RT Article
T1 King, Lévinas, and the Moral Anatomy of Nonviolent Transformation
JF Journal of religious ethics
VO 50
IS 2
SP 219
OP 238
A1 Sorgen, Jeremy
LA English
PB Wiley-Blackwell
YR 2022
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1816477893
AB This essay overcomes the division between “principled” and “strategic” approaches to nonviolence studies by demonstrating that ethical analysis is key to understanding movement strategy. I show how the moral phenomenologies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Emmanuel Lévinas, figures usually treated by scholars of principled nonviolence, possess genuine insight for nonviolent strategists. With reference to each thinker and supporting evidence from the #BlackLivesMatter movement, I argue that nonviolent resistance makes a moral appeal through the medium of the body to the conscience of those bearing witness. Analysis of the way King combined moral reflection and strategic action recovers his legacy for the pragmatic tradition of social thought, while Lévinas's theory of the face offers additional considerations for nonviolent practitioners aiming for moral transformation at the local level. Studies that elucidate the complex moral dynamics by which nonviolent movements either succeed or fail will make the field a greater asset to practitioners.
K1 Black Lives Matter
K1 American Pragmatism
K1 Nonviolence
K1 Emmanuel Lévinas
K1 Martin Luther King Jr
DO 10.1111/jore.12385