Humanism with the Other -An Inquiry into Sartre and Levinas’ Humanism

Introduction

Bombing, shooting, ISIS’s attacks in Paris shocked the world. The violence humans do to each other makes one wonder from what ideology do such extreme actions derive their energy. It is not hard to remember, in the turbulent 1900s, similar violence was observed in Nazi’s Holocaust, World War I and II, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Although we have made progress towards peace and reduced anarchism in modern society, we find human aggressiveness, as Freud calls, manifests itself through its fierce destructions at unpredictable times. As such brutality gradually gets out of control, humanism is at its stake to be wiped. Various definite and focused ideologies derail from humanism and substitute humanism with a concrete image that govern our existence, limiting our freedom and minimizing our responsibility. It is thus necessary to look back at humanism in the 1900s to find a solution, so we rediscover love and hope in the coexistence of individual human existence and collective humanism.

Sartre and Levinas are two propellants of humanism in the 1900s. Seeing the crisis of humanism, both philosophers aim to solve the problem by placing humans at the center of their philosophies and emphasizing the dignity of men. They propose a humanism that originates from human’s subjective experience and they attempt to formulate a universal value all humans pursue. Their similar understandings in human condition and human transcendence as pursuing something “outside” of the human selves give rise to the possibility of humanism. However, their different beliefs in the status of this alterity and human’s interactions with the alterity determine their oppositions in justifying humanism as a morality of freedom or responsibility. As Levinas praises, “the existence of an existentialist humanism… is Sartre’s essential contribution to our cause,” Sartre brings “a cause of humanity” that raises the notion of humanism. Levinas takes one step further and justifies humanism by establishing ethics as first philosophy. Through Sartre and Levinas’ work, the concept of humanism is developed and raised to a higher scope, and human existence is given a greater value in relation to its interaction with the world.

On Humanity

Continental philosophy in the 19th and 20th century is an inward movement towards human subjectivity. This movement established a common ground for human reality and human condition, and gave rise to the notion of humanity. Following this tradition, Sartre and Levinas place a heavy emphasis on the human subject and prioritize human individual’s experience before the truth of reality. They adopt Husserl's phenomenology and orient their analysis on human’s subjective consciousness. As a result, subjectivity and its “outside” the alterity become distinguished. Both Sartre and Levinas’ philosophies rest upon this fundamental separation between subjectivity and alterity, and they characterize subjectivity’s pursuit of alterity as the process of transcendence. Humans, for Sartre and Levinas, are independent and free beings who have a natural tendency to surpass themselves and reach their alterity. Humans are born to desire alterity and human existence is defined as the process to transcend. Sartre and Levinas’ similar understandings of humanity, that is human reality and human condition, lay a ground for human solidarity and give rise to the possibility of humanism’s existence.

For Sartre, human condition is human’s freedom to transcend and to become, motivated by the human reality as a lack. In Being and Nothingness, he defines lack as a negation of being, “[o]f all internal negations, the one which penetrates most deeply into being, the one which constitutes in its being which it denies this negation is lack.” Lack is “the lacking” of the “lacked,” the absence of “the existing.” It is the fundamental rupture between subjectivity and alterity. In his ontological dualism of being-in-itself and being-for-itself, lack is a necessary result of human’s being-for-itself, which is a pure consciousness that contains nothing but only negates. As he indicates, “human reality… exists first as lack and in immediate, synthetic connection with what it lacks;” humans come into existence recognizing themselves as “incomplete” beings by negating their identity. Apprehending their “lacked,” which are the possibilities to become, they strive to surpass their facticity to fill their inborn lack and become a perfect being who unites with himself, “the in-it-self [that]… knows no otherness.” The desire for a synthetic totality, to become the foundation of the totality, motivates human’s pursuit of their being-in-itself-for-itself as both being-in-itself and being-for-itself. This pursuit characterizes human existence as the process of being. Sartre famously claims that “existence precedes essence,” that being is achieved as humans choose at each moment of their existence. By choosing, humans realize their possibilities and become who they are not. The ability to see beyond their facticity as being-for-itself and the tendency to pursue their possibilities characterize transcendence as the purpose of being. For Sartre, alterity is “the lacked” and transcendence is the negation for selfsameness.

