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Abstract
This essay is concerned with the question of otherness in relation to moral responsibility, and willed-agency. It aims to continue and expand the discussion lead by Arnett's question “What might a communication ethics look like that does not begin with a sense of will?” and offers a comparative discussion of Levinasian ethics—that highlight absolute otherness and maintenance of alterity at the heart of the ethical relation—with Thich Nhat Hanh's (pronounced as Tik N′yat Hawn) culturally–philosophically “other” framework of (Buddhist) ethics based on the notion of Interbeing. Levinas and Hanh offer culturally diverse—and, equally important—ways of making sense of alterity, maintaining alterity, and reciprocity, in the ethical relation. Despite their differences, however, both Levinas and Hanh highlight responsibility for the Other as engrained in subjectivity—an ethical subjectivity,—and attentiveness for the Other beyond willed agency. Juxtaposing their culturally different philosophies make room for a deeper and layered exploration and understanding of communication ethics in relation to agency. Furthermore, putting them in conversation reminds us of the cultural embeddedness of concepts in exploring communication ethics, and encourage further interculturally comprehensive scholarship that is articulate and aware of its epistemological and ontological assumptions/biases. This essay alerts us to attend to the ground on which the ethical relation is situated in making sense of diverse cultural traditions that promote varied understandings of ethics.
Acknowledgement
Dr. Ucok-Sayrak acknowledges the reviewers of her essay, and the editor of the journal, for their clear, useful, and constructive guidance towards publication.
Notes
[1] Arnett, “A Dialogic Ethic,” 76–7.
[2] Stevens, One Robe, One Bowl, 16.
[3] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 21.
[4] Arnett, “A Dialogic Ethic,” 76–7.
[5] See Miike, “Non-Western Theory”; Miike, “Asiacentric reflection”; Dissanayake, “Asian Approaches”; Dissanayake, “The Desire to Excavate”; Ishii, “Complementing Contemporary Intercultural Communication Research”; Ishii, “Conceptualizing Asian Communication Ethics”; Xiao, “Communication Competence.”
[6] Craig, “Series Editor's Foreword,” xii.
[7] See Miike, “An Asiacentric reflection.”
[8] Johannesen, Communication Ethics: Centrality, Trends, and Controversies.
[9] Johannesen, Communication Ethics: Centrality, Trends, and Controversies, 216.
[10] Johannesen, Communication Ethics: Centrality, Trends, and Controversies, 216.
[11] Johannesen, Communication Ethics: Centrality, Trends, and Controversies, 216.
[12] See Benhabib, Situating the Self; Manning, Speaking from the Heart; Sandel, Liberalism and its critics; Meyers, Feminists Rethink the Self; Schrag, The Self After Postmodernity.
[13] Wood, Who Cares, 108–10.
[14] Cissna and Anderson, “Communication and the Ground of Dialogue.”
[15] Christians, Ferre and Fackler, Good News.
[16] Johanessen, Valde and Whedbee, Ethics in Human Communication.
[17] Johanessen, Valde and Whedbee, Ethics in Human Communication, 123.
[18] Bauman, Postmodernism and its Discontents.
[19] Cooper, “Decentering Judgment.”
[20] Anderson and Englehardt, The Organizational Self and Ethical Conduct.
[21] Hallstein, “A Postmodern Caring,” 37.
[22] Arnett, “A dialogic ethic”; Arnett, “Provinciality.”
[23] Arnett, “Communication Ethics.”
[24] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 39.
[25] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 39.
[26] Arnett, “Provinciality.”
[27] Arnett, “Provinciality.”, 85.
[28] Arnett, “Embeddedness,” 241.
[29] Arnett, “Embeddedness,” 243.
[30] Arnett, “Communication Ethics as Janus at the Gates,” 161.
[31] MacIntyre, After Virtue, 11–2.
[32] Arnett, “Communication Ethics as Janus at the Gates,” 166.
[33] Arnett, Fritz, and Bell, “Communication Ethics Literacy.”
[34] Buber, “Between Man and Man.”
[35] Arnett, “Communication Ethics as Janus at the Gates,” 177.
[36] Goodman and Marcelli, “The Great Divorce.”
[37] Goodman and Marcelli, “The Great Divorce”, 565.
[38] Goodman and Marcelli, “The Great Divorce”, 568.
[39] Goodman and Marcelli, “The Great Divorce”, 568.
[40] Goodman and Marcelli, “The Great Divorce”, 2.
[41] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn.”
[42] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 127.
[43] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 127.
[44] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 127.
[45] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 127.
[46] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 127.
[47] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 119.
[48] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 119.
[49] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn”, 118.
[50] Arnett, Fritz and Holba, “The Rhetorical Turn,” 120.
[51] Arnett, “Communication Ethics as Janus at the Gates,” 163.
[52] Arnett, “Communication Ethics as Janus at the Gates,” 163–4.
