Deconstructing the Ethical Turn of Metaphysics: Derrida on the Responsibility of the Other and Death

Abstract

This paper examines Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction of the ethical turn in metaphysics, focusing on his reinterpretation of responsibility toward the Other and the ontological significance of death. By critiquing Heidegger’s ontological difference and the metaphysical
privileging of presence, Derrida introduces différance as the non-subjective origin of meaning, destabilizing traditional notions of subjectivity. Through analyses of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and Lacan’s interpretation of The Purloined Letter, Derrida redefines responsibility as
an asymmetrical, infinite obligation to the absolutely Other, mediated by death’s unrepresentable absence. The paper further explores how
rationality’s exclusion of madness (via Foucault) and the deferral inherent in différance expose the aporias of logocentrism, arguing that ethics
emerges from an economy of non-utilitarian “gifts” and irreducible alterity. Ultimately, Derrida’s thought reconfigures subjectivity as a fractured, historically contingent process, entangled with the Other’s unanswerable call.