Levinas therefore disagrees with Descartes' assertion of "cogito ergo
sum" (I think therefore I am): it is because I am ethical, that I am, and 1 am
ethical prior to any reasoning that assures 1 am; and I am ethical due to my
relationship with the Other. So, if we hear the call of our mauvaise
conscience, it is concerned with how to be. Therefore our concern with
justice stems dually from acknowledging and realizing that the ego has
taken the place of our own N-l-C (non-intentional consciousness ); while our N-l-C
as mauvaise conscience intuitively identifies with the plight of the Other as
an outsider, as someone whom we have displaced (and are responsible for),
"To be or not to be" (with the implication that we have to force rather
than choose ourselves to be) or Why being rather than nothing?,' (Ibid,,
p,86) are not the first or the right questions we should ask regarding being,
the right question for Levinas and philosophy is: " ... how being justifies
itself (Ibid,)
If this is so then surely the first and final question is how to be in the
face of this wisdom. This question emerges before my awareness as a
being-for-death. It harks back to the composition of consciousness and in
particular to the anteriority of N-I-C and its apparently unarticulated
concerns involving its right to be and the emergence of the ego as
predominantly the way of being. To conclude, Levinas states that our
profound concern with ethics is probably at the heart o f t he spirituality of
the soul and that certainly the meaning of being is its appeal for
justification.