Ethics of Hospitality

This book addresses the legal, philosophical and political question of an ethics of hospitality: an ethics engaged by the confrontation with what is different or new. The ethics of hospitality articulated here is based on the experience that human life is less a bundle of sovereign initiatives than a series of responses – often without our consent – to the world’s invitations. As such, it is argued, this ethics means leaving open the possibility of being surprised rather than one trying to protect oneself from the irruption of the unexpected. By resorting to the idea of hospitality, the book thus offers a conceptual framework that exceeds law’s inclination to close down the unpredictable: whether the stranger, the future – or, indeed, life itself.