Levinasian responsibility precedes knowledge and intention unconditionally.

Evidence

Most emphatically, my responsibility is unconditional. It does not depend on prior knowledge of the qualities of its object; it precedes such knowledge. It does not depend on an interested intention stretched towards the object; it precedes such intention. Neither knowledge nor intention make for the proximity of the other, for the specifically human mode of togetherness; ‘The tie with the Other is knotted only as responsibility’ — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 511

Categorization

• DEFINE: Key mechanism: responsibility to the other comes before knowing or intending them, which is what makes the other’s role irreducible in this framework.
• XREF: This grounds the distinction between the other as face (ethical) versus the other as object of calculation (the bureaucratic reduction of the Holocaust). — connects to: Moral responsibility can compel insubordination to socially upheld principles — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 495; Continuous responsibility shifting across a hierarchy creates free-floating responsibility that incapacitates moral authority — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 463; Functional task separation replaces moral responsibility with technical responsibility — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 293 (+1 more)

Related

• Morality precedes society and society merely manipulates an already-existing moral structure (similarity 0.82)
• Functional task separation replaces moral responsibility with technical responsibility (similarity 0.80)
• Proximity grounds moral responsibility while abstract categories remain morally neutral. (similarity 0.79)
• Continuous responsibility shifting across a hierarchy creates free-floating responsibility that incapacitates moral authority (similarity 0.79)
• Moral responsibility to others shrinks and vanishes with increasing distance (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Moral responsibility can compel insubordination to socially upheld principles #expands (0.78) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 495
• Functional task separation replaces moral responsibility with technical responsibility #complicates (0.74) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 293
• Continuous responsibility shifting across a hierarchy creates free-floating responsibility that incapacitates moral authority #complicates (0.72) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 463