Sacrifice and Ethical Responsibility Kierkegaard, Levinas and Derrida: Three Perspectives on Singularity and its Conflicted Relationship to Universalism

other means, without the permission of the author. Supervisor: Dr. Taneli Kukkonen In this thesis I explore the relationship between singularity and universalism in the philosophy of Kierkegaard, Levinas and Derrida. This relationship is paradoxical but not merely oppositional for these three thinkers. Drawing on religious insight, they theorize singularity as a relation to absolute alterity. Singularity involves a demand for individual action, motivated by the encounter with difference. This is an inexhaustible demand, which must be continually re-interpreted through service to the other. Action motivated by responsibility to the other can never be fully justified, involving the individual in an ongoing paradox that cannot be resolved. I explore what this paradox means for ethical and political engagements and what this conception of the unique individual under obligation to the other means for our understanding of society. ii