Synopsis
An ethical argument that the self is constituted by an infinite responsibility for the other person, who calls us into ethics before any choice.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workMy responsibility for the other comes before my freedom, making ethics the first and founding relation of the self.
It overturns philosophies that start from the autonomous ego, placing obligation to others at the origin of selfhood.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Martin Buber, I and Thou.
Reading note
Read it slowly and phenomenologically, letting Levinas's idea of the face reorient familiar moral categories.
Best paired with
Martin Buber, I and Thou