Similar to Sartre’s understanding of human condition as the necessity to transcend, Levinas emphasizes human’s tendency to break from their subjectivity and embrace their alterity. However, unlike Sartre, Levinas does not characterize human reality as a lack. Instead, humans are particular beings who mistake themselves as totalities, “[they are] not thinking.” From this point of view, human’s desire for the alterity is motivated by a knowledge of the absence of exteriority; it is not “[living] as though it occupied the center of being and were its source.” Levinas criticizes Sartre’s desire arising from need for its egoistic nature and states, “the desire for another is born in a being that lacks nothing, or, more exactly, it comes to birth on the other side of all that can be lacking him or can satisfy him.” He separates need from desire and identifies need as the desire for assimilation and desire as a natural movement towards alterity, the other. Desire is a metaphysical desire that “tends toward something else entirely, toward the absolutely other.” The important supposition is the radical existence of the other, with whom the distance cannot be reduced. This other, the “more” than who humans are, the alterity, is defined as infinity. Humans do not seek to obtain it, but rather, infinity reveals itself by entering into human subjectivity through the epiphany of its face. Levinas describes human’s encountering with the other as a passive reception, a disturbance from the other. The other, coming from “a height” that humans cannot reach, reserves itself as an absolute exteriority and resists the human subject’s power to possess. The other challenges the human subject’s “sameness” and arouses his goodness by presenting its vulnerability, promoting his freedom and demanding his responsibility for it. It is through this relationship with the other the human subject elevates himself to a higher and nobler ground, escape his egoism and transcend himself.

The direct consequence of Sartre and Levinas’ understandings of human condition as transcendence is the birth of freedom. Humans are independent and free in pursuing their alterity. For Sartre, this freedom originates from human’s being-for-itself and is manifested in human’s act of choosing. For Levinas, freedom arises from human’s interaction with the other when they will to open themselves to the other. Both philosophers agree that freedom is essential because it lays a ground for the notion of responsibility. Sartre believes that responsibility is a byproduct of freedom. Being-for-itself is absolutely free because nothing determines it. It itself is responsible for its creation amidst its situation, reality, and facticity. By choosing, being-for-itself preconsiders its options and wills to take on the consequence of its choice.

Therefore, humans “[are] responsible for [themselves] as a way of being.” Similar to Sartre’s responsibility, Levinas also characterizes human’s responsibility as a condition for being. In encountering the other, the human subject I am elected to bear the demand called by the other. I am infinitely responsible for the other and I cannot escape my obligation. Levinas further proposes that such ethical responsibility for the other is prioritized before my responsibility for myself. In suggesting an absolute responsibility of the human subject, both philosophers arrive at a notion of a universal value for collective human beings, which gives rise to the idea of humanism.

On Humanism

The turbulence of 1900s is an epitome of inhumanity. In defending human nature and the worth of human beings, Sartre and Levinas strive to justify morality through their individual philosophies. While Sartre’s philosophy tends inwards to the interiority of human beings, Levinas’ philosophy opens up to the other and becomes an “outward” movement. Their different understandings of human condition regarding the status of alterity, human’s desire to pursue alterity, and the process of pursuing alterity lead to their different interpretations of humanism. Sartre’s humanism can be called as a morality of freedom as he proposes freedom as the highest value of being. Levinas, on the contrary, prioritizes responsibility before freedom and establishes a morality of responsibility. As a result, Sartre thinks that the reality is necessarily unhappy and

burdensome for human beings, for “hell is other people.” Levinas proposes a different solution in which love is found as humans “are held hostage by the other” and bear “the irremissible weight of being.”

In Existentialism and Humanism, Sartre takes his first attempt to theorize a universal ethics and morality based on his subjective ontology. He claims that existentialism does not imprison the human subject within his ego and prohibit him from forming meaningful relationships with the other. Instead, existentialism creates a tighter connection among human beings by attaching a greater responsibility to individuals. Proceeding from the subjective and private freedom of the individual, Sartre adopts the Kantian universal validity to justify “that he

is responsible [not] only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.” He explains, as humans choose themselves, they will themselves towards an “ought to be” ideology of humankind. In pursuing this ideology, they create their existence and will such image to be valid for all others so their existence gains essence. Therefore, in choosing, humans not only choose for themselves but also for others, and such universal value that they choose directs their actions and yields them responsibilities for all human beings.

