Doctoral Degrees (Philosophy)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Philosophy) by Subject "Asymmetric information"

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    The possibility of sacrifice: a Levinasian reconceptualisation of supererogation
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Andrade, Julio Anthony; Woermann, Minka; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study offers a reconceptualisation of supererogation based on the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas. The study comprises two parts. In Part I, a critical analysis of supererogation, understood as encompassing moral acts that go beyond duty, is given. The analysis unfolds at the hand of the traditional – chiefly analytic – reading of supererogation, and centres on three ethical concepts that problematise supererogation: proximity (the physical and psycho-social distance between the moral agent and the recipient of his/her aid), asymmetry (between the spectator and the performer of a supererogatory act), and autonomy. The analysis examines both supererogatory acts and supererogatory attitudes. It is argued firstly that autonomy is not a necessary feature of supererogation; and, secondly, that a supererogatory attitude (preliminarily described as a primitive moral response that recognises the suffering of another as like my own) can be understood as constitutive of supererogation. Furthermore, it is argued that supererogation can be conceptualised without recourse to the grounding concepts of duty or obligation. In Part II of the study, the theoretical resources of the continental philosophical tradition are employed as a means to reconceptualise supererogation, and to overcome the difficulties identified in Part I. The case is made that the ethics of Levinas is well-suited to conceptualise supererogation, because both share a regard for the value of saintliness. An exegesis of Levinasian ethics is presented and unfolds by reinscribing the three supererogation concepts of proximity, asymmetry, and autonomy into Levinasian terms. In order for these reinscribed terms to constitute a meaningful reconceptualisation of supererogation, a circumscription of a Levinasian normativity – framed as an operationalisation of Levinasian ethics – is undertaken. It is argued that a Levinasian normativity operates as a recursive and provisional imperative, and that it is grounded on the undecidability between ethics and politics. The argument continues by claiming that the undecidability of Levinasian normativity also arises because each moral act, no matter how quotidian, contains within it the possibility of sacrifice. In conclusion, the study argues for a reconceptualisation of supererogation, sans obligation or duty, as the possibility of sacrifice, which operates as a recursive and provisional modality in response to undecidability.