Debates between Levinas and Ricoeur on Moral Subjectivity from the Perspective of Mencius’ Theory of Heart/Mind (Xin)

The Levinas–Ricoeur debate on moral subjectivity questions whether ethics arises from face-to-face encountering of the Other (Levinas) or from the ontological foundation of the self (Ricoeur). Levinas sees ethics as prior to ontology which reduces the Other to the same, while Ricoeur believes that moral responsibility is rooted in an ontological hermeneutical framework of selfhood and relationality. While the relationship of the Other to the self, for Levinas, is asymmetry with infinite responsibility, Ricoeur criticizes Levinas’ asymmetry to be a moral impediment of a reciprocal relationship. For Mencius, while he starts his moral reflection from face-to-face encounter, like Levinas, he develops his moral ontology, the theory of heart/mind (xin 心) as the foundation of moral political philosophy and self-cultivation. In addition, like Ricoeur, he rejects Levinas’ nonreciprocal relationship and finds Levinas’ idea of face-to-face infinite responsibility for others problematic.