Department of Philosophy

In a society ravaged by poverty and underdevelopment, a hope for the privileged group to initiate genuine programs to alleviate their condition is prayed. The materialization of the said expectation, however, presupposes solicitude between the two groups. Solicitude is very basic as it expands the ethical life. From the value of self-confinement, the subject slowly recognizes the face of the other. Solicitude, the concrete care for the other as other and benevolent spontaneity, indicates the two parties’ awareness of the mutual suffering, of the fragility, especially of the mortality that they all share in common. This being the case, solicitude has a more fundamental character than obedience to duty, which character Ricoeur defines as benevolent spontaneity based on self-esteem. This disposition allows the benevolent and compassionate self to rectify the initial asymmetry involved in either receiving an injunction from a “master of justice” or offering sympathy toward one who is suffering. Through this awareness, persons take the initiative to reach out to the other. Initiative as an intervention of the agent of action in the course of the world which effectively causes changes in the world of the self and of the other has to be a product of mutual recognition. Initiative as a product of mutual recognition is also a product of dialogical exchange. This being the case, an ethics of responsibility has to be set in place. The self must not force his way into the other.

In contemporary political theory, democracy embodies the ideals of the Aristotelian state, the one that is most able to realize the ideal life of the political community. Nevertheless, fledgling democracies are confronted with economic and political problems which Paul Ricoeur thinks are due to the essential dissymmetry between the governing authority and the governed, culminating in the violence of the powerful agent. The enjoyment of the good life in a democracy presupposes what Ricoeur calls an ethics of politics, which consists in nothing other than the creation of spaces of freedom which confer on the governed a structure that enables its members to pursue the aim of enduring indefinitely in the future. When the governing authority buries into oblivion the desire of the historical community to live well with and for others in just institutions, the governed are expected to act in concert in order to ascertain their enjoyment of the good life because they feel particularly responsible for the horizontal bond that is constitutive of their will to live together. Thus, Paul Ricoeur explains that the balancing of power in common and domination is an endless task of democracy that seeks to place domination under the control of power-in-common.

This paper theorizes that the success of the People Power Revolution of 1986 to end a dictatorship is a concrete exercise of how would a democracy work. In a democracy, the people elect among themselves those who will be charged of forming the government and who will have power over them in order to assure their living of a life of justice and opportunity where they enjoy fully the exercise of their civil liberties anchored on a tradition of utmost respect for the rule of law. Therefore, at any moment that the governing authority subverts the will of the people, the latter has to reassert its power through civil disobedience or revolution on the institution that has already become violent. This will, however, turn into a vicious cycle unless the essential dissymmetry embedded in any political community which usually ends in the violence perpetrated by the more powerful agent, be it the government or the people, will be corrected. The strength of a democracy lies always on the collaborative and cooperative efforts between the governing authority lording over the people and the governed legitimating the former's authority. But the perception of politics as only a matter of strategic alliances, expediency, favoritism, and political realism will more likely lead to an unacceptable state violence. Thus, a vision of an ethics in politics must be instituted. Since ethics can provide rational order and so, curbs the violence that politics engenders, the ethical character of the state which is a matter of both the prudence exercised by the government and the participation of the citizens in democratic processes geared to negotiating conflicts and distributing power must be enshrined on institutions that assures the maximum participation of its citizens; such institutions as the political parties which consolidates people's interests and the judiciary whose fifth pillar of its criminal justice system is the community.

Mencius portrayed Yang Zhu as an egoist. But the seeming consensus of scholars is that Yang Zhu was not an egoist. Despite that, however, a passage in the Lüshi chunqiu, a third century BCE text, appears to confirm Mencius’s characterization. It says that Yang Zhu valued self (guiji). In this paper, I examine the meaning of guiji. Specifically, I investigate on the term ji to reveal the meaning of guiji and elaborate on its possible implications. Ultimately, I show that with Yang Zhu’s possible conception of self, guiji does not necessarily mean egoism.

ABSTRACT

This thesis utilizes Emmanuel Levinas’s phenomenological ethics to critique Cebu City’s anti-mendicancy ordinance. It argues that the philosophical underpinnings of the latter harm, objectify, and violate the alterity of the destitute Other who seeks immediate help from the self. Levinas’s philosophy has been considered as a criticism of the Western theories for the latter’s tendency to regard the subject as a thinking self that can completely know exteriority, which, having its negative implication to ethics, objectifies the face of the Other. It is the contention of the researcher, then, that the Levinasian Other will be of significance in criticizing the law on anti-begging inasmuch as it has been significant as a critique of the Western preoccupation of the self. 
True enough, the government provides specific programs that help the mendicants. Nevertheless, they are inconsistently done and are designed solely for the benefit of the minors and senior citizens; the government places too much burden on the destitute Others (mendicants) as they are punished through imprisonment for days, fines, and/or through rendering community service. In combating the issues brought about by begging, there is another way available without using violence: extending the programs of the ordinance that will benefit all the mendicants. Not all are capable of self-reliance. The self and the other, therefore, must never be treated as if they are similar: just because the self can, does not mean that so can the Other.
Moreover, the ethical relation between the self and the Other is hindered because of some of the provisions of the law. Hence, through the Levinasian Other, this research also resolves this issue in order to retain the relationship between the ethical subject (self) and the Other. The mendicants are worthy to be helped and revered because they, too, are human beings. In times that the government fails to do its duty toward the Other, the self must not be hindered in doing one’s responsibility, through face to face relation, to the destitute Other.


Keywords: Levinas, Ethics, The Other, Cebu City’s Anti-Mendicancy Ordinance, Infinity