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Anthropological Theory
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Levinas and ethics: ! The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1463499618785529

Pope John Paul II journals.sagepub.com/home/ant

Anjum Alvi
Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan

Abstract
The essay aims to identify the ethical dimension of the relation of the self with the
Other/Beyond – as an indispensable aspect of human existence that underlies and forms
a premise for any cultural phenomenon, and thus constitutes an unavoidable perspective
in anthropology. By juxtaposing modern and non-modern perspectives on value, self,
and freedom, this essay reclaims the ethical dimension for the cultural dominant of
modernity from which, through the imposition of the self, it has been lost from sight.
The argument for the ethical dimension is centrally embedded in the thought of
Emmanuel Levinas and anchored in different philosophical and theological concepts. It
is exemplified by the event of Pope John Paul II’s death, which is taken as a synecdoche
for his life and work that allows us to redefine the interrelated topics of religion and
ritual as statements of ethics.

Keywords
Ethics, morality, John Paul II, modern–non-modern, religion, ritual, freedom, value

Introduction
Can the Same welcome the Other, not by giving the Other to itself as a theme (that is
to say, as being) but by putting itself in question? (Levinas, 1996: 16)

Ethics is not a moment of being; it is otherwise and better than being, the very
possibility of the beyond (Levinas, 1996: 141).

Anthropological approaches to ethics locate its objectivity in a universal struc-

ture of a social practice. Either they see this, following Foucault, as a conscious,

Corresponding author:
Anjum Alvi, Department of Social Sciences at MGSHSS, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS),
Lahore Cantt. 54792, Pakistan.
Email: anjum.alvi@lums.edu.pk
2 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

reflective movement towards the self, that is, as the freedom to construct one’s
subjectivity/identity according to one’s values and position (‘ethical autopoiesis’,
Faubion, 2011; Laidlaw, 2002; Zigon, 2007), or, following Aristotle, as a practical
judgement in terms of a continuous/non-reflective and a discontinuous/reflective
practice (‘phronesis’, Lambek, 2000: 312, 2010b: 61–62; Zigon, 2007). This has two
consequences. First, it renders ethics a methodology that accesses and emphasises
moral experiences at the cost of the social, which informs them. As a result, few
anthropologists consider the social to be intrinsic to moral experience (Myers,
1979; Parkin, 2017; Robbins, 2007; Throop, 2008, 2014). Second, it stresses a per-
son’s moral/ethical experience in a specific context without evaluating the basis of
evaluation (Lambek, 2013; Zigon, 2007: 140; see also Faubion, 2011: 8; Fassin and
Stoczkowski, 2008: 331; Lambek, 2010b: 42, 61). This conceals conflicts between
valued actions in different cultural contexts, and along with them a common base
of humanity. Although present everywhere, these hidden conflicts, nevertheless,
have become glaringly obvious in the contemporary globalised world where
one’s own morality is permanently challenged, and where the securities of life
waver and disappear from one day to the other. Any anthropology incapable of
taking a systematic position with regard to genocide, racism, and ideological
imposition, or to the complete negation or degradation of difference, denies its
own subject matter and therefore dismembers itself.
In order to avoid these consequences, I argue, following Emmanuel Levinas, for
ethics as a relation of the self with the primal Other. This constitutes a universal
structure inseparable from its specific content, that is, abstract good is not divorced
from the empirical expressions of specific goods.1 Moreover, the Levinasian perspec-
tive allows perception of a deconstitution of the self (‘fission of oneself’; Levinas,
1986/1998: 89), instead of depicting a self solely engaged in self-construction.
This self-deconstitution forms the ethical dimension as a condition of our existence.2
At first sight, maintaining difference between the self and the Other appears to
endorse another modern duality liable to constitute arbitrary separations reminis-
cent of colonialism (Glick Schiller, 2012: 521) – separations largely replaced by
notions of subjectivity and power. However, in aiming to avoid essentialising any
difference, such perspectives risk encountering only the self in which otherness is
conflated, or worse, colonised. Different identities are no longer granted rights to
exist. Instead of constituting polar elements of a duality (‘ontological turn’;
Pedersen, 2012; Vigh and Sausdal, 2014), the self and the Other form an asymmet-
rical relation that conditions our existence.3 Pursuing difference does not have to
mean embracing forms of injustice. The self’s acknowledgement and commitment
to the Other’s right to a distinctive raison d’être entails both a strong commonality
and an acceptance of stark difference – two sides of the same coin. In this sense,
ethics emphasises differences within a common ethical dimension. As Louis
Dumont uses it, this dependent self constitutes a non-modern4 strand in
Levinas’s work (1986: 234–268).
To demonstrate the indispensability of the ethical dimension for anthropological
discourse, this essay first identifies as points of departure aspects of the debate on
Alvi 3

ethics and morality in which emphasis on the self takes on new expressions at the
expense of the Other. Second, it makes use of Dumont’s non-modern perspective
(1986) to expose the flaw both in Alfred Ayer’s ‘modern’ rendering of ethics as value
(Ayer, 1946) and in the anthropological view of ethics as structure (fact). Instead,
the ethical dimension envisioned here is based on the inseparability of value and
fact. Third, the relevance of the ethical dimension as a condition of social existence is
demonstrated by the public figure of Pope John Paul II, taking his death as a syn-
ecdoche for his life and work, made manifest in his funerary ritual. This ritual is
analysed not by examining exacting empirical data, cultural symbols and procedural
structure, but by using logical persuasion to describe the reality it invokes and
creates: the dimension of the Beyond/Other. Seeing the extraordinary attraction
John Paul II commanded and the multiple contentions surrounding him in this
context may deepen our understanding of ritual and religion. Finally, critique of
the modern self is shown to be integral to modern philosophical thought.
In order to retrieve the ethical dimension, the essay addresses the diverse
contexts of John Paul II’s life and death along with philosophical thoughts from dif-
ferent traditions often thought incompatible by making use of another observation
by Levinas: any meaning is to be located against a horizon of different contexts,
and at the same time, meaning precedes any one context (‘gathered Being’ or
‘plenitude of being’; Levinas, 1996: 37, 41).

