Thiem, Annika. Unbecoming Subjects: Judith Butler, Moral Philosophy and Critical Responsibility. New York: Fordham UP, 2008.
“My presence does not respond to the extreme urgency of the assignation. I am accused of having delayed” (Levinas OTB 88) (109). Levinas insists that even without having possibly been able to have acted otherwise, the address by the other arrives as an ACCUSATION.
The “I” is accused of nonaction, of having delayed, of not having been there for the other, of being too late — yet this passivity is not the passivity of a willful and voluntary “letting happen.” The address in the scene of the encounter figures not only as a demand but necessarily also as an accusation. The I is accused of nonaction, of having delayed, of not having been there for the other, of being too late. (109)
This accusation that Levinas inscribes as being at the core of subject formation is disturbing, because the subject emerges as always already accused of something that it did not will, that it COULD NOT will. The subject therefore emerges only under the burden of a responsibility to which it can never answer adequately … There are no deeds that precede the scene and for which the subject then becomes held responsible and accountable. (109-110)
Responsibility in the Levinasian formulation arrives as a responsibility for the other that is impossible for us to assume by giving an account of what we did or did not do. Responsibility in Levinas peculiarly precedes the possibility of being able to will and act. (110)