Home 9 Passage 9 Ethical Phenomenology

Levinas (1979) describes the event of being addressed and the phenomenon of the involuntary experience of ethical responsibility as fundamental, not only to the experience of human relationship but also to the experience of the self. This kind of experience alludes to the originary ethical encounter. And according to Levinas (1981), in this addressive event thought comes too late. What happens is that this person in distress, this child in need, has made an appeal on me already. I cannot help but feel responsible even before I may want to feel responsible. For Levinas (1979, pp. 187–253), to meet the other, to see this person’s face, is to hear a voice summoning me. This is the call of the Other. A demand has been made on me, and I know myself as a person responsible for this unique other. This relation with the other is nonreciprocal; in some sense, it is a nonrelational relation. Levinas states this predicament even more provocatively. He says that the other is not only someone I happen to meet, but this person takes me hostage, and in this gesture I have experienced also my own uniqueness because this voice did not just call. I do not need to look around to see if it was meant for me. The point is that I felt responsive, I am the one, the voice called me, and thus took me hostage.