Moralities and ethics

Anthropological approaches treat ethics and morality interchangeably (Lambek,
2010b: 65) or differentiate between them with regard to reflective and non-reflective
action, respectively (for instance, Laidlaw, 2014: 111; Zigon, 2007). While locating
morality and freedom within its cultural specificity, following James Laidlaw (2002:
326–327; see also Keane, 2014a), this essay departs from his position by arguing
that the very concept of freedom is only possible within the ethical relation, not
prior or subsequent to it: the self embedded in any specific morality cannot lose
sight of its relation with the Other while exercising its freedom to construct itself.
For instance, by taking the heads of their neighbours, construction of the self in
the Ilongot context (Rosaldo, 1983) denies the ethical dimension even though it
confirms Laidlaw’s ‘ethical freedom’ of the self (Laidlaw, 2002: 326–327).
Thus, anthropology needs to differentiate between ethics as a relation of the self
with the primal Other, and morality as a specific right and wrong that may treat the
Other with regard in one context and negating it in another.
Morality understood in this specific sense objectifies a set of values, thereby
opening a space for appropriation. Ethics understood as a primacy of the Other
transcends specific situations as a condition of our existence. Questions concerning
intercultural cohabitation are meaningless unless they are transcended by the eth-
ical dimension. For instance, how does one reject homosexuality on religious
grounds and yet live in a country where it is legal and morally acceptable
(see Jones, 2006: 140)? How would a Nuer woman, as described by Edward
4 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

Evans-Pritchard (1940), look at a veiled Muslim woman? Or, how is it that many
Muslim women wear a headscarf or abaya in the streets of Europe with relative
ease, yet European women find it difficult to wear western clothing in many Muslim
countries? In this globalised world where multiculturalism has become a moot
point, Levinas’ ethical perspective deserves to be high on anthropology’s agenda.
Terence Evens sees ethics in terms of the potential for choice, a fundamental
condition of human existence (‘ontological ambiguity’; Evens, 1999: 7). Many
anthropologists have noted aspects of this potential, for instance, as wise decisions
(Lambek, 2010a, 2013), ethical affordances (Keane, 2014b), or as freedom
(Laidlaw, 2002; Zigon, 2007). However, the condition of choice is not yet ethics,
but only its possibility. Ethics is constituted only after a course of responsibility is
chosen in relation to the Other. Otherwise the condition of choice constitutes a
negation of ethics. Specific moralities are subordinated to, and simultaneously
informed by the ethical dimension, which unfolds in, but is not entirely reducible
to particular cultural contexts. Such an ethical perspective is not normative: before
any specific action or judgment, it demands an analytical space in which the ethical
condition is located with regard to a specific context. For example, when ques-
tioned by informants during fieldwork, Peter Benson and Kevin O’Neill (2007)
note that they experience Levinas’s ethical relation as individuals changing in rela-
tion to the Other.

The primacy of the Other, the deconstitution of the self, and ‘return to self ’
Under the influence of Foucault, the anthropological debate has emphasised the self,
notably in expressions like, agency, subjectivity, moral experiences, dispositions,
comportment, subconscious, or construction of the self (for instance, Faubion,
2011; Keane, 2014b; Laidlaw, 2002; Zigon, 2007). Although quite useful in expound-
ing moral experience, these concepts imply comparative neglect of dimensions by
which the self is informed in the first place: not recognising the Other as a condition
of our existence limits and sometimes distorts anthropological analysis.
For example, Michael Carrithers bases his arguments against the logic of war on
‘mutual forbearance’: the capacity ‘to enter into and understand another’s point of
view while still holding one’s own’ (Carrithers, 2005: 445; emphasis added). Yet, this
prohibits criticism of cultural specificities that deny the Other, such as fascism,
suicide bombings, target killings, female genital mutilation, or preaching violence
against those whose views differ from one’s own. Recognition of, and sympathy for
the Other as self constitutes a cultural relativism amounting to solipsism: an other-
wise arresting appeal to a universal principle remains anchored in the self.
Michael Lambek bases his arguments against the duality of subjective/practical
and objective/abstract reason on Aristotle’s concept of phronesis, the creative, prac-
tical and moral reasoning of ‘personal agency’ according to circumstances, not rote
prescription (Lambek, 2000: 312–315). Yet, a ‘dilemma’ arises that Lambek notes
Alvi 5

only in passing (Lambek, 2000: 31): his agent is not entirely tied to a cultural
specificity, yet makes a moral judgment according to a specific situation.
Judgments left to the particularities of a situation call into question who the judg-
ments serve.5 This dilemma is lifted by recognising that an ethical dimension serves
the human Other, in which creativity and freedom are embedded, and checks spe-
cific conflicting moralities.6
Fabian’s emphasis on the Other in ‘intersubjective context’ (Fabian, 1972: 564),
as ‘interlocutor’, or ‘coevals’, considers other cultures as different but of equal
significance (Fabian, 2006: 142, 147). Instead, I propose that ethics consists in
acknowledging difference and also its inaccessibility. This understanding, as
Merleau-Ponty writes, is bound to remain incomplete as the self can never fully
posit the Other – consoling one’s closest friend does not mean entirely sharing that
friend’s suffering (Merleau-Ponty, 1958: 415).7 In encountering the Other’s
demands, the self perceives itself as an aspect of humanity rather than constituting
it entirely.8 It realises its incompleteness in the face of the Other, which unseats it,
questions it and demands that it posit something beyond itself. This introduces an
asymmetrical relation between the self and a primary Other who precedes, condi-
tions and transcends the self, making symmetry impossible. This asymmetrical
relation appears in Heidegger’s ‘Geworfenheit’: the priority of the ‘world’ into
which one is born (‘thrown’) and by which one is informed: in the world, the self
is neither prior to, nor can it be separated from the Other.
When the self is beholden to the Other, its integrity cannot be upheld in the final
resort. Although there is some excellent literature on the crucial concepts of mutual
tolerance, respect, recognition, forbearance (see Emcke, 2000; Galeotti, 2002; Jones,
2006), their full impact depends upon recognising their reliance on the ethical con-
dition: the deconstitution of the self becomes the ethical act of mutual amendment. For
instance, if one’s religion asks for concealment of the body (Alvi, 2013), meeting
someone whose culture emphasises different values leaves one bewildered and with
choices: to condemn, tolerate/forbear/respect/recognise, or give place to the Other’s
values. Giving place to the conflicting9 value means deconstituting the self––not all
that composes a person can remain intact, but aspects must be altered in order to
accommodate the Other in the self’s own constitution, Levinas’s ‘ethical subjectivity’
(Oksala, 2005: 199ff). Thus ethics is a movement away from the care and shaping of
the self, of respect or recognition of its own identity, and toward losing and thereby
gaining oneself in relation to the Other (Levinas, 1996: 18, 94, 118, 144). This con-
scious deconstitution of the self is seen in Sen’s concept of ‘commitment’: rationally
and freely breaking away from choice in service of the self (Sen, 2002: 214), thus
transcending the movement towards the self, which Levinas referred to as the
‘trauma of awakening’ (Levinas, 1996: 137). The recurring movement in the social
sciences toward the shaping of the self, agency and subjectivity renders it ever more
necessary to redeem an ethical self that is oriented, subordinated, humbled, ordained,
transcended and deconstituted in relation to the Other.
6 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

