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7 POSTMODERNISM AND ETHICS: THE CASE OF CAPUTO MEROLD WESTPHAL Philosophically speaking, perhaps the most pressing question inherited by the nineteenth century from the eighteenth was this: How is theology possible after the Kantian critique of metaphysics? There was no shortage of “solutions.” Some, beginning with Kant and Fichte, sought to ground theology in ethics. Others, beginning with Schleiermacher, sought to ground theology in feeling and experience. Others, beginning with Schelling, Schopenhauer, and the Schlegels, sought to make art into a new religion. And Hegel, of course, sought to make metaphysics once again (but differently) the foundation of theology. It is possible to read these traditions in the light of the psalmist’s lament, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalms, 11:3). It would be better if we could have continued doing business as usual. But we can’t, so we’ll have to scurry about and find some new strategies for avoiding bankruptcy. For the most part, however, the nineteenth century followed Kant’s lead when he pointed in a different direction. Speaking of the “positive advantage” of the critical philosophy by which speculative reason is “deprived of its pretensions to transcendent insight,” he writes, “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.” Now that the spurious foundations are destroyed, the righteous are more fully free to flourish . They are actually better off! Philosophically speaking, perhaps the most pressing question inherited by the twenty-first century from the twentieth is this: How is ethics possible after the (very Kantian) postmodern critique of metaphysics? After Nietzsche and the death of God, signaling a move beyond good and evil to the innocence of becoming? After Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology? After Derrida’s critique of logocentrism and the metaphysics of presence? After Lyotard’s 153 critique of metanarratives? After Foucault’s genealogical linking of knowledge and power? After Rorty’s insistence that our vocabularies are optional. There has been no shortage of hand wringing, accompanied by claims that nihilism and cynicism are the necessary consequence (against the background of a choral ostinato setting of “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”). But already with Levinas we hear an echo of the Kantian “I have therefore found it necessary . . .” The knowledge he finds it necessary to deny he calls ontology, representation, thematization, intentionality , disclosure, adequation, and so forth. The faith for which he seeks to make room is, as in Kant’s case, a kind of knowing, but not the kind to which philosophy is in the habit of giving its imprimatur. He calls it the ethical relation , the face to face, heteronomy before the claims of the Other, responsibility prior to any commitment, the trauma of being taken hostage for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, and so forth. Levinas clearly takes his own assault on theory to be in the service of ethics. What some see as the destroying of the foundations, he sees as pulling up the weeds to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the righteous to flourish. Is it possible to extend this analysis more broadly to postmodern philosophy , to see its new critique of pure reason as friendly toward righteousness precisely by the way it is a scourge to self-righteousness? Whether or not one is a Christian, the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10 has paradigmatic moral significance (just as Mother Theresa is a saint even to those who don’t much believe in saints). Its setting is important. It is addressed to a lawyer, possibly a fresh Ph.D. in Torah studies, possibly a mature scholar with an impressive bibliography of books and essays on the good and the right. In any case, he is a theoretical expert on morality. It is as a rebuke to such a questioner that Jesus recites his mininarrative. And why? Is he an anti-intellectual who opposes serious study of the law? I think rather that the answer is found in the perceived motive of the lawyer’s question. “But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus . . .” He has just given the twofold summary of the law (love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself) that we elsewhere find on the lips of Jesus. His ethical WHAT is as good as it gets, since in the gospels you don’t trump Jesus. The problem is with the HOW. The lawyer wants to be...

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