Life and Useless Suffering: Responsibility for Others and the Impossible Theodicy

The thesis I would like to try to prove in this journey of mine is that it is the humanity of humankind that is at stake when caring for suffering; in other words, the way in which other people’s sufferings are perceived, judged and taken over reveals something essential about man’s very existence and his life in the world. So, I will start with a phenomenological analysis of suffering, mainly in the wake of Emmanuel Levinas’ reflections on “useless suffering” and the impossibility to justify it in the name of any theodicy. Then, I will linger on the suffering caused by hunger and the categories of neighbours and strangers, to understand their relation with the perception of suffering and the identification of vulnerability as the primeval character of the humanity of humankind. Finally, I will try to regard the care for suffering and vulnerability as potential keys that may call to individual and collective responsibility, that may point to a rethinking of the relation between life and political institutions.