This course will explore Continental (that is, European) alternatives to traditional(deontological and utilitarian) ethics. We will focus on four major figures, in this order:Luce Irigaray (drawing on Hegel's reading of Antigone), Emmanuel Levinas, Julia Kristeva and Jurgen Habermas. Instead of asking the question, Why be moral? as if we might avoid any ethical relation with others these continental philosophers tend to see the human condition as already in relation with others. Moreover, some Continental approaches tend to see our ethical relations as constitutive ofour identities. Other Continental approaches, namely Habermas's, try to develop alternative principles of universalizability in order to revive Enlightenment ideals of rationality. To close the course, we will also investigate how these approaches lend themselves to new understandings of community.
