CHRISTIAN ETHICS IN A POSTMODERN WORLD The Rise of Postmodernity
Since Federico de Onis’s use of the term ‘postmodernismo’ to describe the Spanish and Latin-American poetry of 1905-1914 which had reacted against the ‘excess’ of modernism in 1934, (Rose 1991: 171) “Postmodernism” became very popular. It has been used in the fields of art (Christo-Bakargiev 1987), architecture (Pevsner 1967), literature (Hassan 1971), video, economics, films (James 1991), ideology (Larrain 1994: 90-118), theology (Tilley at al 1995), and philosophy (Griffin et al 1993).
In trying to understand ‘postmodern’, we have to understand ‘modern’ first. According to Rose (1991: 1), there are many related yet different meanings associated with the term ‘modern’. First of all, Arnold J. Toynbee understands modern as referring to the historical phenomenon of
The most significant of the conclusions that suggest themselves is that the word ‘modern’ in the term ‘Modern

Western Civilization’, can, without inaccuracy, be given a more precise and concrete connotation by being translated ‘middle class’. Western communities became ‘modern’ in the accepted Modern Western meaning of the word, just as soon as they had succeeded in producing a bourgeoisie that was both numerous enough and competent enough to become the predominant element in society. We think of the new chapter of Western history that opened at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as being ‘modern’ par excellence because, for the next four centuries and more, until the opening of a ‘post-Modern Age’ at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the middle class was in the saddle in the larger and more prominent part of the Western World as a whole. (Toynbee 1954: 138)

Toynbee also asserts that the rise of an industrial urban working class of the West together with the rise of other nations and their proletariats and the rise of a variety of ‘post-Christian’ religious cults as the signs of the arrival of the ‘postmodern’. Rose (1991: 1) differentiates modernism as the understanding of meanings in art or architecture; modernisation as the economic and technological developments of the industrialist and capitalist expansion and domination; and modernity as the sum total of modern, modernism, and modernisation.
The concept of ‘postmodern’ evolves according to different perspectives of the different scholars. C. Wright Mills (1961: 184) treats postmodern as ‘the Fourth Epoch’

following ‘the Modern Age’ when the liberalism and socialism born of the Enlightenment have both virtually collapsed as adequate explanations of the world and the ideas of freedom and of reason have become moot. Ihab Hassan (1971) describes a variety of aesthetic, literary, technological and philosophical deconstructions of the canons of modernism and the increase in ‘inderterminancy’. French sociologist Jean-François Lyotard understands postmodern as the deconstruction of the meta-narratives of the techno-scientism and the capitalism of the modern society because of the “incredulity toward metanarratives” (1984: xxiv). Paolo Portoghesi (1983) warns us not to treat ‘postmodern’ as a label designating homogeneous and convergent things but rather lumping together different things (including returning to historical and classical tradition) which arise from a common dissatisfaction with the heterogeneous things of the modernity. He also notices the rise of new electronic technology that turns our industrial society into the age of information and communication. Hal Foster (Rose 1991: 175) differentiates two kinds of postmodernism: neoconservative (humanistic) and post-structuralist. Both assume some deconstruction of the subject. David Ray Griffin describes clearly two different

groups of the postmodern philosophies,
Closely related to literary-artistic postmodernism is a philosophical postmodernism inspired by pragmatism, physicalism, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida and other recent French thinkers . . .. It can be called deconstructive or eliminative postmodernism. It overcomes the modern worldview through an antiworldview: it deconstructs or eliminates the ingredients necessary for a worldview, such as God, self, purpose, meaning, a real world, and truth as correspondence. While motivated in some cases by the ethical concern to forestall totalitarian systems, this type of postmodern thought issues in relativism, even nihilism. It would be called ultramodernism, in that its eliminations result from carrying modern premises to their logical conclusions. (Griffin et al 1993: viii-ix)

Griffin declares that he endorses another option of constructive or revisionary postmodernism. Revisionary postmodernism tries to overcome the error of the modern worldview by a revision of the modern premises and traditional concepts through a new integration of scientific, ethical, aesthetic, and religious intuitions. It shows concern for both postmodern persons with a postmodern spirituality and postmodern global order in the postmodern societies by listening to the voices of the ecology movement, feminist’s critique, pacifist’s petition and transcending the “individualism, anthropocentrism, patriarchy, mechanization, economism, consumerism, nationalism, and militarism” (Griffin

1993:ix). Revisionary postmodernists try to salvage a positive meaning for the human self, history, and truth as correspondence which are central to modernity; some even try to promote the premodern notions of divine reality, cosmic meaning, and an enchanted nature. Such philosophers as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, and Charles Hartshorne are recognized as representatives of revisionary postmodern philosophers (Griffin et al 1993).

Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern
From the previous survey we know that the concept of ‘postmodern’ is not unitarily definable. For the purpose of understanding the contrasts and relationships among premodern, modern, and postmodern, we will chose traditional Christianity as the representative of the premodern; the Enlightenment Western World as the representative of the modern and the deconstructive postmodernism as the representative of the postmodern for our discussions.
The premodern assert that their religion (worldview) is the only and absolute worldview to be accepted by everyone. They will take their religion (worldview) as final authority

to judge and condemn all other religions (worldviews) as heresies intolerantly. The modern discover that there are many different religions (worldviews) in the world (Anthropologist’s participant observation teaches us this somber reality) (Wagner 1981: 4) and that their own religion (worldview) is not always correct (The Galileo’s telescope is an epoch making incident). After René Descartes’ (1596-1650) famous cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) which is closely connected with dubito ergo sum, autonomous rationality is being uphold as the final authority to arbitrate the truthfulness of all worldviews (Anderson 1990: 32-33). Autonomous rationality brings about scientific and technological advancement that gives humans the instrumental power to manipulate nature as object as well as the optimistic faith on progression under the influence of Darwin’s evolution theory. Gradually materialistic, deterministic, rationalistic, and scientific worldview (secularism) is believed to be the universal truth.
Fredrich Nietzsche critiques that all claims of truth, reason and science are tools for the preservation of life by the will to power which seeks to control and to dominate (1968: 227). Karl Marx warns us the possibility of “false

consciousness” (False belief in social reality structures that betray the believers) (Mannheim 1936: 78). Karl Mannheim learns from Nietzsche and borrows from Karl Marx the concept of false consciousness and applies it eventually to Marxism. He investigates how societies create and perpetuate structures of reality (sociology of knowledge). The sociology of knowledge investigates human actions, habits, institutions, social roles and controls, legitimizations and reifications (dehumanization of the human products) (Berger and Luckmann 1967:89). General Semantics teaches us that language is not reality (Map is not territory) (Chase 1938:10).
Building upon the legacies of the previous scholars, the deconstruction postmodern pragmatist Richard Rorty asserts that human languages are made rather than found, and truth is a property of linguistic entities, of sentences (1989:6-7). We can not determine the truthfulness of the language, only its usefulness. There is no objective knowledge, no truth of correspondence. Instead, there are stories that give the storytellers power when they are believed. Linguistics suddenly becomes hot on campus. Stanley Fish, a professor of English at Johns Hopkins, espouses a “reader response theory” that gives the reader the “joint responsibility for the

production of a meaning that was itself redefined as an event rather than an entity.” (Fish 1980:3) Later on he develops another “affective community theory” to assert that the writer, the critics, and the readers are all parts of a dynamic social process of ever-changing creation of values, understandings and norms. These beliefs are not idiosyncratic or arbitrary but communal and conventional (They are not solipsists.) (Fish 1980:10-11). Jacques Derrida, a professor of the history of philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, goes a further step to the extreme of deconstructing classical philosophy, structuralism, psychoanalysis and Marxism. Deconstruction is about the impossibility for language to accurately represent meaning (thus against logocentrism). The British critic Terry Eagleton summarizes it very well that the Western philosophy has always been logocentric, and thus objectivistic- committed to a belief in some ultimate “word,” presence, essence, truth or reality which will act as the foundation of all our thought, language and experience. It has yearned for the sign which will give meaning to all others-the “transcendental signifier”-and for the anchoring, unquestionable meaning to which all our signs can be seen to point (the “transcendental signified”). A great number of candidates for this role-God, the Idea, the World Spirit, the Self, substance, matter and so on-have thrust themselves forward from time to time. (Eagleton 1983: 131)

