Abstract

Ethics is about giving justified reasons for our actions, yet we experience immediate ethical relations with others that seem to defy rational accountability. So how do we work immediate ethical relations into our reason-based ethics without betraying either those relations or reason? This is the paradox of ethical immediacy. Through a conversation between Emmanuel Levinas and Immanuel Kant , my goal in the dissertation is to address this problem, specifically through concepts and stories that both respect the immediacy of certain ethical relations and remain responsive to philosophy's demand for rational justification. ;My approach is to begin with various statements Kant makes, and then to uncover sometimes through an immanent critique of Kant and other times through conflicting evidence from other sources---both a need and a capacity for speaking of ethical immediacy, as Levinas understands it. Though this method privileges the "Levinasian" side of the paradox of ethical immediacy, Kant's opinions on sublimity, respect, the Abraham and Isaac story, and the Great Commandment of New Testament scripture guide the dissertation as a whole. ;I attempt to show that the "sublime object," the "face," "respect," "shame," Abraham and Isaac, the Great Commandment, and the revelation of the law at Mount Sinai are useful resources for speaking of ethical immediacy. All pertain to the Levinasian, immediate ethical commands "Do not kill me!," "Feed me!," and "Love me!" I conclude the dissertation by considering the significance of immediate ethical encounters for a reason-based ethics like Kant's and for our everyday lives