ABSTRACT
A concern for the meaning of the ethical has emerged out of the technological decadence of the twentieth century, and has been given philosophical legitimacy in continental thought, especially in the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. There is, in this concern, a moving away from formal systems of ethics, and instead, a focusing on the very possibility of the ethical life, attempting to uncover the source or sources of this possibility. A comparative study of the meaning of the ethical has particular relevance for contemporary philosophy given the rise of Buddhist influence on Western notions of religious and existential purpose over the past 50 years. When one now considers the possibilities of the ethical life, it will often be the case that this question is experienced and understood through a confluence of these divergent sources of meaning, and so human possibility takes on an even more complex and multiple structure.