This ethical dimension, the Other/Beyond as presented by Levinas, has long

evaded anthropological thinking not only because of its elusive nature, but also
because influential developments in the social sciences emphasised the imposition
of the self and ignored the Other. Thus, Durkheim reduced the sacred, a dimension
of the Beyond, to the social (Durkheim, 1915/1965). More recently, works from a
non-western perspective (for instance, Said, 1978) have led many anthropologists
to examine processes of cultural homogenisation rather than of cultural diversity
(see also Sax, 1998; Kapferer, 2013). In arguing against the division of us and them,
they discovered everywhere the self, and obscured the Other in the process.10
Furthermore, readings of Foucault in current academic discourse focus on
modes of subjectivity, transforming and constructing the self, while ignoring
other possibilities in his work.
Charles Taylor argues against the modern perception of the self as monological
and for a dialogical identity constituted through ‘webs of interlocution’ unfolding
in the time dimension (Taylor, 1989: 25–52). However, whereas Taylor focuses on
the sources of the self’s constitution, Levinas observes a principal ontological
deconstitutedness of the self in relation to the Other that he considers beyond
ontology, a commanding disruption to which the self answers ‘here I am’
(Levinas, 1996: 105–106). In this regard, Levinas notes that ‘philosophical know-
ledge is a priori: it searches for the adequate idea and ensures autonomy. In every
new development it recognises familiar structures and greets old acquaintances.
It is an odyssey where all adventures are only the accidents of a return to self’
(Levinas, 1996: 14).

Modern and non-modern perspectives with respect to the self

and the Other
Dumont finds fact/is/action and value/ought/thought to be inseparable in non-
modern contexts (Dumont, 1986: 243, 249). This inherently indivisible condition
is not simply a norm (Dumont, 1986: 249) or a purely theoretical tool, but a
fundamental principle expressed in practices that are indigenous to their cultural
contexts. In modern contexts, value is a literal meaning arbitrarily attached to a
fact (‘modern artificialism’; Dumont, 1986: 56, 261). However, modernity does not
openly recognise one important exception. The self is understood only in terms of
value: the modern self is indivisible (complete in itself), nonsocial (primarily defined
in relation to itself), and morally significant (should be justly treated; Dumont,
1986: 16, 25, 247). This single modern moral principle is located prior to the social,
internalised and self-evident. It pervades all spheres of life, subordinating every-
thing else (‘individualism’; Dumont, 1986: 117). Thus, what the modern looks at as
ephemeral constitutes its fundamental reality. A pre-social self perceives freedom as
prior to the social, and introduces values arbitrarily, reducing them to individual
whims. Alasdair MacIntyre calls this the ‘emotivist’ self (1984: 23–35).
In modernity we encounter the individual as a value-fact in notions of equality,
freedom of speech, free consumerism and competition, rational thinking, free will,
Alvi 7

the right to realise one’s capabilities, etc. However, herein lie the modern perspec-
tive’s limitations: the imposition of the self hinders access to ethics, the dimension
of the Other. Non-modern ideologies locate the self in relation to a dimension
beyond to it: the givenness of the social defines a person as neither separate
from nor prior to it, thus constituting the ethical dimension (Dumont, 1986: 207,
260).
Emphasis on a self objectifying the Other means that we are anchored in the
modern perspective. Here, the self is defined primarily in relation to itself, and only
secondarily related to others (Dumont, 1986: 244, 262). Within the modern per-
spective this corresponds to separating a fact from its value, which obstructs the
understanding of ethics. An observation by Alfred Ayer is pertinent here: Ayer
does not distinguish between ethics and morals, maintaining that ethical/moral
values are expressions of subjective feelings separate from facts. To say ‘You
acted wrongly in stealing that money’, adds nothing to the phrase, ‘You stole
that money’, except moral disapproval, which another person might not agree
with (Ayer, 1946: 107). Hence, for Ayer, the moral value of right or wrong only
expresses a subjective judgement. It does not add objectively to the fact of stealing
and, thus, is dispensable. In this proposition, Ayer conflates the study of ethics with
morals, reassigning it from philosophy, which addresses the real, to the social
sciences, which deal with feelings and the internal consistency of cultures (Ayer,
1946: 112, 120). His emotivist interpretation separates ethics/morals as values from
real, tangible facts and relegates ethics to an ephemeral state. Ayer’s interpretation
of the fact, ‘you stole that money’, without moral value imposes a modern per-
spective wherein the fact is separated from its aspects that cannot be objectified or
accessed. If only objectified or accessed facts belong in philosophical enquiry, it is
impossible to access the fact of depriving people of their belongings. The fact of
stealing, seen only as an act of the self removed from its social context and its
positive or negative impact on the human Other, is incomplete without its value.
Stripping value from its factual significance, or indeed vice versa, is senseless.
Dumont addresses this epistemological inseparability when defining the non-
modern perspective (Dumont, 1986: 236, 262). If we accept that, in ethics, fact is
inseparable from value, we see that Ayer’s perspective is less ontologically founded,
than sociologically anchored in the modern predicament. The problems underlying
this duality (subject–object, body–mind, rule–practice, thought–action) have been
pointed out in anthropology and in philosophy.
Ethics thus allows the objective to merge with the subjective through deconstitu-
tion of the self in recognising the primacy of the Other. This impact of the Other on
the self, which cannot remain anymore itself, is noted by Benson and O’Neill
(2007), in Jason Throop’s notion of ‘emphatic acts’ enabled by the ‘decentering’
of the self (Throop, 2008: 405), and in Jarrett Zigon’s concept of ‘breakdown’
where the self enters back into the unreflective mode by altering itself (Zigon,
2007). However, deconstitution differs from Zigon’s concept of ‘entangled attune-
ments’, where the self finds ways to get the ‘feeling of at home’ (Zigon, 2014: 27).
Deconstitution takes the self away from its immediate concerns for comfort, and
8 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

asks for changes that do not serve the self, but acknowledge a place for the Other.
Dumont noted that non-modern cultural contexts cannot be accessed with the
modern separation of value from fact/ideas (our notions about reality),
but become accessible with ‘value-ideas/[facts]’ (Dumont, 1986: 249, 280).
Although this concept refers to a prior atomic condition that disintegrated under
modernity, it appears as a union of its parts. Therefore, it deserves a term that
points to its primal indivisibility, perhaps ethical principle evolving into different
moral principles.11
Levinas’s notion of ethics is not an objective fact, nor a potential for evaluation,
nor a structure of social practice that assigns a secondary position to values, nor a
subjective value within particular cultural contexts. It is structure and content at
the same time – a value-fact. Unlimited empirical situations of moralities may
negate ethics and therefore are subordinated to and transcended by the universal
ethical dimension: for Levinas even killing the Other does not absolve the self of its
responsibility (Oksala, 2005: 198).