However, universal values supported by human’s responsibility for all men are not concrete but ambiguous, not identical but diverse, not deductible but instinctual because “human universality… is not something given; it is being perpetually made.” Values come into being through each individual’s choice as he exists to create himself and reconceives and “lives” others’ values. For Sartre, there does not exist a metaphysical “value” because values are a product of human freedom and are therefore never fixed. The value of universal values lies in their existence as being created in collective human freedom rather than their real “essence.” Therefore, freedom is the highest value since all values come from freedom. Humans as free beings exercise their freedom to pursue this originality and plasticity of freedom. Their desire and their pursuit of freedom marks freedom as both the purpose and the measure of morality.

This willing freedom for freedom’s sake establishes a necessary relationship between human individual’s freedom and others’ freedom. In pursuing to be free, one also wills the other to be free because one’s freedom “depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own.” Conversely, when one views the other willing his freedom, one also authentically wills the other to be free, for freedom “can have no other end and aim but itself.” Following this radical notion of freedom, Sartre states that although humans cannot judge others’ actions based on the criterion of truth, they can nonetheless make a judgment of value founded upon others’ commitment to the action and others’ authenticity in carrying out the action. Human’s commitment to their actions is the best proof of “this action is worth my freedom and my responsibility.” It is through dedicating freedom to actions and accepting an absolute responsibility for actions that actions become meaningful and human’s existence gains essence. Therefore, to judge an act is not to judge the content of the act but to judge if one authentically wills to do the act based on one’s free will. Measured by authenticity, morality is a universal endeavor towards freedom. Humanism, for Sartre, thus becomes a morality of freedom.

Aiming to establish ethics as first philosophy, Levinas criticizes Sartre’s existential humanism for placing human subjects at the center of being and proposing freedom as the highest value. Levinas states, by starting from the subjective, “ontology reduces the other to the same, promotes freedom the freedom that is the identification of the same, not allowing itself to be alienated by the other.” Freedom imprisons itself within human subjectivity and becomes “arbitrary” and “unjustified.” Freedom for freedom is unworthy. To justify freedom, Levinas believes that it is necessary to place responsibility before freedom. Only by perceiving the absolute distance between the human subject me and the other, and recognizing the other as an absolute being who comes from a height and a nobility demanding my responsibility that I can truly understand my freedom as my power to break my totality and transcend myself towards infinity. This is a movement not only towards freedom but also to truth and justice.

The fundamental difference between Sartre and Levinas’ understandings of humanity is the priority of the other. Levinas believes that the absolute other comes before the human subject me and my responsibility for the other comes before my freedom. In describing the face-to-face encounter with the other, Levinas states that the other “obsesses” my ego and “imputes to it a responsibility, unexceptionable as traumatism, a responsibility for which it had not taken any decision but which, closed up in itself, it cannot escape.” Human’s passivity in interacting with the other indicates this other is a subjectivity prior to my ego who presumes an absolute existence before my being. My formed consciousness, separating my ego from the alterity, is a product of the other’s spoken message. It is an interiority that reflects the “said” and a fact that “in being the beginning is preceded.” In this relationship with the other, my responsibility becomes a preinstinctual unspeakable interiority predetermined by the other, and my freedom becomes the “preoriginary” susceptibility of the other. Susceptibility, the inertia that propels humans to perceive the other as other and question the other as other, is the very essence of human subjectivity. It is not an intention to challenge values but a primary faculty that humans obtain. Susceptibility as human freedom indicates the passivity of the human subject as I encounter the other, yet it also demonstrates that my true freedom is rediscovered when it is called into question. The absolute and prior existence of the other, proposed by Levinas, determines the other as a being standing above me and obliging my responsibility. But my freedom is not lost in this asymmetrical relationship, it only comes after my responsibility.

