Ricœur’s Affirmation of Life in this World and his Journey to Ethics

Abstract

Although Paul Ricœur never wrote a book on acting and suffering, the essay focuses on Ricœur’s engagement with this topic. It was one of Ricœur’s abiding interests that consistently appeared over the years in a number of his works. Given his compassionate affirmation of life in this world, he was vitally concerned about human beings’ inhumanity, in the form of inflicting unmerited suffering on their fellow beings. His distress on this issue was clearly evident. This essay is an overview of Ricœur’s endeavors to try and alleviate such injustice by a commitment to an ethically grounded approach that aimed at “the good life with and for others, in just institutions.”

Keywords

• fallibility/fragility
• acting/suffering
• victimization
• solicitude
• recognition
• imputation/responsibility
• homo capax