The non-modern significance of John Paul II’s death:

Redefining ritual and religion
Most rituals relate the realm of the self with that of the Beyond/Other (de Coppet,
1992). By using Dumont’s view of the non-modern, Daniel de Coppet demonstrates
how a medieval Christian funeral is a configuration of hierarchical levels expressing
different statuses of value-facts through which the world is related, subordinated
to, and transcended by the Beyond (divine). He locates today’s difficulty in recog-
nising these value-facts in the historical origins of the modern perspective, which
transformed the meaning of the term repre´sentation. In medieval French and
English this term had two simultaneous meanings: first, to stand for something
as a symbol, and second, to render something physically present for the eye or the
mind (de Coppet, 1992: 64–65). These two meanings separated in the Renaissance,
until the meaning ‘to signify by image’ came to obliterate the meaning of ritual re-
creation, namely ‘to place before the eyes’. The split between fact and value, a
characteristic of modernity, favours symbol as a substitution for fact. The re-crea-
tion of something inherently both value and fact is no longer accessible. Both
meanings, however, appear in medieval funeral celebrations where the term repre´-
sentation simultaneously refers, first, to the effigy substituting for the absent
deceased, and, second, to an empty coffin covered by a pall that recreates the
systematic whole of the cosmos (de Coppet, 1992: 64–69). Pall and empty coffin
each refer to a totality of the cosmos. As the fundamental value-fact of the divine,
the pall is separated from, yet also transcends the relative value-fact of the world,
the empty coffin, by blessing it. The same opposition is marked by the empty coffin:
‘death to earthly life’ and ‘birth into eternal life’, replicates the disappearance of
Christ’s body from the tomb, ‘one of the fundamental events of Christianity’, and
simultaneously re-creates the divine, blessing the deceased’s resurrection and jour-
ney to eternal life (de Coppet, 1992: 66–67). In this way the ritual act as
Alvi 9

repre´sentation ‘confirms the order of the universe’ (de Coppet, 1992: 68) by recall-
ing reality and recreating it at the same time, and recognises being in relation to
otherwise than being, the Beyond.
Similarly a non-modern perspective reveals different statuses of value-facts invok-
ing the realm of the Beyond in the context of John Paul II’s life and death. For
instance, aspects of the traditional papal funeral include enumeration of the saints,
placing the Gospel on the coffin, and wearing vestments that are white, indicating
heaven and purity, and red, indicating martyrdom. All recall and recreate the tran-
scendence of a pope’s earthly existence, his life’s purpose, and his journey to the next
world. To Catholics, a pope embodies the divine and becomes inseparable from it
when he assumes St. Peter’s responsibility (see Matthew 16:18–19). The white colour
of his robe, evoking the Beyond, is continued in his mortuary gown. The pallium, a
narrow band of white wool associated with St. Peter, particularly marks a pope’s
(and other dignitaries’) embodiment of the divine. Identified with its possessor, it
cannot be passed on, but must be buried along with its owner (Miscellany, 1922).
Thus, it is unnecessary to place a pall over his coffin. The pallium carries signs of the
cross. When worn, it forms the letter Y, resembling in shape the cross itself. It may be
seen as expressing identification with the burden of Christ, but is not equivalent to
the divine and, thus, necessitates divine encompassment: just before John Paul II’s
body was laid in the first of three coffins, his secretary performed a last service to him,
according to his instructions, by placing a white veil over his face.12 This veil is
understood in terms of the earlier meaning of ‘repre´sentation’: it repeats, and at
the same time re-creates the divine to which John Paul II had dedicated his life,
hallowing him in his life hereafter.
Taylor’s characterisation of art exactly fits these rituals: ‘the locus of a mani-
festation which brings us into the presence of something which is otherwise
inaccessible, and which is of the highest moral or spiritual significance; a manifest-
ation, moreover, which also defines or completes something even as it reveals’
(Taylor, 1989: 419). This ethical dimension is certainly part of burials in general,
but what drew so many people to mourn John Paul II’s death?
Traditional papal funerary rites alone could not have sparked the immense
interest, particularly when many components remained arcane to participants
whose perspective was anchored in modernity. Their understanding differed from
Tomas Gerholm’s analysis which, by stressing the individual subject, fractures the
ritual act into disconnected symbols, each open to purely subjective and personal
interpretations (Gerholm, 1988). The relation of the self to the Beyond is eluded in
this return to the self. It becomes an expression of modernity’s one-dimensionality.
A symbol, for Levinas, does not refer to an absence or a pre-existence of something
real, but draws ‘from the meaning that being as a whole has for us’ (‘plenitude’;
Levinas, 1996: 37, 41). Thus other contexts, actions, works, speeches, final way, and
the funeral of John Paul II, embedded in their historical time, built a ‘gathered
Being’ referring to the possibility of the Beyond, illuminating the meaning of each
aspect, just as a symphony highlights the significance of each melody. Hence indi-
vidual understanding, though fragmentary, had access to a wider meaning.
10 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

Understood within this historical and personal background John Paul II’s death
becomes a synecdoche for the impact of his person. The fascination inspired by his
burial in April 2005 was not spurred by sudden death. The Pope suffered from
increasingly painful and incapacitating afflictions toward the end of his life.
Bearing them, he dignified the brokenness of human existence and expressed the
inseparability of his own existence from his responsibility. Whereas modernity’s
culture of youth conceals disease and death (see Ariès, 1974), his dignified farewell
emphasised illness, age, and death as conditions of human existence, illuminating
Heidegger’s characterisation of life as ‘Dasein-zum-Tode’ (being-toward-death).
The long duration of his pontifical tenure increased the impact of his personal
ethical expression (John Paul II, Pope, 2011; see Modras, 1980). In 2000 he apol-
ogised for the many errors the church had committed in its long history: a critical
engagement with a tradition recalling modernity’s relation with its past. He was the
first pope who made his presence felt by travelling all over the world. He was the
first to make an official visit to a synagogue and a mosque, relating Christianity to
other religions, which he made a point of respecting. Moreover, he stated that
conversion is not the only relation of Christianity to other ways of life,13 thus
expressing indebtedness to the Other by recognising the Otherness of other reli-
gions and cultures. His personal and political involvement in Poland and in the late
Soviet Union reminded people that responsibility for their acts extended beyond
their regimes. His funeral occasioned the largest gathering of heads of state in
history and of representatives of different Christian denominations. It united
more than a billion people in considering the transcendence of individual existence.
Open acknowledgement and communication of his failing health and imminent
death made visible a dimension of ethics, a freedom committed to the Beyond,
won against the ambiguities of his person and the specific historical turmoil of his
time. Thus, the funeral of that particular pope embodied the dimension of the
Other, and gained significance in a particular historical period characterised by
universality of the self, materialism, wars and absolutist ideologies. For those wit-
nessing his funeral, this enabled transcendence of the contradictions many saw in
his messages, and embedded multiple rich readings of the event in the horizon of
meanings. Apart from modern technology, I suggest that this quality made his
death a truly global event, a perspective of modernity’s transcendence grounded
in a non-modern statement of the Beyond.
Ritual is generally seen in anthropology as a formalisation outside normal life,
constituting its own context. However here, ritual is not bracketed out of context,
but is fundamentally informed by principles that also inform everyday life.
Interpreted in terms of the reality it invokes and creates, ritual becomes a statement
of ethics relating the self with the dimension of the Beyond and expressing the
human effort to transcend being and non-being alike.
Aided by the non-modern perspective, the ethical dimension may also be located
in John Paul II’s writings and speeches. In earlier work (John Paul II, Pope, 1979)
he rigorously engaged in filtering out concepts that might have led him astray in
understanding the relation with the divine. Unfortunately this work, although
Alvi 11

