Questions for a reluctant jurisprudence of alterity

Nick Smith

pp. 55-75

in: Desmond Manderson (ed), Essays on Levinas and law, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

Abstract

Much has changed in the ten years since I argued for Levinasian alternatives to the law and economics movement in one of the first articles on Levinas to appear in a US law review.¹ Levinas scholarship has expanded considerably, especially with respect to the practical applications of his purposefully impractical philosophy. Despite his well-known aversion to the subject, Levinas' political philosophy now receives considerable attention.² This seems inevitable given his status as one of the great thinkers of Judaism in an age in which Zionism plays such an enigmatic role in global affairs. Our desperation for a light to pierce the ethical fog of modernity and its imperialist wars also makes Levinas' unyielding challenge to violence a welcome beacon. And as this volume, the spirited conference that gave rise to it, and Desmond Manderson's Proximity, Levinas, and the Soul of Law demonstrate, Levinas now also provides inspiration for many legal theorists.³

Cited authors

Levinas Emmanuel

Manderson Desmond