The structure of human subjectivity is perhaps Levinas' key concern. How does a subject emerge into a world, and what governs and guides relations between subjects? For Levinas, to be a subject is not only to be always and already with others, but more importantly, it is to be for others in such a way that the relation between the self and the other is not played out on a plane of intersubjectivity where the other and the self would stand on level ground as equals. I am not the equal of the other, nor is the other person another similar to myself. Such a relation in which it is a matter of the mutuality and the reciprocity of the same, as found in Buber, is criticised by Levinas. The relation with the other person is a relation which lacks symmetry. There is no level playing field; the other person occupies a higher position than I do, even though he or she is often encountered in his or her destitution. Height is a moral quality before ever geometrical space comes into play.

What Levinas means by this is that the other person who faces me is experienced as command and responsibility, and thus occupies an ethical position which is higher than the position which I occupy, even though that higher ethical position often finds itself in a state of neglect and destitution. The other invokes and provokes a response in me.