In my face-to-face encountering with the other, the other appears in its epiphany and calls for my responsibility for it. The other as an absolute infinite being, enters into my consciousness and reveals its face in front of me. It overflows my selfsameness with its exteriority and infinity. As I attempt to possess it, the other resists my power with the “infinity of its transcendence” by revealing its vulnerability and begging me to not “commit murder.” It resists with no resistance. The irreducible distance between the other and me allows me to suspend the immediate expression it speaks but appeals me to sense and feel its vulnerable being. It promotes my freedom by “arousing my goodness” to not kill. As I recognize my ability for power and become ashamed for my ability to hurt, I realize I cannot have power and retrieve myself from my murderous spontaneity. I commit to a responsibility for the other. The other, standing at a height I cannot reach, becomes a determination that calls my servitude and elects me to see the Goodness beyond being. My responsibility thus “overflows [my] freedom,” and I am obliged to be responsible for the other and all others because “the responsibility that owes nothing to my freedom is my responsibility for the freedom of others.”

Levinas’ humanism is a morality of responsibility in contrast to Sartre’s humanism as a morality of freedom. He prioritizes responsibility before freedom and proposes that freedom serves for responsibility or freedom becomes meaningless. Human’s relation with the other is an absolute one in which the other comes before me, and my existence thus becomes an “invested” freedom of caring for others. Levinas rejects Sartre’s egoistic humanism and recognizes that it is because of its subjective nature, it fails to justify morality on the ethical plane. Levinas finds justice in human’s consideration of the other and establishes humanism “in maintaining, within anonymous community, the society of the I with the Other language and goodness.” Sartre, however, is forced to adopt the Kantian universal validity to derive humanism from his ontological dualism and define human solidarity on the plane of authenticity. His humanism thus becomes a selfconstructed ideology, a groundless egology.

Conclusion

Sartre’s philosophy begins from human subjectivity and ends in human subjectivity. His understandings of humanity and humanism root upon the interiority of human subjectivity. By proposing human consciousness as the center of the world and freedom as the highest value, Sartre confines humans within their totality and closes the door towards alterity. Human reality, clashing human’s being-for-itself and being-in-the-world, “is [thus] by nature an unhappy consciousness with no possibility of surpassing its unhappy state.” Sartre further describes human’s relationships in society as a pessimistic “no exit” that humans are either masochists, sadists, or escapists in their relationships with others. In the face of these harmful and hopeless relationships with others, humanism as a morality of freedom becomes a worthless egology that cannot be compromised. The world, for Sartre, is difficult as humans pursue their impossible detached freedom and desire to construct a perfectly harmonious reality in which morality orients upon their own freedom and others’ freedom merely becomes a byproduct.

For Levinas, too, the world is difficult. However, it is difficult not because humans pursue a desire that is not reachable, but because humans bear the difficult freedom of being responsible for others. As he states, “morality begins when freedom, instead of being justified by itself, feels itself to be arbitrary and violent,” freedom is always subordinated to human’s responsibility for others. However, this asymmetrical relationship with the other is nothing similar to Sartre’s pessimistic relationships. Human’s relationship with the other is sincere and altruistic, and in it freedom and responsibility do not oppose each other. Through this relationship with the other, a space for human solidarity is discovered, and hospitality and love are found. Human’s beingintheworld are no longer isolated. Instead, humans be with others to feel, to sense, to enjoy, to live from, and to desire a height and a nobility. Humanism is a transcendent ground on which humans learn to embrace their “hostage to the other” and love their neighbors before they love themselves. Between a philosophy of transcendence and a philosophy of immanence, humans escape their individual totalities and arrive at a collective infinity. On this holy ground, to be, or not to be, is no longer the question. To be with, or not to be with, is not the question either. To love, or not to love, that is the question.

References

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Lévinas, Emmanuel. 1994. Totality and infinity : An essay on exteriority. Pittsburgh, Penn.]: Duquesne University Press.

———. 1987. Collected philosophical papers. Dordrecht ; Boston : Hingham, M.A.: M. Nijhoff ; Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Kluwer Academic Publishers, c1987. ———. 1963. The trace of the other. Tijdschrift Voor Philosophie: 60523. Lévinas, Emmanuel, and Nidra Poller. 2003. Humanism of the other. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Sartre, Jean Paul, 1905. 1966. Being and nothingness; an essay on phenomenological ontology. New York: Washington Square Press.

Sartre, Jean Paul, 1905, and Philip Mairet 1886 tr. 1966. Existentialism and humanism. [1st English ed.]. ed. London: Methuen.