My choices in life affect my society, since they affect
others around me. It is a simple truth, but easily neglected in our
individualistic outlook. Even what I do behind closed doors matter. My behavior
is always affecting others. I do not exist in solitude, in a vacuum. I exist –
only - in a relationship with someone else, with the other.
It strikes me that both my freedom and morality are
intrinsically bound up with the other.
There is a sense of general and common good that directs, perhaps dictates, my
path. What is good for humanity is good for me as a human, and likewise for
others. My responsibility to the other is almost obligatory, and in that sense,
I would say it dictates. And why is it so? If the truth is that the other
confirms me as a person, a human being, I need the other to know myself. And
this is reciprocal.
Agents acting upon agents – yes; but how is this in the
relationship to God? We have not the same inter-dependence. God is God. I am I.
He does not need me, as I need him. We are not exactly of the same kind. I see
that because he first loved me, I love him. Because he called me to himself, I
come. How does this reflect my freedom? Some (reformed theologians) will say
that God’s grace is irresistible, and in essence my will is not fully free. But
is there such a thing as free will – as in unrestrained, undefined, random
‘will’? It is not normally will to something?
Perhaps the
will is autonomous, governed by none but itself – but it must always relate in
order to be real.
I recently came across an article by Mark Cauchi, Unconditioned by The Other: Agency and Alterity
in Kant and Levinas.[1] It
started my thinking about the necessary interplay between myself and the other,
again.
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| The table is set |
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