Levinas and Civil/Human Liberties after September 11
Levinas and Civil/Human Liberties after September 11
What's God Got to Do with It?
This chapter addresses the questions of civil and human liberties after September 11 through a study of Emmanuel Levinas. After September 11, civil rights lost its footing as a political instrument, yielding to civil liberties. And human rights, a monitor of international rights, gave ground to the “right to security against terrorism” regardless of human rights. Opposed to politics, Levinas's ethics nonetheless is a saying of God. God's gift to the people is therefore the potential to respond and to act. The chapter argues that this is Levinas's position: there is no Good, no event, no encounter, no human or civil rights without God. Those who say otherwise are, for Levinas, not without religion but, precisely, too religious, too moralistic, too political, and all too human besides.
Keywords: September 11, Levinas, revelation, human liberty, human rights, ethics, law
Fordham Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
