In this article, we examine twentieth century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's understanding of the ethical subject and the import his ideas have for contemporary subjective and interpersonal life. Applying Levinas's insight that there is a tendency among human beings to not only neglect the needs of others but to build systems that justify that neglect—to create space and build walls in order to diminish the fact that we are always implicated, ever tied to the needs of others—we explore the social mechanisms that enable such ethical distancing. Ethical distancing, we argue, is the pernicious assumption that distance absolves us, that if only we shelter ourselves from others then we will remain impervious to their cries for help, immune to their need for our care. This assumption, we show, is behind much of our Western self-understanding. Beginning with the picture of human subjectivity portrayed in Plato's myth of the ring of Gyges, we go on to show that the understanding of the isolated, self-enclosed subject persists to this day.

中文翻译：

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谁是我的邻居？道德距离的诱惑

在本文中，我们考察了 20 世纪哲学家埃马纽埃尔·列维纳斯 (Emmanuel Levinas) 对伦理主体的理解以及他的思想对当代主观和人际关系生活的重要性。应用列维纳斯的洞察力，即人类不仅有一种趋势，而且往往不仅忽视他人的需求，而且建立系统来证明这种忽视是合理的——创造空间和建造围墙，以减少我们总是被牵连的事实，永远与他人联系在一起。他人的需求——我们探索了实现这种道德距离的社会机制. 我们认为，道德上的距离是一种有害的假设，认为距离可以为我们开脱，只要我们保护自己不受他人影响，那么我们就不会听到他们的求助呼声，不受他们对我们照顾的需求的影响。我们表明，这一假设是我们西方自我理解的大部分内容。从柏拉图的吉吉斯环神话中描绘的人类主体性图景开始，我们继续表明，对孤立的、自我封闭的主体的理解一直持续到今天。