Thus all the construction for any extralinguistic reference is inevitably a fiction (fiction means creation). History is no more discernable patterns of human actions but a fiction of the historian. The law becomes jumble of words with indeterminate meanings (Anderson 1990:92). Sociologist Michel Foucault emphasizes that societies define “madness” to discriminate against and marginalize those minority social scapegoats arbitrarily (1977: 131). Furthermore, Foucault claims that humanity is nothing more than a fiction composed by the modern human sciences and self is no longer the ultimate source and ground for language but rather constituted in and through language (Grenz 1996: 130).
Ethics and morality have been denigrated into the cynic irony “might makes right” (Welch 1985: 88). For Foucault the greatest good is an individual’s freedom to maximize pleasure and all social regulation is a conspiracy to stifle one’s longing for self-expression (Beiner 1995). Gadamer shows that our ethical judgement often consists of prejudice from our historical context (Gadamer 1988: 245). Alasdair MacIntyre (1984) laments that the incommensurability of the languages results in the degeneration of the public ethical discourses into “emotivism”. Richard Bernstein (1983: 16-20) describes

the feeling of experiencing chaos upon the loss of the assurance of the universal objectivity in ethical discourse as “Cartesian Anxiety”. We will try to summarize the comparison among premodern, modern, and postmodern in table 1 on the following page.

Christian responses to postmodernism
Postmodernism is here to stay and to evolve. It is a major paradigm shift that has vast and deep impact on the world. When modernity hits hard on Christianity, many sociologists predict the inevitable demise and even eradication of Christianity by secularism (Bruce 1996; Turner 1994). Yet Christianity survives the assault well and even shows signs of revitalization in many parts of the world. How will Christianity face the challenge of postmodernity? There are many different theological responses. Some accept its central premises and write a/theologies (neither theologies nor nontheologies but something from the interstice of the two) (Taylor 1984); Some adopt the total paradoxical presence of the opposite (thus rejecting the law of non-contradiction) and advocate the theology of the death of God (Altizer 1993); Some adopt the process panentheism of Alfred North Whitehead and valorize into an all-inclusive theology of romantic communalism (Griffin 1993); Some will recognize the plurality of languages and knowledge and the ambiguity of the history yet still cling to the hope of modern rationality and propose a more modest suggestion of revisionist theology (Tracy 1994); Some liberals learn from postmodernism about the critique

against rationalism by becoming postliberals (Lindbeck 1984); Some utilize the prevalent concept of narrative to develop narrative theologies (Allen 1989; Middleton & Walsh 1995); Some treat postmodernism as the deceit of the Devil and resist it by retreating back into fundamentalism (Oden 1990; Bruce 1996: 141-142); Some will call a reformation of the theology of the evangelicals (Wells 1993, 1994).

Christian Ethics in Postmodern World
In this study we will delimitate our effort to a more modest goal of investigating and comparing the available options to do Christian ethics in a postmodern world.

Modest Pragmatism Model Jeffery Stout (1988) suggests that we accept our finitude and seek out practical wisdom to reach a consensus for provisional and self-limiting good as our telos. We should avoid sectarian violent fights by giving up our private appeals to tradition or authority and appeal to public argumentation to resolve our differences from other groups. The modern appeal to public reason for universal truth must be

given up for a “modest” and pragmatic appeal to public consensus. The consensus is not required to reach the Cartesian certitude that “no reasonable person could possibly doubt,” but the platitudinous agreement that “no reasonable person would even think to doubt” (Peirce 1958: 39-40). Thus after deconstructing Cartesian certitude, platitudinous consensus can prevent us lapse into the abyss of skepticism, nihilism, and relativism. Modest pragmatism can help us steer a balanced way between the tyranny of objectivism and the chaos of relativism.
Stout refutes the notion of radical incommensurability by referring to the famous argument of Donald Davidson (1984) that any disagreement presupposes a more fundamental common understanding. The very recognition of disagreement entails a deeper level of agreement by virtue of which the disagreement is identified. Recognizing the contingency of our moral judgement does not entail the denial of moral truth. Moral truth is those platitudinous scientific, social, and cultural affirmations we never think to make explicit. Stout draws a distinction between moral justification that is relative and moral truth which is taken to be not relative. This assertion

