Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995)
The following passages are adapted from Levinas’ essay “Ethics as a First Philosophy.” (Some sentences are simplified, because of Levinas’ complex style.) This text expresses a central theme in Levinas’ philosophy: that ethics comes first, before any objective metaphysics or theory of knowledge. Responsibility for the Other, for the naked face of the first individual who comes along. A responsibility that goes beyond what I did or didn’t do to the Other, as if I was devoted to the other man before I was devoted to myself. Or more exactly, as if I had to justify myself for the Other’s death even before being. A guilt-less responsibility, in which I am nevertheless open to an accusation which no alibi could clear me. […] A responsibility that comes from a time before my freedom – before my beginning, before any present. […] Responsibility for my neighbor comes from a past that was never present, and is more ancient than any consciousness-of. A responsibility for my neighbor, for the other man, for the stranger or resident [in the words of the Bible], which is not because of anything in the ontology of the world – not because of anything in the order of things, of the “something”, of “number”, or “causality”.
For Levinas, the other person is not an object, and he cannot be known. He is an otherness, an alterity. The encounter with the Other comes even before any philosophical knowledge, even before self-consciousness or consciousness-of. It is the starting point of philosophy.
The Other appears to me through his face, and the face is exposed, naked, vulnerable. This vulnerable face is a call to me: “Don’t kill me!” In this sense, the potential death of the Other appears in his face. Therefore, the face is an ethical demand that is directed at me. I am responsible for the other, unconditionally responsible. And this infinite responsibility has a trace of infinity, in other words God and his ethical command.
The proximity of the other is the meaning of the face. And this meaning goes beyond the shapes that try to cover the face like a mask which is present to perception. But the face always appears through these shapes. Before any particular expression, and under all particular expressions which cover and protect the Other with a face or expression, there is nakedness and destitution. In other words – extreme exposure, defenselessness, vulnerability. […] From the beginning there is in the face exposure to invisible death, to a mysterious abandonment. Beyond the visibility of whatever is seen, and before any knowledge about death, there is mortality in the Other.
[…]
But, in its mortality, the face before me summons me, calls for me, begs me, as if the death which must be faced by the Other is my business. It is as if this invisible death, which is not noticed by the Other, is already “regarding” me before confronting me, and becoming the death that looks at me in the face. The other man’s death calls me into question, as if, through the indifference which I might show in the future, I am a collaborator with the death to which the Other is exposed. And as if I had to justify myself for the death of the Other, and to accompany the Other in his mortal solitude. The Other becomes my neighbor precisely through the way the face summons me, calls for me, and thus reminds me of my responsibility, and calls me into question.