Self-created or other-invoked? Foucault and Levinas on how to become ethical

Abstract

Foucault professes the possibility of resistance despite the human innate entrapment in power and knowledge. The ethical subject is the site where this resistance becomes possible, if and only this ethical subject is realised as something ofher than common speculative self-possession. Levinas does not equip the existent with any scope for ethical action. He constructs an existent that is happy, independent and atheistic, but completely powerless. Social reality seems to affirm Levinas' suspicions therein that many of us are primarily concerned with our own needs, desires and ambitions. Foucault does not offer an unproblematic alternative but he does believe in the subject's inherent ethical potential and in the possibility of actualising it.