can prevent us lapse into the terror of extreme pragmatism (Rorty 1982: xlii). (Figure 1) If there is no way of reaching moral justification, then one is not blameworthy though the decision is morally wrong.
Admitting that our justification structures are relative to historical and cultural factors does not issue in cultural determinism which free us from moral responsibility. We are still responsible to judge what in our moral tradition is worth preserving, what requires modification, and what should be left behind. Utilizing all the available resources from our tradition, history, anthropology, sociology, and creativity we must develop a coherent moral language adequate to deal with the moral needs of the moment. This effort is called “Moral Bricolage” which is like a motley, a coat made of many pieces of clothes of different colors stitched together and which needs frequent mending and patching. (Figure 2) Creativity and critical distance is attained by immanent ethical criticism through stereoscopic social criticism that brings social practices, institutions, internal and external goods of all parties involved into focus in the same time. This effort of moral bricolage can help us reach moral consensus.
B

Moral Justification C

AC BC AB ABC Consensus Consensus Consensus Consensus

Figure 1: Modest Pragmatism Consensus

Figure 2: Moral Bricolage.

Community Narrative Model Stanley Hauerwas (1983) rejects modernist’s assertion about foundational moral rational principle because it will automatically put religious moral convictions secondary. He also argues that rationality itself depends on a particular narrative. All narratives are embedded in their historical cultural contexts. Everyone inescapably participates in particular narratives which structure their intentions, understandings, and rationality. There is no neutral narrative to insure the truthfulness of our particular narratives. Truthfulness comes from responding to many claims on our lives without trying to subject them under a false unity of coherence.
Life situation proceeds contingently, yet by observing its evolution we can discern some predictable behavior patterns that are called characters. Reflection on the progression of various characters in their stories will bring out configurations to rank various characters. This is narrative’s rationality, which is not based on abstract universal rational principles but rather based on true-life situations and thus is suitable for our ethical discourses.

In the face of a world of foreboding chaos Christian ethics is not to relieve us from the ambiguity of uncertainty but to help us live out our religious convictions truthfully. Christian convictions take the form of a story (the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ) which is followed by many stories of lives that are transformed by the story of Jesus Christ. All these stories together make a tradition that creates a community of faith. Christian ethics does not start with a logical inference derived from abstract principles but “in a community that carries the story of the God who wills us to participate in a kingdom established in and through Jesus of Nazareth” (Hauerwas 1983: 62). We should not be afraid of the historical contingency of our faith because it is congruent with biblical teaching that we see now darkly through a glass and it will bring to our heart an attitude of humility.
Christian ethics claims universal significance qualified by a confession of dependence upon God’s power. In all the Scripture we see an almighty God who never coerces the people of Israel but calls Israel again and again. This non-coercive way of persuasion culminates in the cross where our all-powerful God becomes so vulnerable even to be a victim of our

refusal to accept His Lordship. An unqualified ethics based on universal rational principles carries with it the violence of coercion. Christians are a community of believers formed around a crucified savior without any appeal to universal rational principles to coerce others to adopt their point of view. The task of Christian ethics in a postmodern world is thus mainly a witness that shines like a beacon into the chaotic darkness of relativism to illuminate how life should be lived well. This does not entail a stoic resignation and acceptance of tragedy or evil, for Christians have patience with hope in a God who has already determined the end of history in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. By peaceful non-coercive resistance against the evil structures and practices we challenge the postmodern world with Christian truth. Christians refuse to take up violence to secure relative goods because our task is not to bring God’s Kingdom on this earth, but rather to witness to it by being the earnest of His Kingdom of shalom with the assured confidence that His Kingdom will prevail. We live in the peaceable Kingdom not because it is effective, but simply because it is true (Hauerwas 1983: 151).

