Curtis Hutt - Jewish Religious and Philosophical Ethics

Series Editor: Oliver Leaman

University of Kentucky

For a full list of titles in the series: www.routledge.com/middleeaststudies/series/JEWISH

Studies, which are interpreted to cover the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, culture, politics, philosophy, theology, religion, as they relate to Jewish affairs. The remit includes texts which have as their primary focus issues, ideas, personalities and events of relevance to Jews, Jewish life and the concepts which have characterised Jewish culture both in the past and today. The series is interested in receiving appropriate scripts or proposals.

Ethics and Suffering Since the Holocaust

Making Ethics First Philosophy in Levinas, Wiesel and Rubenstein

Ingrid L. Anderson

Abl-Barakt al-Baghdds Scientific Philosophy

The Kitb al-Mutabar

Moshe M. Pavlov

Abl-Barakt al-Baghdds Metaphysical Philosophy

The Kitb al-Mutabar

Moshe M. Pavlov

Contemporary Sephardic and Mizrahi Literature

A Diaspora

Edited by Dario Miccoli

Religious Studies and Rabbinics

A Conversation

Edited by Elizabeth Shanks Alexander and Beth A. Berkowitz

Jewish Religious and Philosophical Ethics

Edited by Curtis Hutt, Halla Kim and Berel Dov Lerner

The Bible and the Holy Poor

From the Tanakh to Les Misrables

David Aberbach

Violence and Messianism

Jewish Philosophy and the Great Conflicts of the Twentieth Century

Petar Bojani

Laura Grams

Martin Bubers philosophy has been influential across a range of disciplines including ethics, psychology, communication, sociology, religion, and education. I propose to reconsider valuable insights Buber offers, particularly in Ich und Du , for virtue ethics and feminist care ethics. As James Walters has argued, Martin Bubers relational philosophy is perhaps the most fertile seedbed in which feminisms ethics of care was nourished. Bubers explanation of relation, responsibility, and mutuality helps us understand ethical relations of respect and care, and indicates how we might develop virtues appropriate to encountering and listening to others. This inquiry may seem a bit misplaced insofar as Buber does not typically employ language or concepts familiar to virtue theory. In addition, from his account of the most important relations he carefully removes terms like feeling, empathy, and experience that are often considered vital in care or feminist ethics. Nevertheless, Bubers ideas about inclusion, mutuality, respect, love, and trust which could be fruitfully considered as relational virtues are crucial for these ethical theories because they illuminate how people might best care for one another as well as develop enduring ethical relationships. I argue that this is true even in cases that may appear most confounding, where Buber describes relations with trees, animals, or other humans encountered in silence.