DE Weekly: Values, Moral Relativism, & Existential Ethics
Last week, I introduced Emmanuel Levinas, the twentieth-century French philosopher who posited ethics as “first philosophy.” To him, this meant that the force fundamentally underpinning all of philosophy is our ethical responsibility.
Before anything else, Levinas argued, we are first of all called into existence to be unconditionally obligated to serve others. Our first act as a Self, then, should be to consider the Other.
DE Weekly: Levinas, First Philosophy, & the Ethical Infinite
In Existentialism, the Self and the Other are two major focuses, accounting for one of the most important areas of study of the philosophy. The Self represents one’s own consciousness and being, the most fundamental way a being-in-the-world exists apart from others. The Other represents another free consciousness, totally separate from yours, that disturbs the subjectivity of your existence.
Jean-Paul Sartre is famous for birthing the phrase “Hell is––other people!” in his iconic play No Exit, and elaborating on the intricacies of the Self and the Other in Being and Nothingness.