Christian Bricolage Model
William Greenway (1994a) suggests a synthesis of Jeffrey Stout’s “Modest Pragmatism Model” and Stanley Hauerwas’ “Community Narrative Model”. He proposes a “Christian Bricolage Model”. First of all he assures us that Cartesian anxiety can be neutralized. Without an appeal to universal rational principles will not automatically push us sliding helplessly down the slippery slop of nihilistic relativism into the darkness of chaos. Stout carves out a public realm of conversations to reach platitudinous consensus as provisional telos with his modest pragmatism. He also differentiates between the particular truth justification and the consensual platitudinous truth to guard against the terror of extreme pragmatism. On the other hand Hauerwas focuses on the particular narrative of Christianity without recognizing the need to develop a paradigm for public conversations. A paradigm for public conversations among various narratives will necessarily entail a further overarching meta-narrative, which is unacceptable in a postmodern world. Hauerwas’s emphasis on historical narrative, character, tradition, and community provide a more powerful vocabulary for a richer and deeper understanding of moral commitment.

Greenway suggests a “Christian Bricolage Model” in which “Bricolage” acknowledges the fundamental interwovenness of all our narratives and hence readies us for mutually enriching conversations within our pluralistic society while “Christian” identifies a narrative depth from which a bricoleur might work with some qualifications.
The postmodern sense of ambiguity should be cultivated publicly in order to mitigate against the sectarian chaos in the public realm. Internalization of this sense of ambiguity can temper our dogmatism and foster tolerance and openness to correction from “the Other”. By holding an uncompromising core of Christian belief we also recognize the contingency of our understanding and the inherent interconnectedness with “the Other”, therefore we present our convictions openly and tolerate diversity. We are called to hold our moral convictions and warrant them with deep, non-foundationalist, narrative-specific justifications which appeal to coherence, elegance, and reasonableness.
We are called to plumb the depths of our narrative tradition, to acknowledge and listen to other traditions, to articulate moral convictions with humility, depth, and elegance, and to engage in fitting actions. (Greenway 1994a: 29)

Discussion and Conclusion
Descartes upheld universal rationality to resolve the sectarian wars among the religious traditions. Rationality develops science that brings in industrial modernity. Scientism becomes even a worse tyranny of the “Western, masculine, secular, capitalistic, materialistic, elitism.” Nietzsche tears down the façade of the rational truth by exposing its underlying will to power. The linguists deconstruct the certitude of meaning accrued to the texts. We are now in the age of postmodernity.
There are two kinds of postmodernism. The first can be called “Eliminative Postmodernism” and the other is “Revisionary Postmodernism”. Both of them see the fallacy of the meta-narrative of modernity and seek to deconstruct it. The eliminative postmodernism desires to eliminate the mete-narrative itself. Their approach will in the end deconstruct even the postmodernism itself, resulting in nihilism. The revisionary postmosernism hopes to tear down the meta-narrative of modernity in order to revise it and reconstruct a better meta-narrative. Personally I opt for the revisionary, reconstructive postmodernism.

We must acknowledge that we can only know in part and express in part (I Cor. 13:9). We are totally immersed in our culture and historical context, so our understanding is contingent. The apprehension and understanding of my mind, the development of my character, and the purpose and meaning of my life are all dependent on my community. Prophet Jeremiah laments, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9) Now the postmodern linguists teach us the same lesson that we use our language as tools to manipulate, dominate, and oppress “the Other”.
Stout’s modest pragmatism gives us a public platitudinous consensus (moral truth) as our provisional telos while neglects the contingent particular moral justifications. Sometimes this will actually delivers us a vacuous and superficial platitudinous moral truth. For example, both pro-choice and pro-life camps agree that to kill an innocent human life is morally wrong. But the pro-choice camp will reach the same consensus through their moral justification that fetus is not human. Meaningful moral agreement can only be reached by plumbing into the deep question of what is humanity. An

exclusive emphasis on platitudinous moral consensus is actually a denial of diversity. The pluralistic tradition will finally functions as a meta-narrative that tends to level the distinctions among various identifiable traditions and make their co—existence a good in itself (Hauerwas and Kenneson 1988: 690). Stout’s ideal can only be reached when all the groups share equal political, economical, ideological, and cultural powers. The history of modernity reveals to us the painful reality of marginalization, exploitation, and oppression of female, minority, and third-world under the name of democracy. A shallow focus on a consensual truth without a justificatory social structure is problematic, for public consensus is mainly a function of the particular interests of dominant group.
Hauerwas’s proposal of community narrative as a witness in a postmodern pluralistic world has the merit of emphasizing the importance of moral conviction and commitment without lapsing into the coercion of unqualified universal moral principle. By emphasizing the distinctness and the particularity of Christian tradition Hauerwas forgets the fact that Christian tradition is shaped by contemporary cultural

