Morally-Demanding Infinite Responsibility: An Analytic-Continental Segue

I have argued that the failure of Kantianism and utilitarianism to solve the problems of supererogation in particular and moral-demandingness in general, arise on account of their impartialism. I now claim that moral enquiry within the analytic tradition proceeds chiefly along impartialist lines. This chapter argues that because continental philosophy does not rely on impartialism to support its claims about morality, and is more sensitive to situational, contextual and relational contingencies which allow the personal to play a more prominent and determinative role, it is better positioned to address the problem of moral-demandingness and offer a reconceptualisation of supererogation. This chapter is a segue between the argument presented in part one of this study—broadly representative of the analytic tradition—to the argument presented in Part II—broadly representative of the continental tradition. I explore some of the salient differences between the two traditions and then trace one paradigm of a methodology operative in continental philosophy—‘the possibility of impossibility’. This Derridean-inspired paradigm purports to demonstrate the paradoxes and limits of establishing the conditions for the meaning and application of certain philosophical concepts and language. Derrida’s idea of the undecidable decision is introduced as a way to elaborate on these (im)possible concepts. I then make the case that Emmanuel Levinas is the most well-suited continental philosopher to approach supererogation and moral-demandingness because his notion of infinite responsibility is a radical reinscription of moral-demandingness which attempts to dissolve all ethical boundaries, including the purportedly boundary between obligatory and supererogatory actions. I conclude by offering a short preview of my methodology in part two of the study: a Levinasian reinscription of certain concepts that featured in the first half of the study’s attempts to conceptualise supererogation—these being proximity, asymmetry and autonomy.