Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Realising Unfulfillable and Impossible Ethical Demands: Løgstrup and Levinas on Trust and Love, Hospitality and Friendship

  • Published:
The Journal of Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Based on a reading of K. E. Løgstrup’s The Ethical Demand and Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity, the paper aims to show that it is respectively through trust and love, hospitality and friendship that the two thinkers envisage humans as being capable of realising unfulfillable and impossible ethical demands. It will be argued that they develop their ethical thinking along similar lines, yet, even when they come closest to each other conceptually, a difference in their phenomenological analysis of the I and the other remains, which it is paramount to keep in mind in order to assess what they may contribute to each other’s thinking.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For the most recent contributions, see the anthology What is Ethically Demanded?, edited by Hans Fink and Robert Stern in 2016, and The Monist, Volume 103, Issue, 2020. In 2020 two new translations of The Ethical Demand will appear, one in English and the other in Spanish.

  2. The first reference is to the English translation, The Ethical Demand (1997), the second to the original Danish text, Den etiske fordring.

  3. The first reference is to the English translation, Totality and Infinity (1991), the second to the original French text, Totalité et infini.

  4. In accordance with the original text, which includes d’avance, I have modified the English translation of the quoted passage by adding ‘in advance’.

  5. See Rabjerg and Stern (2018) for an extended interpretation of Løgstrup’s understanding of sin.

  6. Katz (2003) and Palacio (2008) offer comprehensive discussions of the more or less problematic role of the feminine in Totality and Infinity.

  7. See Levinas’ first interview ‘Philosophie, justice et amour’ in Entre Nous, which is also available at https://esprit.presse.fr/article/emmanuel-levinas/philosophie-justice-et-amour-entretien-avec-emmanuel-levinas-28727.

  8. In his book Controverting Kierkegaard, Løgstrup exemplifies his conception of the sovereign expressions of life by interpreting briefly ‘The Good Samaritan’. This cannot be dealt with here.

  9. The tension between unreserved and reserved trust in The Ethical Demand was originally commented on by Ole Jensen. For a discussion of this, see Kees van Kooten Niekerk, ‘Løgstrup’s Conception of the Sovereign Expression of Life’, in What is Ethically Demanded?

References

  • Bauman, Zygmunt. 2007. The liquid modern adventures of the sovereign expression of life. In Concern for the other: perspectives on the ethics of K. E. Løgstrup, ed. Svend Andersen and Kees van Kooten Niekerk, 113–138. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

  • Bugge, David. 2015. Hinandens verden. Ledsager til K. E. Løgstrup: Den etiske fordring. Aarhus: Klim.

    Google Scholar 

  • Critchley, Simon. 2015. The problem with Levinas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Faulkner, Paul. 2016. Trust and the radical ethical demand. In What is ethically demanded? K. E. Løgstrup’s philosophy of moral life, ed. Hans Fink and Robert Stern, 237–254. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

  • Fink, Hans and Robert Stern. 2016. Introduction. In What is ethically demanded? K. E. Løgstrup’s philosophy of moral life, ed. Hans Fink and Robert Stern, 1–15. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

  • Frandsen, Henrik Vase. 2001. Emmanuel Levinas og kærlighedens visdom. Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, Claire Elise. 2003. Levinas, judaism and feminism. Indianapolis, Bloomington.

  • Kjerschow, Peder. 1995. Ansvarshavende som søvngænger. In Sporet af det uendelige, ed. Hans Kolstad et al. Oslo: Aschehoug.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. 1990. Totalité et infini. Essai sur l’extériorité. Paris: Le Livre de Poche.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. 1991. Totality and infinity. Essay on exteriority. London: Kluwer Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levinas, Emmanuel. 1998. Of god who comes to mind. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Løgstrup, K.E. 1997. The ethical demand. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Løgstrup, K.E. 2007. Beyond the ethical demand. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame.

    Google Scholar 

  • Løgstrup, K.E. 2010. Den etiske fordring. Aarhus: Klim.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palacio, Marta. 2008. La mujer y lo femenino en el pensamiento de Emmanuel Levinas. Cordoba: Editorial de la UCC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabjerg, Bjørn, and Robert Stern. 2018. Freedom from the self: Luther and Løgstrup on sin as “Incurvatus in Se”. Open Theology 4: 268–280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ricouer, Paul. 1997. Autrement. Paris: Presses Universitiares de France.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stern, Robert. 2019. The radical demand in Løgstrup’s ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Visker, Rudi. 2004. The inhuman condition. Looking for difference after Levinas and Heidegger. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academics.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. San Jorge University, Saragossa, Spain

    Jonas Holst

Authors
  1. Jonas Holst
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonas Holst.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Holst, J. Realising Unfulfillable and Impossible Ethical Demands: Løgstrup and Levinas on Trust and Love, Hospitality and Friendship. J Ethics 24, 469–483 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-020-09336-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-020-09336-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation