LEVINASIAN ETHICS AND SERVICE LEARNING: PERSPECTIVES IN MORAL

EDUCATION

Jay Michael L. Cordero

In putting Levinas side by side with education and pedagogy we are confronted by

the question as to what insights can we draw out from his philosophical writings that

may inform not only our own thinking about educational theory and practice but also

with regard to the aims and goals of education. In this paper, I hope to draw out some

insights from Levinas’s ethics in relation to service learning, which is an integral

component for a holistic education. I argue in this paper that Levinas’s ethics provides

the ethical rationale for the importance of service learning in realizing the real task and

goal of education: to form a responsible moral agent.

Levinasians have argued that Levinas’s ethics breaks radically with the grand

humanistic project, as regard to the understanding of how a person becomes educated.

Whilst the latter project seeks ‘to make the pupil self-directed’ (autonomous) (Hansen,

2001: 78). For Levinas, the self (or subjectivity) is not an autonomous unit. Rather, the

self has at its very core the encounter with the Other, which Levinas relates to the

infinite responsibility for the Other.

Now, why service learning and how can it help in realizing Levinas’s idea of being

‘educated’? I believe that service learning can help in realizing Levinas’s idea of being

‘educated’ for two main reasons: first, based on Levinas concept of the subject as being-

for-the-Other, service learning provides the best opportunity for students to be exposed

to the needs of the Other. It provides them the opportunity not only to be exposed to

the needs and sufferings of the other, but also to serve them, thus fulfilling their

subjectivity.

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 Secondly, despite the fact that courses in moral philosophy may help students

develop their ethical awareness and sense of ethical sensitivity, the actual encounter

with the Other provides a stronger and concrete experience. Moreover, the experiences

that the students may derive in being exposed to the needs and sufferings of the Other

can help develop their affectivity- that is, their capacity to the be affected, thus making

them more capable of sympathizing and substituting for the Other.

LEVINASIAN ETHICS AND SERVICE LEARNING

I am going to begin the discussion by providing a short background of Levinas’s

critique of the notion of subjectivity employed in most educational theory in order to

serve as a hinge in arguing for the importance of service learning as a way of rethinking

the real task of education.

Levinas views the subject as heteronomous- that is, a subject that is constituted by

being subjected to the Other, a being-for-the-Other, rather than an autonomous

sovereign individual. Heteronomy is typically thought to be the very antithesis of moral

agency. But the freedom of the one whose very selfhood lies in the act of answering the

call of the other is precisely the freedom of the Levinasian ‘agent’. In other words, while

traditional conceptions of ethics emphasize rational autonomy as the hallmark of moral

agency, Levinas insists on ‘essential’ or ‘fundamental’ heteronomy – on the idea that

selfhood is at its most fundamental level a reply, a saying “yes” to the appeal and

contestation of the other.

As we can see, Emmanuel Levinas inverts the traditional conception of subjectivity,

claiming that we are constituted as subjects only in responding to the other. In other

words, subjectivity is derivative of an existentially prior responsibility to and for the

other. By rejecting the prevailing understanding of subjectivity as sovereign rational

autonomy and instead positing that subjectivity is constituted by ethical responsibility

to and for the Other, Levinas’s ethics consequently offers a new perspective in

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conceiving not only subjectivity and moral agency in education but also with regards to

the real task and mission of education. Contrary to the prevailing view that the goal of

education is to produce rational and autonomous subjects, for Levinas the primary goal

of education is to form subjects whose very subjecivity and identity is constituted by

being responsible to and for the Other ( Levinas, 1991).

Taking into account this concept of subjectivity and the real task of education, I

argue that incorporating service learning in the curriculum is one concrete response in

attaining this real task of education. This is because service-learning experiences, where

students work directly with individuals in need—individuals from whom students can

learn what they cannot learn elsewhere—are invaluable, and perhaps necessary, for any

curriculum with an aim toward the development of ethical understanding, personal

moral character and commitment, and/or conscientious citizenship, both local and

global. In other words, service learning is essential since it provides opportunities for

the subject to be affected by the sufferings of the Other— that is, to be awakened or

‘sobered up’ to responsibility for the other person (Levinas, 1987). Textbook learning

and a course on ethics may inform the student of the basic ethical frameworks and of

the concept of right and wrong, but there is a need to foster empathy in a concrete

sense. According to Katherine Kirby, students may not really feel called or compelled to

engagement by reading abstract theories and discussing obligation without the

experience of feeling the pull of responsibility for the well-being of actual individuals

(Kirby, 2009). Following Levinas, it is through the encounter with the face of the Other

who is ‘poor’, ‘weak’ and ‘vulnerable’ that the subject is summoned to responsibility

(Levinas, 1969). “There is no ethics without affect; men are not moral beings for the sole

reason that they are endowed with reason, but because they possess the capacity to be

affected” ( To emphasize my earlier point, this shows that although instances of case

studies in ethics may help the students develop a sense of empathy, actual encounter

with the Other where the student is being called to be responsible is a necessary
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experience. The subject is an ethical subject in as much as he is affected by the sufferings

and poverty of the Other.

For how can a student make sense of the suffering of another person, if he/she has

never experienced such suffering? How can we learn about the needs of those who

suffer from people who have never experienced such suffering? For Emmanuel Levinas,

a French postmodern ethicist, the authority on whom I necessarily depend for any

instruction about suffering can only be the person who suffers herself/himself.

I believe that our courses in ethical or moral education should not only teach

students how to conceive of moral codes or laws or virtues. They should also help

students to acknowledge the urgency of ethical action and foster a certain kind of

concern and care on the part of students as ethical agents. Ethics begins with, and

requires, encounter with the Other. The ethical agent comes to understand and make

meaning of ethical engagement only in the secondary, rational moment of reflection

upon such encounter (Joldersma, 2001).

If as Levinas claims ethics is founded in the face to face encounter with the Other

and in the appearance of the face that demands responsibility then service learning is

indispensable. It is in service learning where the self is in face-to-face encounter with

the Other, “the stranger, the widow, and the orphan, to whom I am obligated” (Levinas,

1969, 2015). According to Levinas, “Before the Other the I is infinitely responsible. The

Other is the poor and the destitute one, and nothing which concerns this Stranger can

leave the I indifferent” (Levinas, 1987, 22).

How, then, can I ever know what is good for the Other, what she needs, and how

I might help alleviate her suffering? I am not able to acquire such understanding on my

own, for I can only ever know my own suffering and need. Who, then, is the most

reliable source of information regarding the Other’s need? Only the Other herself can be

such an authority on her suffering. Can students, then, learn what it means to be ethical

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by reading the theories of so-called “expert” theorists? Or must they learn from those

who suffer? (Campbell, 2008).

Thus, it is in service learning where the student encounters the unique Other.

Encountering the Other in his alterity implies that the self becomes responsible to the

Other not because the self and the Other has similarity, not because the self and the

Other belong to the same, genus, gender, class or race or culture but simply because the

Other is infinitely Other that the self is obligated to respond to the Other. In the

encounter with the Other, the student sees “the face of the Other is destitute; it is the

poor for whom I can do all and to whom I owe all” (Levinas, 1969, 80). Furthermore,

service learning is a valuable experience where I encounter “the other who asks me not

to let him die alone, as if to do so were to become an accomplice in his death.

Consider, for instance, this striking experience of a certain student regarding

service learning as told by a teacher: A student spent the afternoon dressing the fly-

covered open wounds of an elderly woman who could not speak. That evening, during

reflection, the student spoke of her experience as a powerful reorientation away from

her pre-med, objective-science background toward a real emotional connection with

this woman, as she looked at her and touched her while she helped her. The next

afternoon, she learned that she had passed away a few hours after their encounter. She,

quite emotionally, revealed how she felt and thought about the encounter, saying that

she expressed such gratitude for her care even without saying a word, and it was as if

she was able to pass away having been shown the respect, openness, and loving

attention she deserved (Kirby, 2009). As Levinas would suggest, there could be no in-

class, text-based experience that exposes an individual to the reality of engagement with

the Other the way this experience did.

For Levinas, the concrete experience of service learning is not merely “helpful in

such situations,” but is actually necessary (Joldersma, 2001, 21). Knowledge of the

ethical relation is grounded upon the relation itself. Thus, knowledge or understanding
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of ethics requires the lived experience of ethical engagement, and experiences from

service learning such as this are necessary for any curriculum that aims toward the

development of ethical understanding, personal moral character and commitment,

and/or conscientious citizenship. In conclusion, if our endeavor as educators is to bring

about awareness of what it means to live an ethical life, to cultivate sensitivity and

concern for the suffering of others, and to encourage students to embark on a path of

moral commitment and citizenship, then service learning is a valuable experience.

References

Campbell, E. (2008). The ethics of teaching as a moral profession. Curriculum Inquiry,

38 (4), 357- 385.

Hansen, D. T. (2001). Teaching as a moral activity. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of

research on teaching (4th ed.), (pp. 826–857). Washington, DC: American
Educational Research Association.

Joldersma, C. W. (2001). Pedagogy of the other: A Levinasian approach to the teacher-

student relationship. In S. Rice (Ed.), Philosophy of education 2001 (pp. 181-188).
Urbana, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society.

Kirby, K. (2009). Encountering and understanding suffering. Teaching Philosophy, Vol.

32, No. 2 (2009), 153.

Levinas, E. (1991). Otherwise than being or beyond essence. (A. Lingis, Trans.). Dordrecht,
The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Levinas, E. (1987). Philosophy and the idea of infinity. In A. Lingis (Trans.). Collected
philosophical papers, (pp. 47-60). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.

Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity. An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.).
Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.

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