The dialogical prioritization of calls: Toward a communicative model of justice

Abstract

While the philosophy of ethics of Emmanuel Levinas has had a profound impact on contemporary moral theory, there remains the formidable practical task of transforming his interpersonal account of ethics into a viable and productive model of justice with which to guide political decision making. This essay undertakes a preliminary investigation of this task. Consistent with Levinas, this essay claims that justice must begin with the acknowledgment of the Other and recognizes the important role that communication can play in the unmasking of the Other's face. But in the move to the social, multi‐personal relation, communication is needed not only to recover or unmask the face of the Other, but also to dialogically prioritize multiple ethical summonses. This essay argues, therefore, that Levinas's philosophy of ethics recommends a constraint on justice in which the competing calls of multiple Others are prioritized not by invoking an external hierarchy of principles, but through dialogue. This prioritization of calls can be achieved in dialogue precisely through the capacity of the Other's call to unsettle the self, which is manifested conversationally as the experience of having no rebuttal to the Other's call.