Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics: Putting Ethics First ...

Yet it seems counterintuitive to say that he was not really doing ethics until he wrote the Metaphysics of Morals, or that there is not material in these works that is of significance for moral legislators. Nor is Kant the only ethicist about whom this point can be made; G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica and Thomas Nagel’s The Possibility of Altruism do not bristle with advice on euthanasia, censorship, or distributive justice. Yet we do not flinch when they are cited as important works in twentieth-century moral philosophy.

So, why not view Levinas as similar to these authors? His core ambition may not be to specify a comprehensive normative ethics, but he does reflect on the nature of ethical responsibility and the underlying concepts that define our view of ourselves as moral agents.¹² He also indicates where previous ethical theories have erred in discussing these matters. For example, he faults social contract theories that view morality solely in terms of uniform social agreements between competing, self-interested individuals.¹³ He also criticizes figures such as Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, and Althusser for privileging collective entities like states, cultures, nations, or classes over individuals as the primary datum of ethics and political philosophy.¹⁴ So, again, why not think of Levinas as having a similar approach to ethics as Kant’s in the Critique of Practical Reason? Kant’s main aim may not be to advance a detailed normative ethics, but his texts are valuable for what they say about the nature of ethical responsibility, and there is indication in them of how we might generate ethical standards based on Kant’s analysis. Similarly, why not say that Levinas’s main aim is not to develop a normative ethics, but that nothing prevents us from developing one based on his remarks on ethical responsibility?

So, the criticism of Levinas can sound puzzling. I take it that Critchley’s basic claim is that we expect something from philosophers working in ethics that we do not find in Levinas. Yet when we compare Levinas to other ethicists, it is not clear what is missing. Certainly one finds more indication in Kant as to what ethical policies he favors, and so my comparison of Levinas and Kant may seem misleading. However, my point is that the differences between them are quantitative rather than qualitative.