Anti-Utopianism Revisited

It is often said that Levinas offers no positive political principles or ideals, stressing rather that an ethics of singularity can only enter the political sphere in the form of critique. There is much to be said for this position—which tends to make Levinas a liberal by default—both from a political and a phenomenological perspective. I argue, however, that having built up a solid and salutary wariness of positive politics, Levinas occasionally allows himself to proffer radical political proposals.