THE ORIGINAL RIGHT AS LIMIT TO LAW. SOME INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON LEVINAS’ JUSTIFICATION OF LEGALITY GUEST EDITOR’S PREFACE

Since all contributions gathered in this monographic issue of “Ethics & Politics” thoroughly interrogate from different perspectives the place of law in Levinas’ work, specifically in his main philosophical books, in these introductory pages I will limit myself to a close reading of some minor and occasional texts, sometimes also extracted from his “confessional writings”, providing concrete indications on political and juridical implications of Levinas’ evaluation of the State. According to him, in a liberal and democratic State, where right must precede law without being exterior to its legitimacy, justice is never fully realized. Such an irreducibility between law and justice is based on the conviction that – in a State freed from tyrannic powers – law, precisely because of its inevitable generality, can always be improved.