What is asymmetrical ethics? The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who spent four years as a POW in German camps and whose family was killed by the Nazi in Lithuania, wrote in his book Totality and Infinity (1961):
“The face of the Other comes toward me with its infinite vulnerability, its destitution, its defenseless eyes. It calls me into question and orders me: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”
Reflecting on his experience, Levinas’s central question was: “How is ethical responsibility possible after the Holocaust?” How can one regard their torturer as human when he treats them as less than human — in fact, worse than an animal?
An experience like that “calls me into question.” Who am I? For Levinas, the answer lies in what he calls ethical asymmetry. True ethics is never based on mutuality or reciprocity; it does not depend on others treating you in a certain way. Ethics, in its purest form, is always asymmetrical — you are ethical simply because you recognize the face of the Other.
“The face is what forbids me to kill.” Ethics and Infinity (1982)
For Levinas, the main challenge was to continue seeing the face of the one who consistently and radically negates the face of others. But what is the source of ethical asymmetry? How can one keep seeing the human in someone who continually dehumanizes others?
For Levinas, ethical responsibility is not a contract; it is a response — a response to seeing a face. Our capacity to see the Other’s face, regardless of their actions, depends on whether we ourselves have experienced ethical asymmetry. To love, we must have someone who has seen our Face.
I can only treat others as human if I have experienced being treated asymmetrically — loved without condition, regardless of what I do. It is this experience of ethical asymmetry that forbids me to dehumanize others. That is why Beauty and the Beast remains one of the most powerful mythical archetypes of all time.
As G.K. Chesterton puts it,
“There is the great lesson of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.’”
The 1977 Soviet romantic comedy Office Romance is one of the most beloved films of the Soviet era. A shy, divorced statistician, Anatoly Novoseltsev, unexpectedly falls in love with his stern, irritable, and lonely boss, Ludmila Kalugina. Wounded by a past betrayal, Ludmila has closed herself off from love and prefers to be seen as “an old maid.”
But the moment she realizes she is loved despite all her harshness, something within her breaks. The next day, she arrives at work transformed — the old maid is gone, and everyone in the office is stunned by the beautiful woman they had never truly seen before.
A thing must be loved before it is lovable. No wonder the Hebrew word rachamim (רָחַם), used in Exodus 34:6–7 and usually translated as “compassion” or “mercy,” literally means “womb.” According to the Torah, we exist in the womb of God — we are “en-wombed” in a loving Presence.
When we become aware of that Presence, we are changed. Someone has seen our Face, and we begin to seek the faces of others. It’s our response to being seen. Love is not something we manufacture; it springs from a heart that has been touched by ethical asymmetry.
