Agency and “Ethical Resistance”: Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas

Abstract

The author compares Hannah Arendt’s political thought and Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical theory which, at first sight, have not much in common, but which can nevertheless be compared productively. Their analyses of the distinctive features of the modern world and the human condition within it are compared at three levels: first, the author points to the problem of human agency in society, which should be free and just; second, he addresses the issue related to institutions, that should provide a suitable framework for human agency and warrant the stability of justice; and third, he seeks to explain the importance of power as non-verbal agency.

Keywords

• ethics
• agency
• institutions
• power
• philosophy of Otherness