An Open Model for Ethics: Modes of Ethical Encounter in Emmanuel Levinas and Nishitani Keiji
Video Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by Gerald Nelson
Exhibition Number 501
Abstract
This dissertation is an approach to ethics that seeks to facilitate ethical relationships between persons without theoretically inscribing human relationships. This approach will be referred to as an open model of ethics and it presents two anti-theoretical approaches to ethics as instances of its general form. These two instances are drawn from the work of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani respectively. These two approaches each describe models of interpersonal encounter that do not encode moral behavior as prescriptions but rather describe conditions of interpersonal encounter meant to facilitate the possibility of the determination of norms in direct face-to-face encounter.
Importance
This research contributes to contemporary debates on ethics by demonstrating how traditional practices and philosophical insights from Japan can inform global ethical discourse, particularly in fostering mutual authenticity and relational sensitivity in interpersonal interactions.