"Current legal maxims in which the word neighbour occurs"

Levinas and the law of torts

Desmond Manderson

pp. 111-127

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

Abstract

Over the past hundred years, the law of negligence has transformed itself, and in the process transformed our sense of the obligations we owe to each other. Yet "the duty of care" is an unusual obligation. It is not the outcome of an agreement founded on self-interest, like a contract. It is not a duty owed to the State, like criminal law. It describes a personal responsibility we owe to others to which we have not consented. It is a kind of debt we never consciously incurred. "Am I my brother's keeper?" What does it mean to be responsible? These are not questions that are easier for us to answer than they were for Cain. Emmanuel Levinas offers a sustained meditation on them in language which will be uncannily familiar to any common lawyer. He writes about our duty of care to others; he seeks to understand the nature of a neighbourhood; he defends and articulates the idea of "proximity". Levinas writes, "perhaps because of current moral maxims in which the word neighbour occurs, we have ceased to be surprised by all that is involved in proximity and approach".² Here at last is a philosopher who speaks the language of torts.

Cited authors

Levinas Emmanuel