Proximity, Levinas, and the Soul of Law links the controversial ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to the common law legal tradition that has recently invigorated the idea of "the duty of care." Desmond Manderson argues that the ethicist and lawyer struggle with the same basic questions of why we should care for others and what responsibility really demands of us when we use the language of care, neighbourhood, and proximity.

Without compromising the integrity of either Levinas' poetic evocations of our spirit or the law's dense descriptions of our society, Manderson brings the two into constructive dialogue. For the student of Levinas, the author offers an understanding of the implications and difficulties involved in applying ethics to law - major issues in continental philosophy. For the student of law, he provides a powerful framework through which to reconceptualize duty of care, the law of negligence, and the nature of legal judgment itself - major issues in legal theory.