ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors look at the question of whether phenomena can overwhelm the attempts of history makers to make ethical sense of them and whether this breakdown or collapse in sense making is where they find the ethics of history. They focus on histories of large-scale phenomena that are explained via short temporal scales. Slice histories provide an account of past phenomena at a ‘slice’ or a moment in time. The idea of infinite ethics is most strongly associated with Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas wanted ethics to be appreciated not as a theory or series of abstractions but as a fine-tuned description of our encounters with other people. Levinas’ vision for the ethics of history, however, is also practically overwhelming and, conversely and somewhat paradoxically, circumscribed. The invitation to scale up in big history highlights Levinas’ apparent circumscription of ethics to human relations.