based on a phenomenological perspective that blends into his notion of Christian

morals, delivers the appearance of a modern self – a self engaged with itself. The
disquisition is embedded in dualities like person–action, mind–body, spirit–matter,
human–social (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: xxi, 181, 185, 204–205, 322, 340), which
are called into question by philosophical and anthropological perspectives.
Similarly, John Paul II’s notion of ‘participation’ as access to the other as another
I (John Paul II, Pope, 1977: 61–73) appears to run counter to this essay’s thesis,
which posits the Other in its Otherness without converting it to another I. Further,
his distinction between ‘personalistic’ and ‘ethical’, in which the former determines
and is prior to the latter (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 321–328, 332, 340), contradicts
my central thesis that ethics is a condition of our being. And yet here, his concept of
the self is not modern, nor does duality mean what it first appears to mean. He
splits the active self, unfolded in action, possessing itself and determining itself
through its choice, from the passive self, a result of this action: ‘the one who governs
and the one who is governed by himself, the one who possesses and the one who is his
own possession. He [a person] is also the one responsible as well as the one for whom
and to whom he is responsible’ (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 173). These selves are
linked to each other through the process of action, which unites them in an ‘inte-
grated whole’ (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 171). The active self is higher in status
because it is transcended by the divine and responsible to God, even as it also
transcends and is responsible for the passive self. John Paul II argues that this
integrated whole remains unimpaired as long as the active self exercises its freedom
of choice in favour of truth. This is the only way to perpetuate freedom: when non-
truth, the devil, is chosen, a ‘man’ is deprived of his quality of being ‘human’ (John
Paul II, Pope, 1979: 171, 293). Thus, John Paul II sees freedom simultaneously as a
gift and responsibility (John Paul II, Pope, 2005: 61) to the truth/Beyond, a point
he often emphasised in his speeches (see Curran, 2005: 10–11).
Freedom embracing the Beyond unfolds in action oriented to the human Other,
the ‘neighbour’ (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 317–318, 348–354), that ‘forces us not
only to recognise but also to appreciate what in man is independent of his mem-
bership in any community whatever; it forces us to observe and appreciate in him
something that is far more absolute’ (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 349). The divine is
expressed in the ‘humanness’ accessible by each self with its conscious will (John
Paul II, Pope, 1979: 27, 134–135, 293), which lends itself to a ‘personalistic value’
(John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 322; 1981, 31) enabling ‘each man’s sharing in the
humanness of all’ (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 352; 1977). This provides a notion
of human dignity possible in relation to the Other. The concept of the neighbour
entails what John Paul II calls ‘intersubordination’, a quality of being human in
subservience to the other (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 354). In his last work, criticis-
ing Descartes, he assigns primacy to the being (‘esse’) over the self (cogito) (John
Paul II, Pope, 2005: 22–23). The oppositional pair of spirit–matter or mind–body is
not mutually exclusive, but its terms are hierarchically related, integrated, forming
a whole in accord with the non-modern perspective that eludes the one-dimension-
ality of the modern perspective. For John Paul II the nature of spirituality does not
12 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

just oppose concrete matter, a body, but is a ‘person’s transcendence in the action’
(John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 181). Encompassing personal will as ‘surrender to truth’
manifested in action subordinates the body as belonging to the ‘acting person’ who,
in turn, is subordinated to the Beyond (John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 138, 154–158,
166, 181). In this capacity the body is the ‘territory’ where the soul, informed by the
divine, manifests itself and expresses its ‘choice and decision’ (John Paul II, Pope,
1979: 180–182, 204–205).14
This observation qualifies Christian religion as a specific way of envisaging the
Other. However, this should hold not only for the religions of the book: the human
urge to go beyond one’s own existence, to express humanness, its limitations and
possibilities, by transcending being and its termination also informs asceticism,
ancestor worship, traditional religious notions of indigenous peoples, of ancient
Sumer and Egypt.15
The particular significance of Pope John Paul II is thus located in the ‘gathered
Being’, the contexts that give meaning to his life and death. This transcendent
quality is present in all who have lived responsibly with the human Other and
expressed ethics in their own ways, not only in famous people who gave absolute
priority to the Other, like Mother Theresa, Abdul Sattar Edhi, Mahatma Gandhi,
or Nelson Mandela.

The embeddedness of the self and its freedom in modern

philosophy
The primacy of the Other – and the challenge to the modern self and its freedom –
constitute an underlying theme of twentieth-century philosophy found in diverse,
apparently incompatible traditions of thinking. Although crucial differences should
not be belittled, this strand of thought is identifiable in the work of authors like
Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, MacIntyre, Denis de Rougemont, Levinas, and
Foucault.
In his remarks on James Frazer, Wittgenstein points out the impossibility of a
context-free, neutral translation of a person’s existence. Instead, he emphasises a
primordial relation of the self to cultural narratives that shape its very existence
(1967). Our access to reality, he tells us, is principally woven in context. Without
context, no meaning can be established, just as there can be no objective basis for
determining how a rule should be followed, or how social action evolves
(Wittgenstein, 1958: §217, §243–351). The context that defines a rule may be inter-
preted as the primal necessity of the Other. Thus, our reality is not purely objective
and factual, as Ayer maintains (1946): the internal definition of the modern self is
illusionary.
Notwithstanding the many differences between analytical and phenomenological
philosophy, we note a basic convergence (see Gier, 1981): what for Wittgenstein is
the self, located in the public realm, for Merleau-Ponty is the body as movement in
the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1958: 408–409). Revealing the limits of objective
thought, Merleau-Ponty demonstrates that the human other cannot be constituted
Alvi 13

by the I as an object. The I is ontologically interrelated to the other self.

