Ethics and justice in philosophies of Derrida and Levinas

In this study, ethics and justice are discussed by focusing on Jacques Derrida's ideas and examined with Emmanuel Levinas's philosophy in regard to his impact on Derrida's thought. Derrida's aim is to destabilize the hierarchical order of conceptional stucture in Western metaphysics and create new opportunities via deconstruction. His "différance" and "undecidability" claim which he developed for this purpose, is also the basis of his ideas about ethics and justice. He draws attention to aporetic side of the ethic concepts against the tradition's search for a constant center. Justice is an aporia and an experience of undecidability, and in the source of this situation there is an ethical responsibility which arising from the relationship with the other. For a better interpretation of this relationship, it is fruitful to look at Levinas's ethics. His ethics which is based on the responsibility for other, inspires Derrida about discussing the relationship between law and justice and thinking justice as an experience of aporia. Although Derrida is influenced by ethics of Levinas, he developed his genuine ideas against him. In the thesis, it is revealed that the way of the two philosophers' operating ethic concepts differently from tradition and conceptional discussion between them. In this direction, while Derrida and Levinas's thoughts are introduced in the first two sections; in the third section, overlappings and differences in their thoughts are evaluated in terms of the concepts of responsibility, justice, hospitality and face. Keywords: Aporia, Justice, Responsibility, Undecidability, Hospitality, Face.