The modern self, understood as individual consciousness, derives from Greek and more recent sources that have come to be called modernism. It is argued that genuine intimacy is an impossible achievement for this self, and that its ethical concern must take the form of rational moral principles. The work of Emmanuel Levinas offers an alternative perspective wherein the self derives from the presence of the face of the Other. The mode of being of the self is thus fundamentally ethical, grounded in heteronomy and ethical obligation to the Other. Intimacy, from this grounding, is the taking on of ethical obligation. If human being is fundamentally ethical in this way, psychology should reflect this unavoidably ethical nature.
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