Consciousness is constituted through intersubjectivity and the social world: the
latter is the inherence of the I in things. Thus, the body may be seen as a trace
of the Other: seeing the other self, the I pre-objectively recognises itself (Merleau-
Ponty, 1958: 412). This primacy of the Other is the basic theme of his work: ‘Prior
to the process of becoming aware, the social exists obscurely and as a summons’
(Merleau-Ponty, 1958: 422). Thus both Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty explain
our existence as intrinsically related to a prior context – the social world as the
Other. Similarly, the notion of freedom presupposes recognition of the Other and
becomes an empty concept in objective thought where the world of the I is exclu-
sive: self-sufficiency and completeness do not require freedom. The I is sucked into
the field of being of the Other through his/her gaze, from which it liberates itself by
establishing a relation with the Other (Merleau-Pointy, 1958: 409, 416). Freedom of
choice is not absolute but anchored in the social world, or ‘it would not be freedom
at all’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1958: 530).
MacIntyre addresses the same problem when arguing that the modern self,
which he characterises as ‘emotivist’, denies the other by non-recognition, by oblit-
erating the Kantian distinction between the other as an end – morally informed
behavior, and as a means – utilitarian behavior (MacIntyre, 1984: 6–24, 31–32).
For the emotivist self, all criteria are subjective by definition. It can assume any role
or point of view, thus it has no content. Being nothing in and for itself, it defies
itself (MacIntyre, 1984: 32) and is finally illusionary. Here, freedom is ‘nothing but
a lack of regulation of individual behavior’ that has to be balanced by ‘forms of
collectivist control designed only to limit the anarchy of self-interest’ (MacIntyre,
1984: 35). However, an ‘agent’ is accountable for his/her motives, intentions, and
actions towards others, and is substantially related to others by bearing the burden
of the community’s history as a part of her/his identity (MacIntyre, 1984: 23–35,
220). In this context, freedom is the ability to pursue virtues with regard to this
responsibility (MacIntyre, 1984: 159).
De Rougemont characterises the devil as an effort to deceive the self by creating
an illusion of completeness in itself, while ignoring the dimension of the Other.
In theological terms he describes the assumption of purely personal criteria for a
value judgement as a diabolical lie, a falsification with no reference to the scale of
truth (de Rougemont, 1944: 37–41). This renders freedom an empty claim (de
Rougemont, 1944: 97–100), because freedom is to choose the confirmation of
our condition of being, that is, the good/Other living out in our very nature.
To sustain freedom is to continuously choose the good against resistance, the
incognito, the choice of which deprives a person of choice altogether (de
Rougemont, 1944: 97–100). The ethical dimension can only be maintained by the
right choice, else it is negated. For de Rougemont the mystery of the devil is
isolation par excellence, where choice is rendered meaningless in a realm of noth-
ingness where neither virtue nor vice can exist. The bad exists only with respect to
the good, and freedom lies in encompassing it by making the right choice (see
Dumont, 1986: 251). Thus, the source of morality, the significance of each
14 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

person, rests on acts sustaining freedom, a responsibility towards the ‘neighbour’/

human Other (de Rougemont, 1944: 206, 210). De Rougemont argues that this
ontological condition makes each person a part of the given cosmos, which cannot
be formed but has to be lived in (de Rougemont, 1944: 205–209), contrary to the
modern self that arbitrarily molds the world (Dumont, 1986: 260–264).
Unlike Merleau-Ponty, who sees the Other and the self as subjects of the same
status, for Levinas the passive self is asymmetrically related to a primal Other
(Levinas, 1996: 12, 18–19, 140–41). He emphasises that ‘aiming at an object’ is dif-
ferent from ‘a tie with a person’ (Levinas, 1996: 5–10) because we assign the object to
a particular place in our universe: we signify it, we appropriate it, and make it our
own. However, in accessing a person we simultaneously acknowledge an aspect in
his/her being that cannot be accessed: absolute Otherness. Levinas calls this ‘in
society’, or ‘intuition of sociality’ over which knowledge cannot take precedence.
Being immediate, it escapes our comprehension and, therefore, is beyond ontology
(Levinas, 1996: 7–9). This immediacy of the Other is only disclosed to the self as a
trace in the Other’s face that cannot hide this dimension and therefore is nakedly
revealing (Levinas, 1996: 8, 54, 142–143). Revelation of the ungraspable is a ‘trauma
of awakening’ (Levinas, 1996: 137). The face of the Other, a dimension of the
beyond, imposes a responsibility on the self before it can choose and thus questions
its immanence. This responsibility empties the I of its imperialism and egoism and
simultaneously restores the ‘egoity’ of the soul, which engages in the never-ending
task of ‘emptying myself of myself’ – ‘it is the very fact of finding oneself while losing
it’ (Levinas, 1996: 18, 94, 118, 144). This existential meaning ‘elevates’ the I to the
climax of its existence (Levinas, 1996: 18). Freedom as responsibility is thus given in
the constitution of the self and cannot be chosen (Levinas, 1996: 16, 17).
Foucault emphasises in his writings on ethics the subjectivity, agency, and con-
struction of the self in relation to historical truth (Foucault, 2001: 165–166), aspects
that inspired anthropological interpretations. However, his analysis of the concept
of parrhesia as a way of telling the truth, which was developed in classical
Greek discourse, may divert us from the self in relation to itself. He describes an
‘aesthetics of the self’ that he likens to an ‘artist’ who examines his work in light of
the ‘rule of his art’ (Foucault, 2001: 165–166). This emphasises conscious
self-construction with regard to given/social rules, what we may call a moral self
whose embedded freedom was emphasised by Laidlaw (2002: 322–323). However,
Foucault builds this view on another observation: ‘what is at stake is the relation of
the self to truth or to some rational principles’ which may even negate the
self (Foucault, 2001: 165–166). If we assume an ethical freedom to criticise
the givenness of rules (see Sen, 2002), this opens up the possibility of the self’s
deconstitution, namely the ethical self.
I have tried to show that the profoundness of the self, which consists in its relation
to a source beyond itself, becomes obvious in the work of a plenitude of thinkers
belonging to different schools of thought. The non-modern/relational self
(Dumont), God and humanness (John Paul II), the ‘being-in-the-world’ (Merleau-
Ponty), the cultural narrative (MacIntyre), the impossibility of private language
Alvi 15

(Wittgenstein), the good against the incognito (de Rougemont), the primacy of the
Other (Levinas), and parrhesia (Foucault) all articulate the significance of the Other
as a condition of our being, ethics. Thus, they warn us in the social sciences against
thoughts that, in order not to discriminate, impose the self while endeavoring to
access the Other.

