Etika tarp skirtumo ir universalumo

ENIn the field of contemporary philosophy, we can define two dominant ethical ideologies. The first ideology, so-called "humanistic" ethics or "ethics of difference", is based on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. Jacques Derrida later interprets the moment of impossibility, inherent to Levinas's ethics, and turns it into a universal principle, defining every ethical situation. The second ideology, which for the sake of analogy is called "anti-humanistic", is based on the ideas of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault. This ethical ideology stresses not the difference of the Other, but the subject as an effect of symbolic power relations. In this context the notion of the Other refers not to the sublime Other (other human beings or God), but to the anonymous and symbolic Other which signifies the network of power relations. As a consequence, an ethical decision means transgressing tire existing symbolic structures. Tire ethical decision is an impossible decision, which can be universalised, which can acquire a universal content. The paradigmatic case is Antigone, who makes an impossible decision and transgresses the law; on the other hand, this transgression acquires a universal, ethical content. Here we see that both ethical ideologies, notwithstanding their differences, include the moment of impossibility. This moment of impossibility is the vital possibility for ethics to survive.