Subject formation in relation to responsibility and moral philosophy pertains to the question of what it means to think about the formation of the subject as an ethical subject or, in other words, as an ethical agent. It is possible to approach this question of ethical agency through the issues of the will and intentionality in order to outline how questions of responsibility can guide decision-making and deliberation as modes of intentional action. For Emmanuel Levinas, the encounter with the other can never...

Subject formation in relation to responsibility and moral philosophy pertains to the question of what it means to think about the formation of the subject as an ethical subject or, in other words, as an ethical agent. It is possible to approach this question of ethical agency through the issues of the will and intentionality in order to outline how questions of responsibility can guide decision-making and deliberation as modes of intentional action. For Emmanuel Levinas, the encounter with the other can never be reduced or sublated into consciousness; it precedes all empirical social and political realities and therefore can never be known by the self-conscious subject who is formed through the encounter with the other.