A monumental rethinking of the history, origins, and aims of ethics, and the critical orientation of ethical theory

Available in English for the first time, this much-anticipated translation of Enrique Dussel's Ethics of Liberation marks a milestone in ethical discourse. Dussel is one of the world's foremost philosophers. This treatise, originally published in 1998, is his masterwork and a cornerstone of the philosophy of liberation, which he helped to found and develop.

Throughout his career, Dussel has sought to open a space for articulating new possibilities for humanity out of, and in light of, the suffering, dignity, and creative drive of those who have been excluded from Western Modernity and neoliberal rationalism. Grounded in engagement with the oppressed, his thinking has figured prominently in philosophy, political theory, and liberation movements around the world.

In Ethics of Liberation, Dussel provides a comprehensive world history of ethics, demonstrating that our most fundamental moral and ethical traditions did not emerge in ancient Greece and develop through modern European and North American thought. The obscured and ignored origins of Modernity lie outside the Western tradition. Ethics of Liberation is a monumental rethinking of the history, origins, and aims of ethics. It is a critical reorientation of ethical theory.

"“Dussel invites ethicists and social and political philosophers to remove their cultural and intellectual blinders and attempt to understand the world from the perspective of the excluded, the oppressed, and the dispossessed. Few people have thought harder on these themes than Dussel and Ethics of Liberation synthesizes much of this intellectual trajectory, opening future lines of research explored in the two-volume Politics of Liberation (2007, 2009) and in other works. This is an overdue English translation of a major work from one of the most important philosophers of our time.”" - Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

"“. . . the most compelling articulation we have of the map of power and powerlessness in which we live our lives. It is sweepingly comprehensive, a tsunami of thought. Dussel, a philosophy professor in Mexico City, ducks none of the major issues and none of the intellectual figures of the West as he develops his thought about liberation.”
" - Christian Century

"The importance of this work lies, on the one hand, in how it demonstrates the force of philosophical thought that reproduces itself in the periphery of the world-system and, on the other hand, in how it poses theoretical, ethical, and political questions radically important for humanity in this third millennium." - Hispanic American Historical Review

"“[A] masterful translation of an important work. . . . Whether one agrees with Dussel’s position or not, the ideas presented in Ethics of Liberation are important, as they propose an alternative model to neoliberalism. The editor and the translators of the text have done a magisterial job of bringing this seminal work by a major world philosopher to the attention of an English-language reading public.”" - College Literature

"“[A] tour de force both breathtaking and conceptually rigorous.”" - Radical Philosophy Review