The primordial responsibility cannot be thematised. I am accusative and not nominative. I am responsible beforehand for finding myself. So I am hostage of the Other and I am his replacement, his substitute. This responsibility, which cannot be transferred, is my only identity.
Ethics precedes the thinking of the ego and the being.
The appearance of the Other is presupposed in every moral act - even in good manners such as opening a door for another. One is generally unaware of this, but the other is as Other present in all kinds of everyday situations. This is the also the case in experiencing the world as an objective reality. In speaking, the Other offers a world to me, which by that becomes objective. The Other also affirms me in my non-transferrable responsibility, before any activity on my part.