forces in which it is embedded. Augustine’s Platonism, Aquinas’ Aristotelianism, Enlightenment rationality, nationalism, capitalism and socialism are all inextricably intertwined with Christian tradition. This does not negate the distinctiveness of Christian tradition but will refute the claims of pure, discrete, and exclusive Christianity. Christians should witness to the world their moral convictions based on their tradition. In the same time Christians should also listen carefully and respectfully what “the Other” traditions have to share and to critique us. The enmeshment of Christians in the larger society and complicated institutions sometimes will render it impossible for Christians to wash our hands clean of the moral responsibilities of the corporate evils (Arendt 1971: 255-268). Sometimes pacifism is the support of the status quo of the present unjust social structure. As James Cone has argued, “no one can be nonviolent in an unjust society” (1975:219). Sometimes we have to choose the lesser evil.
The illusion of the eliminative deconstructive postmodernism is that after all ideologies are deconstucted and all dominant groups are marginalized there will come the

utopia without oppressors. David Harvey has a neo-Marxist structural critique in which he portrays postmodernity as a dangerous subterfuge which cloaks and protects a powerful, global, late capitalism (1989; see also Jameson 1991). Mark L. Taylor (1990: 39-45) comments that the communitarian tendency to retreat into discrete narrative traditions corrects classic liberal tendencies towards individualism and neglect of tradition. Celebration of difference as a posture of critique is not enough to generate real strategies or sustained discursive and extradiscursive practices of resistance. He cites Langdon Gilkey’s conclusion that pluralism “is toothless if one faces oppression.” We should engage in persistent identification and resistance to the destruction of life we already see and the global destruction that threatens. Taylor proposes a postmodern trilemma: acknowledgement of tradition, celebration of plurality, and resistance to domination. Hans-Georg Gadamer exposes Enlightenment as a prejudice against prejudice, thus rehabilitates traditions and presses the virtue of conversation. He suggests that we adopt as our mode of being in the world the open structure of a question (1988: 325-333). But this virtue as the open structure of a

question is helpless in the face of moral “forced live options” when we must make decisions with a prioritized order of moral values. We need our Conviction to help us make the forced choice at life situations. William Greenway (1994b) recognizes the irreducible tensions to hold private convictions in public space. He introduces the category of Mystery to signify our inescapable embeddedness in one of a plurality of traditions, the impossibility of ever knowing the truth. Conviction empowers our moral agency where decisive action is forced but moral consensus is lacking. Mystery tempers our actions and opens us to the possibility that those with different convictions may teach us. Conviction signals how we determine to resist oppression legitimated even by the provisional telos itself. Mystery signals why we are willing to settle for a provisional telos, why we do not immediately resort to violence to enforce our own vision of the good.
How should we present our witness to the plural postmodern world in the area of ethics? There are a few scholars who approach this issue from their perspectives and we can learn from them. John D. Caputo (1993) studies Derrida and claims that Derrida’s work is often misunderstood to be

linguistic subjective idealism that traps us into a vain chain of linguistic signifiers without going anywhere. But Caputo reads Derrida’s deconstruction to be a philosophy of alterity, of openness to the other, of responsibility for the singularity of the other (Kearney 1984: 123-124). This will help Christian ethics refocus on the ethics of “the Other”, the lame and the leper, the widow, the orphan and the stranger. It will also give a renewed appreciation of the multiplicity of the Christian traditions, of those voices that have been silenced in and by “The Tradition”, producing thereby the illusion of “The Tradition”.
Merold Westphal (1993) investigates the works of Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and discovers that Levinas is as constructive as deconstructive. Levinas looks himself as a phenomenologist. Phenomenology is a way of becoming aware of where we are in the world. The absolutely Other (in French it is Autrui, not Autre) is an absolute subject who confronts us face to face (Levinas 1989:245). The primordial claim the face of the Other (Levinas 1987: 19) makes to me is “You shall not commit murder,” which can positively mean not to let him die alone (Levinas 1986: 24). Then the moral responsibility

