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Preprint . 2025
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Preprint . 2025
License: CC BY
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ZENODO
Preprint . 2025
License: CC BY
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Ethics Without Manifestation: Structural Obligation Beyond Visibility and Recognition

Authors: Sawyer, Chris;

Ethics Without Manifestation: Structural Obligation Beyond Visibility and Recognition

Abstract

This paper develops an account of ethical obligation that endures beyond the field of appearance. It argues that visibility, recognition, and addressability—long treated as the preconditions of ethical relation in phenomenological and post-phenomenological traditions—are contingent rather than necessary structures. Through a process of subtraction, the paper removes manifestation itself as a condition for relation, formulating a model of minimal ethical relationality defined by five features: non-visibility, non-recognition, non-addressability, non-horizonality, and non-mediated endurance. Drawing on and diverging from Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Butler, and Arendt, it constructs a non-phenomenological ethics responsive to those who remain excluded, erased, or invisible. The argument concludes that ethical life does not depend on appearing, being recognized, or being addressed, but on the structural endurance of relation itself. This reconfiguration replaces the traditional ethics of encounter with an ethics of endurance, grounding responsibility in persistence rather than manifestation.

Keywords

structural ethics, ethical obligation, phenomenology, visibility, minimal relationality, recognition, manifestation, Levinas

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Green