One can summarize Levinas's central thought this way: He combines Kant's commitment to the primacy of morality with Kierkegaard's faith in God. What does this summary mean? For Levinas seems to acknowledge no transcendent God, nor is his commitment to morality akin to Kant's recognition of the moral law. One way in which Levinas is viewed as preserving a Kantian spirit concerns the priority of the ethical. But if we look at Levinas carefully, we see that his commitment to the primacy of the ethical is different from Kant's. Moreover, their difference is significant.

Arguably, Kant, like Plato, Socrates, and others, takes ethics to be primary precisely because ethical virtues and rules are of a higher status than other qualities that we have and norms or principles that we employ. Quite commonly, we interpret all three of these figures, for example, as arguing for the priority of moral considerations when compared to personal advantage or self-interest. Among other things, this is what makes akrasia, or moral weakness of will, such an interesting issue for them. For Kant, as for Plato, we can say that moral considerations generally outweigh prudential ones; desires for personal advantage should be given less weight than moral goals and interests. The idea is that what is right or good should matter more to us than enjoying a movie, having a pleasant and fulfilling meal, or taking a long hike.