To trust the liar: Løgstrup and Levinas on ethics, war, and openness

Despite their many similarities, one apparent difference between the ethics of K.E. Løgstrup and Emmanuel Levinas concerns trust: Levinas does not analyse trust as a morally significant phenomenon, whereas Løgstrup makes it a central component of his moral phenomenology. This paper argues that an analysis of Løgstrupian trust nonetheless reveals at least three important commonalities between Levinas and Løgstrup’s moral projects: an understanding of war and ethics as metaphysical opposites; an emphasis on openness to the other as something that transcends the prudential order of norms and laws; and a view of the ethical as that which breaks into and disrupts the order of human instrumental calculation.