MORAL OBLIGATION AND ‘PERSONHOOD’ IN EMMANUEL LEVINAS PHILOSOPHY
MORAL OBLIGATION AND ‘PERSONHOOD’ IN EMMANUEL LEVINAS PHILOSOPHY

Summary/Abstract: This work attempts to trace the concept of “personhood” in the historical background and explore the meaning and its implication with regard to ethics in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. This work is presented with two-fold subdivisions: the first part locates the concept of personhood from philosophical positioning and the second part deals elaborately with the ethics of the human person from Emmanuel Levinas perspective. The concept of ‘personhood’ is related to ethics because it connotes the idea that human beings are members of a moral community. Thus, for Levinas, genuine ethical thinking must question the ontological attitude of traditional ethics that is concerned only with knowing moral phenomena and knowing the essence of the other human being. Levinas attempt to answer the questions: what happens to a self in its relation to the other? Is there any other basic experience in a self than its capacity to incarcerate the other into its conceptual frame of consciousness in relating to the other? Levinas submits that human being fundamentally is responsible for the other. One is emptying oneself for the other, dying oneself for the other, and thereby caring for the other. Levinas explores in his philosophy the other-roots of a self.

• Details
• Contents