[53] Lipari, “Rhetoric's Other,” 235.
[54] Lipari, “Rhetoric's Other,” 237.
[55] Lipari, “Rhetoric's Other,” 227.
[56] Arnett, “A Dialogic Ethic,” 76–7.
[57] Arnett, “A Dialogic Ethic,” 229.
[58] Lipari, “Listening Otherwise.”
[59] Lipari, “Rhetoric's Other,” 241.
[60] Craig, “Series Editor's Foreword,” xiii.
[61] Arnett, “Provinciality.”
[62] Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995). Please refer to the web page of Levinas for his biography: http://www.levinas.sdsu.edu/
[63] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger, 118.
[64] Arnett, “A Dialogic Ethic.”
[65] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger; Bernasconi, The Provocation of Levinas; Peperzak, Ethics as First Philosophy; Eaglestone, Ethical Criticism.
[66] Arnett, “The Responsive ‘I’,” 49.
[67] Arnett, “The Responsive ‘I’,” 49.
[68] Arnett, “The Responsive ‘I’,” 39.
[69] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 46.
[70] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 87.
[71] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger, 111.
[72] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 50.
[73] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 50.
[74] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger, 111.
[75] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger, 100.
[76] Treanor, Aspects of Alterity, 14.
[77] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger, 115.
[78] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger, 118.
[79] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 51.
[80] Treanor, Aspects of Alterity, 19.
[81] Bernasconi and Wood, The Provocation of Levinas, 176.
[82] Levinas, Existence and Existents, 86.
[83] Levinas, Existence and Existents, 86–7.
[84] Arnett, “The Responsive ‘I’,” 41.
[85] Arnett, “Beyond Dialogue,” 140.
[86] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 50.
[87] Arnett, “The Responsive ‘I.’
[88] Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-present). For his full biography, Please refer to http://www.parallax.org/about_tnh.html. Also, see notes 83 and 84.
[89] “Thich Nhat Hanh.”
[90] “Thich Nhat Hanh: Biography of Our Teacher.”
[91] In Sanskrit, prajñā refers to wisdom, and pāramitā refers to perfection.
[92] “New Heart Sutra translation by Thich Nhat Hanh.”
[93] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 3.
[94] Hanh explains that in Sanskrit, Boddhisattva refers to an awakened being; “Boddhi” means being awake and, “sattva” means living being.
[95] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 31.
[96] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 27.
[97] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 29.
[98] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 4.
[99] Chuang and Chen, “Buddhist Perspectives and Human Communication,” 65.
[100] Hanh, You are Here, 25.
[101] Hanh, You are Here, 15.
[102] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 14.
[103] Lipari, Listening, Thinking, Being.
[104] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 29.
[105] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 29.
[106] Hanh, True Love, 67.
[107] Queen, Engaged Buddhism, 7.
[108] Hanh, You are Here, 25.
[109] Arnett, “A Dialogic Ethic.”
[110] Bernasconi and Wood, The Provocation of Levinas, 176.
[111] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 36.
[112] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 36.
[113] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 46.
[114] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 37–8.
[115] Arnett, “Provinciality.”
[116] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 50.
[117] Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 92.
[118] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 4.
[119] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 13.
[120] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 14.
[121] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 14.
[122] These quotes bring to mind the renowned lines by William Blake, “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower…”
[123] These quotes bring to mind the renowned lines by William Blake, “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower…” 9.
[124] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 21.
[125] Manning, Interpreting Otherwise than Heidegger, 118.
[126] Arnett, “A Dialogic Ethic,” 76–7.
[127] Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 95.
[128] Hanh, True Love, 67.
[129] Hanh, True Love, 29.
[130] Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, 29.
[131] Levinas, Collected Philosophical Papers, xiv.
[132] Arnett, Beyond Dialogue, 140.
[133] Lipari, Rhetoric's Other, 234.
[134] Lipari, Rhetoric's Other, 237.
[135] Lipari, Listening Thinking Being, 350.
[136] Levinas, Otherwise than Being,”117.
[137] Levinas, Otherwise than Being,”117.
[138] Levinas, Otherwise than Being,”114, 117.
[139] Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 99.
[140] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 215.
[141] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 214.
[142] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 215.
[143] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 213.
[144] Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 213.
[145] Hanh, True Love, 16.
[146] Hanh, You are Here, 25.
[147] Hanh, True Love, 16.
[148] Kalmanson, “Levinas in Japan,” 203.
[149] Kalmanson, “Levinas in Japan,” , 205.
[150] Edelglass, Hatley, and Diehm, Facing Nature.
[151] Kalmanson, “Levinas in Japan.”
[152] In Kalmanson, “Levinas in Japan,” 202.
[153] Kalmanson, “Levinas in Japan,” 203.
[154] Craig, “Series Editor's Foreword,” xiii.
[155] Craig, “Series Editor's Foreword,” xiii.