Volume 14, 2020
Jill Stauffer
Pages 151-164
https://doi.org/10.5840/levinas202132211
How to Be the Crux of a Diachronic Plot: Levinas, Questions and Answers, and Child Soldiering in International Law, in Four Acts
A question opens up a space between self and other in the very act of expecting a response. As such, it can be a form of world-building. Posing a question might reveal what is or it might push interlocutors to revise what is. Levinas counsels us to question the first attitude toward questioning in order to open ourselves up to the second. Using questions and answers from a trial of a former child soldier at the International Criminal Court, this paper explores the ethical ramifications of the choices we make when we pose and respond to questions.