N.B: This is extremely long. Do jump until Hinkelammert for a quick read, otherwise, enjoy. We have seen the first two chapters of Dussel’s Ethics of Liberation. The first chapter, concerning a material-universal principle of ethics, established that whoever acts ethically has always and necessarily an orientation towards the unfolding (production, reproduction, and development) of human life. The second chapter concerned itself with the procedural dimension and established discourse…

An attempt to make a summary of Dussels inmense Ethics of Liberation. This post takes on the second chapter.

An attempt to make a summary of Dussels inmense Ethics of Liberation. This post takes on the first chapter.

The Eurocentric, no matter how well-intended they are, how open-minded, will never be able to take seriously the non-Western. By taking seriously I mean granting the non-Western with the dignity they deserve as a human being. If the Westerns are only open to listing others but not open to questioning their own views, to the fullest extent, then they will never know if they rejected a view because of its epistemic strength or because they deemed us inferior.

Because we can all be victims, because we have all been victims, and because we will all be victims, our task as humans is to organize ourselves to tend to victims everywhere, every new time they appear, and in every form they may do so. Because in looking at the eyes of the other I see someone who I can never understand fully, and because in doing so I discover the beauty of the human, because I see into the eyes of the other and see myself and all of humanity in them, I will always look at the victim and give them a hand, because I know my task and theirs is to help whenever, wherever, and forever. 

I am currently reading Dussel’s Ethics of Liberation in the Age of Globalization and Exclusion. As is apparent by my last post, I have some unresolved dilemmas with Dussel’s thinking. Concretely, last post revolved around the Material Criterion which stated that: Whoever acts humanly[1] always and necessarily has for the content of their act some mediation for the production, reproduction or self-responsible development of life of each human[2] subject in a life community , as material fulfillment of the cultural corporality necessities, with all of humanity as the ultimate reference .

Enrique Dussel's (2011) Ética de Liberación En la Edad de la Globalización y de la Exclusión is the culmination of a life project which Dussel initially embarked on in the early 1970s. The project was (or is, as I will argue it is not finished) to construct an alternative ethics; one that is situated1 and (similarly to Benhabib’s attempt) …

For the past months I have struggled with several ideas pertaining to democratic theory. First, on the question of legitimacy (“what gives rulers legitimacy”). Second, on the methods towards electi…