-
4. Kierkegaard and Levinas on Four Elements of the Biblical Love Commandment
- Indiana University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
4 Kierkegaard and Levinas on Four Elements of the Biblical Love Commandment M. Jamie Ferreira ImportantinitiativeshavealreadybeenmadeinbringingKierkegaardandLevinas together for comparison, especially in the work of Merold Westphal and Michael Weston.1 In my commentary on Kierkegaard’s Works of Love—his lengthy examination of the biblical commandment of neighbor-love—I brought in briefly aspects of Levinas’s ethics in order to illuminate Kierkegaard’s commitment to the notion of an infinite debt to the neighbor and his rejection of certain notions of reciprocity.2 The present volume, dedicated entirely to a comparison (and contrast ) between Levinas and Kierkegaard, provides an opportunity for me to develop and extend the ways in which I think their ethics illuminate each other—in particular, by focusing more closely on four aspects of their response to the classical Judeo-Christian formulation of the love commandment. Both Jewish and Christian Scriptures propose a commandment in which we are to love our neighbor as ourselves: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:18); “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39; Mark 12:31; Gal. 5:14). Although both Levinas and Kierkegaard agree that it is a commandment, something required rather than superogatory, they are intriguingly different in their responses to other elements of the formulation. Kierkegaard’s response to the classical formulation of (1) the commandment (2) to love (3) the neighbor (4) as yourself is to affirm unambiguously all four elements, whereas Levinas expresses some ambivalence and/or reservation about three of those elements. These contrasting responses provide a fruitful opportunity to reconsider what is at stake for each of them and whether they differ substantively or merely terminologically ,and in what follows I want to develop and solidify my comparison between Levinas and Kierkegaard on all four elements of the neighbor-love commandment , namely, command, love, neighbor, and as yourself. Agape as Commanded Responsibility to/for the Neighbor Kierkegaard Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, consisting of fifteen deliberations written in 1847 on the biblical commandment of neighbor-love, offers a detailed Kierkegaard and Levinas on Elements of the Love Commandment 83 examination of both the character of the commandment as such and the ways in which it can be expressed or violated.3 The second deliberation, a tripartite in-depth formal (almost legalistic) study (IIA, B, C) of the commandment“You shall love the neighbor”focusing on the terms“shall,”“neighbor,”and“you,”explores the absolute obligatoriness and scope of the commandment. Kierkegaard unpacks the “shall” of the commandment in terms of its unconditional bindingness : the love it commands“does not stand or fall with the contingency of its object” (WOL, 39). Moreover, the command is unconditionally inclusive, both with respect to the object of the command (the “neighbor” as every single human being) and the subject of the command (the agent as every single human being). The “neighbor” is understood as every person, “the whole human race, all people, even the enemy, and [we are] not to make exceptions, neither of preference nor of aversion” (WOL, 19). The inclusiveness of the object of love is a function of two commitments held by Kierkegaard: equality and kinship. First, the neighbor is an affirmation of absolute human equality: “He is your neighbor on the basis of equality with you before God, but unconditionally every person has this equality and has it unconditionally” (WOL, 60). Second, the neighbor is an affirmation of “the kinship of all human beings” (WOL, 69). In other words, the inclusiveness of the category of neighbor is intended to guarantee that no one can ever say of someone that he or she is excluded from the realm of their responsibility—there are no legitimate exceptions. The commandment to love everyone is not seen as the impossible task of caring for everyone, but the possible task of not excluding anyone (the next one, the nearest one) who presents himself or herself to me in need. Kierkegaard also takes pains to insist that the equality of every human being does not obscure his or her concrete distinctiveness—the response that is commanded depends on the particular concrete situation of the needy person (as exemplified in the story of the Good Samaritan).4 Conceptually distinguishing “preferential” and “nonpreferential” love in Deliberation IIB, Kierkegaard makes clear that love as a preferential feeling cannot be commanded; what is capable of being commanded—in contrast to erotic love (Elskov) and friendship (Venskab)—is a kind of caring (Kjerlighed). Although the...