As relações entre ética e política na concepção da justiça perante o terceiro em Levinas

Abstract

This work intends to support the thesis that the relationship between ethics and politics in the thought of Levinas leads in a bond of interdependence and tension that leads to a “pardoxal tension”. On the one hand, the politics needs ethics not to be left to, avoiding the constant risk of tyranny. On the other hand, the ethics alone does not account for the institutional justice, claimed to be the third present on the face of the Other, making the politics also needed. However, there should not be between politics and ethics any derivation or merger. However, if considered positively, the state should pursue justice, so there is a stalemate between the justice administration through the courts and the ethical mandate to not give meaning to essentially voluntary suffering of others required by face to face relationship. Against this background, we start from the hypothesis that it is implausible that the whole of Levinas’s work can establish a clear and definite relationship between ethics and politics. However, we defend the hypothesis that it is legitimate to think of two great moments in the thought of Levinas on the politics, namely: the first, which goes to Totalité et Infini, the highlight would fall in a critical view of the politics; where the relation is established in a purely negative terms, it means politics suspension of ethics, the latter in turn would be formed in opposition to the politics; In the second phase, which begins with the appearance of Autrement qu'être, it is postulated a constructive view of the politics that enables the formation of a positive relationship with the ethics through the third figure. In the comparison of these two great moments, we intend to develop our thesis: The relationship between ethics and politics in the conception of justice at the Third in Levinas. The politics drifts, in Levinas, justice or the infinite rights of others. What, on the analysis of the ethical and political Emmanuel Levinas, implies its brief explanation on two measures of the same movement. Thus we come to the conclusion that the fair state order has ethics as a foundation at the same time that its appearance is given by the lackness of ethics itself. The State seeks to ensure justice to the third one and thus correct the asymmetry. However, even if the state is fair there is a vacuum between ethics and politics. Among the invisibility of the face and its visibility: there is a aporetic excess.