Routledge, London.

8. Levinas, E. (2004), Selected: difficult freedom , transl. by Vdovina, G. V., ROSSPEN Publ., Мoscow. (In Russian)

9. Levinas, E. (1994), The Rights of Man and the Rights of the Other. Outside the Subject , transl. by Smith, M. B., Stanford University Press, Stanford.

10. Honneth, A. (1995), “The Limits of Liberalism: On the Political-Ethical Discussion concerning Communitarianism”, in The Fragmented World of the Social. Essays in Social and Political Philosophy , Wright, Ch. W. (ed.). State University of New York Press.

11. Rawls, J. (2001), Justice as Fairness. A Restatement , The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

12. Honneth, A. (2000), Kampf um Anerkennung. Zur moralischen Grammatik sozialer Konflikte , Suhrkamp, Franfurt am Main.

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Published

2020-03-31

How to Cite

Polatayko, S. V., & Scherbakov, V. P. (2020). Ethical and ontological foundations of justice in E. Levinas’s philosophy. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, 36(1), 59–68. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu17.2020.105

Issue

Vol. 36 No. 1 (2020): Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies

Section

Philosophy

License

Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.