The Asymmetrical Relation between the I and the Other

We have seen how the issue of the ethical emerges in Levinas’s thought. Generally concerned with the relation between the subject and the Other, it arises from the propensity of the I to master and incorporate everything that is other into itself. In doing so the I commits violence, as it reduces the alterity of the Other. For Levinas this is unethical. The event of the ethical occurs precisely when the Other challenges the I and puts it into question in its existence as a being for itself. This happens through the face of the Other and the face-to-face encounter between the I and the Other. The Other, by way of his exteriority, causes the I to exit the self, putting an end to its cyclic propensity to

return to itself. This causes a crisis in the subjectivity of the I, as it faces the Other which it cannot contain or master. In this way, the Other becomes for the I the path toward transcendence. Indeed, for Levinas, true transcendence can only come from exteriority and not from the interiority of a being.

The transcendental movement of the I, as we have noted, is marked not only by the act of crossing-over (trans), but also that of ascent (scando). This means that the movement of the I toward the Other, which is the ethical, does not take place on a horizontal plane or a leveling ground, but rather involves an upward shift. There seems to be a huge gap and marked discontinuity between the I and the Other. All this sets up what Levinas calls the ‘asymmetrical’ relation between the I and the Other. There is no balanced position between them, as the latter occupies a much higher position than the former. It is this kind of relation that makes possible our utterances such as “After you, sir!” before an open door (EeI, 84/EaI, 89). In such a relation, the I does not put itself in question, but rather is constantly being questioned by the Other and called to respond. The call and appeal from the Other thus come from an “elevation” [élévation] and a “height” [hauteur] (EeI, 83/EaI, 88-9). This is also to say that one must defend the rights of the other person, not primarily those of the I itself. That is why the kind of humanism that Levinas proposes is often the ‘humanism of the Other,’ as opposed to the ‘humanism of the I.”118 _{This humanism of the Other certainly involves the dethronement and}

decentralization of the I. For Levinas, transcendence is only possible when one takes the Other as one’s point of departure and when this occurs from a height.

118

Emmanuel Levinas, Humanism of the Other, trans. Nidra Poller (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), xxvi.

It is this asymmetrical relation between the I and the Other that constitutes Levinas’s account of ethics. In his account, the ethical, as concerning the relation with the Other, does not arise in reference to the universality of a law. Ethics has often been pursued on the basis of equality among human beings, each of them thought as a member of the same species. The Kantian ethics may perhaps be a prime example of the enterprise that seeks for the common law that will bind all rational beings. The assumption here is that all human beings are alike. For Levinas, such assumption is unintelligible because everybody is different from one another. In this sense the general concept of the human being (homme) is simply beyond comprehension (BPW, 27). The ultimate structure of humanity, according to Levinas, does not lie in an egalitarian and reciprocal relation, but rather in the infinity of the face of the Other. The face of the Other, in its transcendence and exteriority, becomes “the living refutation of the pretension of the social totality, the economic and administrative structure” that claims to be self-sufficient.119 _{For Levinas}

any attempt to create a universal and egalitarian code for the whole society would not only betray the call of the Other, but also preclude one from having the metaphysical experience through the encounter with the Other:

The beyond of metaphysical experience does not mean the universality one attains by being classified within a species – no the world in which beings assemble, delegate their freedoms to one another and form a collectivity. The beyond-oneself is the uniqueness of oneself, a new identity of the incomparable, the tip of metaphysical experience having already pierced the order of the universal identity in which individuals and things remain in their places, mirrored in impossible mirrors of knowledge (HS, 104/OS, 76).

That is why he finds it important to avoid using certain terms that suggest some similarities among human beings and their belonging to the same essence, which include the words ‘neighbor’ (prochain) and ‘fellow human being’ (semblable).120

Instead of the commonalities that all human beings share as members of the same species, Levinas would base his ethics on the uniqueness of the other person (IRB, 114). This uniqueness is not based on the different attributes that this person has, nor on the fact that the person comes from a different ethnic or religious background. Rather, “the other is other because of me: unique and in some manner different than the individual belonging to a genus. It is not difference which makes alterity: alterity makes difference.”121

That is to say, what makes the Other other is not some social or personal differences that it has with the subject, but rather the very fact that it is an Other. In “Transcendence and Height,” Levinas suggests that the uniqueness of every human being lies in the fact that he or she is an I (BPW, 29). For him, transcendence is only possible when the I and the Other, as another I, are “absolutely different, without this difference depending on some quality” (BPW, 27).

The intersubjective, asymmetrical relation based on the uniqueness of the Other bears extensive consequences for the ethical practices as well. Since the relation is non- reciprocal and the I is to treat the Other in all its uniqueness, there will not be a moral prescription or a universal law that binds all human beings. In other words, the relation between the I and the Other cannot be made universal. As a result, the responsibility for

120_{Levinas, “Transcendence and Height,” BPW, 27. In his later note on the 1957 essay “Phenomenon and}

Enigma,” Levinas revised his initial reservation about the use of the term ‘neighbor’ by emphasizing in it “the abruptness of the disturbance, which characterizes a neighbor inasmuch as he is the first one to come along.” See Levinas, “Phenomenon and Enigma,” EDE, 288, n.2; CPP, 65, n. 7.

the Other, as the ultimate form of the ethical relation, is to be exercised on a one-to-one basis without any appeal to reciprocity: “The intersubjective relation is a non- symmetrical relation. In this sense, I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it. Reciprocity is his affair” (EeI, 94-5/EaI, 98). For many of us this position may be counter-intuitive because we are so used to dealing with a universal law of ethics that is often summed up in the saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” But Levinas insists that transcendence is only possible when one appeals not to the universal law, but rather responds to the call of the Other.

I think there is a way to understand Levinas’s insistence on the asymmetrical relation between the I and the Other, namely, to see this relation as a basic, yet ideal, unit of ethics, so to speak. That is to say, ethics must begin from a relation (1) between one person and another, and not from a universal moral principle that binds all human beings; (2) that is asymmetrical, namely, that the I has an infinite responsibility for the Other. Whatever the I does to the Other as an exercise of her responsibility will never be adequate. In this sense this ethical relation is ideal, as it is never fully realized. This one- to-one and asymmetrical relation, consisting in an individual obligation to another, is the basis of ethics or where ethics begins. This is why I would call it ‘a basic unit of ethics.’ We will better understand the importance and relevance of this ethical unit when we discuss the notion of justice in Levinas. For in Levinas’s view, as we will see below, justice must be founded upon this one-to-one and asymmetrical relation between the I and the Other. Without such a foundation, justice may simply be another form of covert totalization, which Levinas seeks to avoid.