Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics: Putting Ethics First ...

Chapter 1

Why Is It Hard to Talk about Justice?

And I always thought that the simplest words Must be enough. That when I say how things are Everyone’s heart must be torn to shreds.

—Brecht, from his last poem

1. Introduction

My topic in this book is Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy. Levinas is increasingly coming to be regarded as one of the most important figures in twentieth-century European philosophy. He was instrumental in introducing Husserl’s and Heidegger’s work to French philosophers, and he was an influential figure both in existentialism and in more recent postmodern philosophy. He is best known for his powerful claims about ethics. Levinas is often associated with his slogan that “ethics is first philosophy,” an enigmatic thesis, but one that conveys something of how important he finds ethical considerations to be for philosophy and for our lives generally.