Abstract

This paper proposes, by means of dealing with the question of suffering in Levinas, that his whole philosophy can be approached as an answer to the question of the possibility of religion and morality after the collapse of theodicy. After having discussesed the problem of theodicy and the question whether or not suffering is useful, we have tried to appraise Levinas' theses, i.e., first, suffering opens upon suffering an ethicalperspective, and second, suffering for the other person's suffering can be meaningful.