The transcendence and immediacy of the ethical dimension

Wittgenstein points to an immediacy beyond comprehension experienced by the
self, the subjective I, exemplified by ‘I am in pain’, where there is no possibility of
error (Wittgenstein, 1958: §246, 288, 289). This immediacy of the subjective I,
where Wittgenstein encounters the limits of the language game, is not limited to
the experience of the self about itself, but also contains the immediacy of the Other
within the self. In the very condition of the self lies the potential to acknowledge the
dimension of the Beyond. Although remaining inaccessible to the self, it crucially
informs as well as transcends the self by not allowing it to be contained in itself.
For Levinas, the self experiences the immediacy of the Other from within and
without. Ethics is recognition of the Other as a constitution of the self: ‘the soul
is the other within me’ (Levinas, 1996: 102), as well as an inescapable dimension
directed toward the inappropriable human Other (Levinas, 1996: 141).
These thoughts are echoed in Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the phenomenal body,
which accesses the Other by beholding itself as the Other’s trace: ‘I am from the
start outside myself and open to the world’ (Merleau-Pointy, 1958: 412, 530).
Similarly, John Paul II insists that ‘man could not exhibit the spiritual element
of his nature had he not in some way been a spirit himself’, a ‘moral truth’ that is
‘not accessible to sense’, but only realizable through the intuition of immediacy
(John Paul II, Pope, 1979: 181, 185).

Transcending modernity
The controversies sparked by the person of John Paul II allow us to juxtapose the
modern and the non-modern. Do his controversial positions (see Appleby, 2000;
Klekot, 2007) on abortion and the use of condoms, or his work and life stressing
the primacy of the Other over the self, stand in opposition to modernity’s central
achievement – the concept of the individual as a value emphasising human dignity,
freedom, equality, autonomy and independence? Or is the ethical significance of the
pope’s life and death integrated into modernity? I argue that modernity here is not
juxtaposed upon, but rather encompassed by, a non-modern perspective that
does not oppose, but qualifies modernity’s achievement by redefining its
values (see Holloway, 2008). If anthropology is solely predicated on modernity’s
reasoning, it may be predisposed, by imposing the self, to miss the ethical dimen-
sion in our existence.
Whereas modern ideology may create isolation by appropriating or
negating groups of Others (genocide, racism), non-modern ideologies tend to end
16 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

in isolation by relativising Others, and relegating them to an inferior position

(Dumont, 1986: 207).16 Dumont, in a little regarded thesis, transcends the limitation
of both ideologies by denying a monopoly to either of them, suggesting an under-
standing of humanity as a value-fact at a universal level where all differences are
integrated. This non-modern perspective allows differentiation only at a subordinate
and a transcendent level: all cultural contexts, modern and non-modern, carry their
own specific differences as ‘one among the others’ (Dumont, 1986: 207, 210, 213, 264-
65; 1980: §118d; ‘relational universal’, see de Coppet, 1992: 72–73). At this higher
level the integrated whole expresses ethics, that is, contexts are deconstituted in
relation to each other. This right to be Other was entirely missed by Dumont’s critics
who accused him of creating a duality between ‘us’ and ‘them’. But he went even
farther. For him, an ethical whole becomes subordinated to a still higher dimension,
which he calls ‘Beyond’ (Dumont, 1986: 250 f.n. 24). Unfortunately, he never ela-
borated upon this insight, and it went without notice in anthropological discussion.
This ‘Beyond’, I argue, refers to the human propensity to infinitely envisage the
possibility of Otherness. Although it conditions the possibility of an integrated
humanity, like Derrida’s Diffe´rance (1968), it can never be entirely comprehended.
Many contend that John Paul II’s steadfast refusal to endorse the use of con-
doms disregarded the spread of AIDS in African countries, and that his objection
to church-provided consultations about abortion disregarded individuals seeking
help. Do decisions that exclude the effective reasoning of modernity uphold anti-
quated, counterproductive principles contravening the realities of life? Two argu-
ments pertain here. On the one hand, such decisions only apparently contradict
modernity. John Paul II’s emphasis on freedom committed to truth reconciles
Christian values with modernity: the significance of the individual as a value is
maintained by locating the dignity of life beyond personal criteria and utilitarian
decisions. For him, human life in every state, in embryonic form, in sickness or old
age, threatened by capital punishment – even its possibility negated by birth control
– is valuable in relation with the Other (human or divine).17 For John Paul II, life
coming into existence is not simply the result of human action, but ‘a form of
participation in the work of creation’ (John Paul II, Pope, 1981: 62). Thus, new
life should not be regarded as a mere extension of the self, serving its interest, or as
a mistake, but with responsibility, that is, deconstituting the self in relation to life.
Here lies the worth of the modern self, saved from being lost to itself. Official
consultation on abortion would have meant, for John Paul II, accepting the pos-
sibility of abortion in principle, endorsing an act that abjures responsibility for and
accountability to the Other (child, partner, life as such, the divine). On the other
hand, our intentional habitation in the world is unthinkable without life’s over-
spilling (Levinas, 1996: 4),18 so there must be ethical ways to deal with non-ethical
acts. In this conceptualisation, consultation before abortion would be in keeping
with the value of the individual as well as regard for the Other. While not losing
sight of individual responsibility, the significance of the self is restored by taking
care of the unavoidable excesses of human existence. A decision for abortion may
then constitute a compromise regarding our habitation in the world.
Alvi 17

An absolute contradiction is constituted only when life is subordinated to the

whims of the self, taken as principles or law, without regard for the Other. A person
understands life as a fact without value, and ceases to feel responsible for the
consequences of his/her actions. We encounter here the boundedness of the
modern person, remarked upon by Horkheimer and Adorno (1969: 26, 43),
when rationality binds itself to perceive the beauty of the sirens’ song. In the
same way, the self gets intellectually captivated in its endeavor to pursue absolute
freedom, and cannot perceive the Other.
The propensity for reflexive thinking that characterises the modern
perspective also discloses some drawbacks. When it precludes the Other from its
own constitution, the ultimate result may be negation of the self: life as such
becomes subordinated to utilitarian needs, decisions concerning existence become
dependent on personal advantage, and the concept of free will becomes distorted as
free consumerism, a concept linked to the notion of a market driven by individuals
pursuing their own happiness. Such a utilitarian perspective alienates humans from
humanness (MacIntyre, 1984: 62–78; John Paul II, Pope, 1981: 34–42, 58–60, 63,
67) and disrupts responsibility for future generations apparent in actions such as
planting trees that will yield fruit beyond one’s lifetime, saving cultural heritage, or
believing in final justice not as consolation but as responsibility for one’s own acts
towards any Other.

