Ethics as First Philosophy

Abstract

The phrase "ethics as first philosophy" is most identified with Emmanuel Levinas.It is the idea, put simply, that what has been traditionally looked to as first philosophy, usually epistemology or metaphysics, is not first in any sense at all.Rather, all such positions are dependent on a precedent ethics.Thus, ethics becomes first philosophy.In my investigation of the concept here, I intend to place it in a broader context of Continental philosophy, identifying the threads of Continental thought that inform the concept, both within and outside the limits of the phenomenological, and primarily through the lens of the influential predecessors Nietzsche and Heidegger.In this way I hope to provide a deeper understanding of the concept and possibly a broader defense of its validity.

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