becomes infinite obligation of being responsible for the suffering, pain, deeds, and even faults of the Other. In ethics, the Other’s right to exist has primacy over my own. If the Other’s right to exist is the right to a place in the sun, then killing, in the literal sense, is the ultimate but not the only violent violation. There is the paradox of “double asymmetry” in my relationship with the Other. On the one hand the Other is radically above me. His moral command on me is unconditional. On the other hand, the face of the Other is naked. The Other is so helpless and far below me as to have nothing but a naked face to make a radical challenge to my own instincts of self-preservation and self-assertion (Levinas 1969: 72-78). Actually the Other is not other but the stranger, the widow, and the orphan with whom the Bible is so concerned. Majesty in destitution. This is the double asymmetry of the ethical relation. The majesty is not that of beauty and sexual appeal, power and strength, wealth and acclaim, and so forth; It is the majesty of a naked face! This absolute and unqualified claim of the naked face of the Other comes upon me with immediacy. We are reminded of the infamous question of Cain after his murder of his brother Abel, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Levinas will give a

positive answer to this question and takes it as the basis of the Christian ethics.
David Matthew Matzko (1993) studies the works of Edith Wyschogrod and proposes that sainthood may become representatives of gracious and peaceable communities as a Christian ethical witness to the postmodern world. Saints have been a scandal in the modern rational ethics. Because saints are often looked upon as excessively emotional, simple-minded, over-religious, particular, and entail inequality of reverence. Postmodernism resists universal rationality and individualized subjectivity, and this resistance creates a space for a reemergence of saints. Wyschogrod argues that the moral problem of the conflict between self and other can not be solved by moral law but through the concrete lives of the saints. Saintliness is a postmodern expression of excess desire, a desire on behalf of the Other that seeks the cessation of another’s suffering and the birth of another’s joy. Wyschogrod defines hagiography as “a narrative linguistic practice that recounts the lives of saints so that the reader or hearer can experience their imperative power.” (Wyschogrod 1990: 6) She defines sainthood as radical self-emptying in opposition to the human predisposition of self-

interest. Saintly altruism is desire that risks the self and gives way to excessive desire on behalf of the Other. Here we can see the reflection of the kenosis of Jesus Christ as recorded in Philippians 2: 5-8.
Tom Kitwood (1990) applies what he learns from psychotherapy to the issue of morality in postmodernity. In psychotherapy great care is taken to develop the skill of giving “free attention”. This is the intimate caring relationship without distortion of understanding, critical judgements, projections and distractions. Free attention demands honesty, awareness, and commitment. Kitwood defines moral space as to be created by mutual free attention. The authentic life exists in the intersection between the total life experience and the conscious understanding. When the authentic lives of two individuals interact with mutual free attention, a moral space is created. (Figure 3) The moral space is the beginning of morality. Without it a genuine mutual concern is extremely unlikely. When this moral space is not continually replenished, moral exhaustion and burnout will ensue.
Piaget suggests a bipolar construct to measure structured domination, ranging from unilateral to mutual

respect. Kitwood suggests another bipolar construct of expressivity, ranging from defensive inhibition to free expression of desires, feelings, and emotions. If we put the two dimensions as orthogonal axes, we have four quadrants to represent four different moral situations. (Figure 4) In the first quadrant where both dominance and expressivity are very high, those in power will express unrestrained cruelty in exploitation, oppression, and greed. This describes the primeval society. In the second quadrant where the structured domination is high and expressivity is low, confrontation is generally avoided by observing the ideology of oughts and rights. The whole unbalanced system is not confronted or challenged. This describes the hierarchical situation of feudal societies and authoritarian families. In the third quadrant where both the structured domination and expressivity are low, there are egalitarian and restrained interactions. This describes the modern democratic rational society. The interpersonal relationship is alienated and distant. The fourth quadrant represents the ideal of equality and mutual respect with full experience of intersubjectivities.

Moral Space

Figure 3: Moral space (modified from Kitwood 1990: 6).

Expressivity High

1 4

Primeval Postmodern Society Society?

High Low Structured Domination Feudal Modern Society Society 2 3

Low

Figure 4: Moral Situations (modified from Kitwood 1990: 7)

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