Human Nature and Holocaust: Understanding Levinas’s Account of Ethics Through Levi and Wiesel

Ethics occupies a central role in Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy, although considerable controversy exists surrounding the nature of this centrality. I argue that Levinas’s concern with ethics is ultimately related to a reconceptualization of human nature, one in which living at another’s expense is a central feature. This becomes apparent through a close investigation of his notions of shame, creation, and substitution. Descriptions of Holocaust experiences in the work of Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel corroborate this account, revealing metaphysical guilt as a central feature of human existence.