ETHICS WITH
THE HUMAN
FACE
Originally Prepared by
Mr. Roland Lorenzo M. Ruben
Philosophy section, SSD Emmanuel Levinas
De La Salle University-Dasmariñas
n.b.
(nota bene – latin for “note well”)
Please note that this power point has
been edited and modified for our class
purposes.
born in Kaunas, Lithuania to Jewish
parents, naturalized French in 1930.
Levinas' philosophy is directly related
to his experiences during World War
II. His family died in the Holocaust,
and, as a French citizen and soldier,
Levinas himself became a prisoner of
war in Germany.
E. Levinas
(1906-1995)
Levinas died in Paris, December 25,
1995.
The Good is Infinite
The search for the
Good is the central
question of philosophy
for Levinas. This is the
search for God.
Individuals are unique
and this uniqueness is
the interest of the Good
The Face as Trace of God
The human face
reveals the encounter
with the person,
particularly through
the eyes
A deep encounter
with another person
reveals a trace of
God.
The face as a trace of God
When you encounter the
other in this way, you
cannot escape his or
her uniqueness
The face has an
authority because it is a
trace of the divinity.
The face is not just part
of a person but stands
for the whole person
The Face as Ethical
The encountered
other is the stranger
whom the scriptures
tell us to love.
When I encounter
suffering in the face of
the other I am bound
to act.
That face arouses the
goodness within
The Face as Ethical
Call us to be Responsible
The face makes us
responsible
The Search for the
Good leads to our
neighbour
God touches us
through the face of the
Other
The face as ethical
The face suggests that there is another order of
existence…the order of an incredible good calling us to
be responsible for the other
Here the self-centred self is called into question.
question
Here the other rules
To See the Other as a Unique
Individual
The other is not an
object of my enjoyment
or an object of my
“creation”.
We have the experience
of the other as Other
because the other is
allowed to be there as
Other
To meet the other as Other is to meet him
or her in the face: epiphany – to manifest,
to show
Levinas uses the word epiphany to
emphasize a certain suddenness: in the
moment itself of epiphany there will always
be something sudden, something
unprepared, something even uncalled-for
in that event.
The Face of the Other calls to see him
or her as Unique
The experience of
the Other in his or
her own face is
similar to this
epiphany – it is when
one discovers the
uniqueness of
someone
Levinas says that we
normally see people
“obliquely”
obliquely (at an angle,
off-center), always through a
category
We try to domesticate them
by seeing them as through a
category: we encounter the
Other only insofar as he or
she would fit into our
expectations
The face of the other, the one in need,
calls me to be responsible
The response to
the call of the
Other, his or her
face, is one of
responsibility
The face of the other, the one in need,
calls me beyond my self-centred
concerns
SUMMARY The whole moral
experience for Levinas is
rooted in the ethics of
the face
The discovery of the other
as Other – as a unique
individual whom I must
act ethically toward.
It is here where moral
experiences begins.
Either I see the face or I
don’t = it’s like seeing or
not seeing good or seeing
or not seeing evil