Conclusion
This essay argues for a separation of ethics from moralities in the anthropological
discourse and demonstrates how ethics, as an asymmetrical relation of the self with
the primal Other, constitutes a condition of our social existence. Implicit in every-
day cultural phenomena, it is indispensable for the anthropological endeavor. This
ethical dimension takes different forms that are principally inaccessible to the self
and thus escape appropriation, but their traces are retrievable from the plenitude of
contexts. These include the human Other, other beings, other cultural contexts, the
social world, the notion of the beyond, the sacred, the notion of parrhesia, the
language game, the incognito, etc. The non-modern perspective facilitates avoiding
the pitfalls of the imposition of the self, and accesses moralities and ethics in terms
of the inseparability of facts from values. We apprehend anything we recognise as
facts only in terms of our assumptions/values, as Wittgenstein pointed out when
arguing for the impossibility of an ultimate objectivity.19 Thus, ethics escapes sci-
entific inquiry if we apprehend it as value deprived of factual significance.
Just like our natural capacity for language is lost when we are deprived of a social
existence, so is the regard for the Other if we fail to inculcate ethics in ourselves.
Choice alone cannot sustain ethics and may end up negating it. However, negation,
an overspilling of life, remains encompassed when dealt with ethically. Ethics
involves an effort to give place to the Other, asking for a deconstitution of the self
as well as for a qualification of any specific morality that negates humanity in the
name of culture (such as female genital mutilation, ethnic cleansing, or banning
18 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

the burkini).20 Thus, the moral self pursuing freedom embedded in a specific mor-
ality may get curtailed by the ethical self. Although John Paul II’s death refers
synecdochally to a specific morality that deserves to be qualified, it allows compre-
hension of a basic ethical meaning in ritual and religion, expressing the human effort
to transcend being and non-being alike by opening up the relation with the Beyond.
Modernity cannot simply blank out this perception of religion by confining it to
cultural specifics or to a matter of values separate from facts.
The ethical dimension identified here crucially enhances the general anthropo-
logical comprehension of its subject by disclosing the universality of the human
endeavor to relate itself to the possibility of the Other. This is an essential point in a
globalised world where multiculturalism is common and problematic, even
though the question of how the ethical principle evolves into moral principles is
beyond this essay’s scope. From this perspective, the universality of ethics is an
unthematiseable immediacy revealed in the Other, which constitutes the self by decon-
stituting it. Equality is understood on the same foot as indebtedness to each other,
implying the primacy of the Other, just as the Tesho Lama in Rudyard Kipling’s
novel Kim teaches the eponymous hero to see the Other even in a snake. Ethics in
this sense, ordaining the self, answers the question of the student Buchner to
Heidegger: ‘from where does the thinking of being receive its directive?’21
(Heidegger, 1954: 182).

Acknowledgements
My foremost thanks are to my husband, Lukas Werth. Discussions with him gave me clarity
and enriched my essay. I am thankful to Jean-Claude Galey for inviting me in 2006 to read a
first draft at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris. I am indebted and grateful to Julia Eckert,
James Laidlaw, Terry Evens, Gunter Gebauer, Robert Spaemann, Karen Alexander, and to
all the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions and helpful criticisms substantially improved
my work. Any mistakes or misrepresentations remain my own as the sole author of this essay.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

Notes
1. Webb Keane deemed this to be impossible: ‘there is no Archimedean point from which
either one’s self-interest or means-ends calculations can be objectively perceived and
evaluated’ (Keane, 2010: 82; Lambek, 2010a: 1–2; 2013: 142).
2. Thus the ethical dimension resembles Knud Ejler Løgstrup’s condition of ‘trust’ (1997: 18),
which unfolds in cultural phenomena that only become meaningful with regard to it.
3. For a critique of such an ‘incommensurability’ see also Julia Eckert (2016: 243).
Alvi 19

4. This concept does not refer to any pre-modern or non-western thought or region, but to
alternatives to the modern perspective that are present in historical and non-western
cultural contexts, and within modern thought as well. This perspective perceives the self
as primarily embedded in the social, and fact and value as principally inseparable
(Dumont, 1986).
5. Thus the practical wisdom needed to rise in politics may necessitate accommodating
mafia-like structures.
6. Nancy Scheper-Hughes addresses the problem of conflicting moralities by asking how to
practically deal with the unacceptable (1995). For instance, not all Germans supported
the specific morality of National Socialism.
7. In this way ethics pervades Derrida’s concept of Diffe´rance (1968): ethics is present and
yet inaccessible to the self. In its endeavour to discover, to appropriate, or to objectify
the Other, the self can only ever find a trace of the Other, which announces its inaccess-
ibility. The impact of inaccessible difference makes the self recognise its own incom-
pleteness and enables it to access humanity.
8. This notion is implicit in Dumont’s attempt to formulate humanity as a ‘sum integral’
(Dumont, 1986: 264) of cultural variation, which as such is not graspable, but is indi-
cated only in traces within any cultural context. When approached from any specific
context – that is, the self – others are indicated through their absences (Dumont, 1986:
207, 210, 213, 264–65; 1980: §118d).
9. However, contrary values may also negate ethics. Preaching violence is one example.
10. Neither does Bruno Latour (1993/1991) give space to difference.
11. An analogy is our capacity for language, which expresses itself in a plethora of languages.
12. ‘Deposition, Funeral and Burial Rites of Pope John Paul’. Eternal Word Television
Network. Accessed on September 16, 2016. https://www.ewtn.com/JohnPaul2/rites_
summary.htm.
13. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Accessed on 21 September 2016. http://
www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/interreligious/
islam/vatican-council-and-papal-statements-on-islam.cfm; ‘John Paul II, Supreme
Pontiff, Encyclical Letter, Redemptor Hominis. 6. The road to Christian unity’.
Accessed on 21 September 2016. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyc-
licals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_04031979_redemptor-hominis.html.
14. Pope Francis’s view on homosexuality separates the person from his/her act and in this way
corresponds to modernity’s split of fact and value. ‘Pope Francis’. Wikipedia. Accessed on
16 September 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis#Priestly_celibacy.
15. Here I depart from Levinas’s earlier work where, drawing on Lévy-Bruhl, he criticises
non-Western ways of religious thinking (1957).
16. In this context, the rural Punjabi people of Pakistan regularly emphasise that they would
only take from, but not give daughters for, marriage to a lower status biradari (caste).
17. ‘Pope John Paul II’. Wikipedia. Accessed on September 16, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II#Moral_stances.
18. Dumont calls this aspect of our existence a ‘shadow’ (see Alvi, 2013: 187).
19. By the same token, the fact that the earth is round is accessible to us only because we
assume the validity of scientific evidence.
20. The intersubjective principle of anthropology demands an active role in communicating
between cultural contexts. As any ethnographic practice shows, deconstitution must
finally always be a mutual amendment.
21. ‘Woher empfängt. . . das Denken des Seins die Weisung?’
20 Anthropological Theory 0(0)

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Alvi 23

Anjum Alvi is an Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Lahore

University of Management Sciences. She received her PhD in 1999 from the Free
University of Berlin where she taught for 18 years. Her main research interests are
kinship, gift-exchange, notions of self and person, Muslim veiling, and ethics in
anthropology. Publications representative of her interests are India and the Muslim
Punjab: a unified approach to South Asian kinship in JRAI (2007), and
Concealment and Revealment: The Muslim Veil in Context in Current
Anthropology (2013).