Levinas, Ethics and Law

Levinas has been read, variously, as a theorist of judicial activism, a champion of radical human rights, an illuminator of the inner soul of private law and a proponent of natural law theory.

Matthew Stone asks what unites such apparently disparate applications of Levinas' ideas about law and, in doing so, explores the ethical challenge of law's relationship with 'the Other'. Stone ultimately offers a sceptical conclusion on the capacity of such an ethics to be invested in legal institutio...