Professional Documents
Culture Documents
after Poststructuralism:
Levinas, Derrida, Nancy
Madeleine Fagan
Typeset in 11 on 13 Sabon by
Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes 153
Bibliography 179
Index 189
Acknowledgements
This book is based on doctoral research at the Department of Interna-
tional Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. This was a fantastic
environment in which to study: friendly, stimulating and intellectu-
ally challenging. I was extremely fortunate in having two outstand-
ing supervisors. Jenny Edkins provided encouragement, guidance,
support and inspiration; I cannot thank her enough for her patience
and belief, both in me and the thesis. Hidemi Suganami offered close
and careful reading of my work and provided a constant stream of
challenging questions, which have improved this books clarity and
precision immeasurably. My examiners, Toni Erskine and Vronique
Pin-Fat, provided support, encouragement and advice.
I would also like to express my thanks to the Department of Poli-
tics at the University of Exeter, where I found companionship and
intellectual stimulation in the latter stages of the thesis and early
development of the book. My thanks, in particular, to Alan Booth,
Sarah Bulmer, Tim Cooper, Tim Dunne, Andy Schaap, Dan Stevens,
Nicola Whyte and Colin Wight.
Most recently, I have been fortunate to join the Department of
Politics and International Studies and the Institute of Advanced Study
at the University of Warwick. The award of a Global Research Fel-
lowship has enabled me to finish the manuscript and to see beyond
it. Thanks to Richard Aldrich, James Brassett, Stuart Croft, Chris
Hughes, Shirin Rai and Matthew Watson for their collegiality and
support.
For friendship, debate, and the sharpening of ideas at crucial stages
in the development of this book, I would like to thank Dan Bulley,
Laura Guillaume, Emily Jackson, Tom Lundborg, Laura Routley
and Maja Zehfuss.
Introduction
The Limits of Ethical Theory
Claims about ethics underlie the most pivotal and fundamental
debates in contemporary political life. From immigration to climate
change, democracy promotion and humanitarian intervention to
war and economic policy, political arguments often rest, explicitly or
otherwise, on a conception of the good or right. This is a remarkably
enduring and seductive way of organising political thought, in which
ethics provides the foundation on which arguments are built, as well
as the limit to the scope of what is available for argument.
These appeals to ethics in everyday life are very often justified in
terms of one or a combination of many theories of ethics, which
permeate current dominant understandings of the world theories of
utilitarianism, individualism, rights (of individuals or communities)
and so on. Similarly, within the disciplines of Politics and Interna-
tional Relations (IR), appeals to ethics are most commonly employed
and interrogated with reference to theories of ethics. Theories of
ethics, then, do a great deal of work in contemporary political life,
in terms of offering, arguing for and justifying a variety of better
ways to proceed.
The broad focus of this investigation is the ways in which theories
of ethics and responsibility are, and might be, used in the study of
Politics and International Relations. More specifically, the book
develops a distinctive analysis of, and theoretical approach to, the
relationship between theories of ethics and practical political deci-
sions. In particular, the investigation focuses on the area of so-called
poststructuralist approaches to ethics and the way in which these
impact on the practical political realm.
then, becomes depoliticised (but very political), used only for those
things which are uncontested or as an attempt to move issues into
an uncontested realm, rather than as the site of intense contestation,
which we might otherwise think it might/ought to be. This, in turn,
depoliticises the politics which rests on it.
In short, my suspicion is that theorising ethical claims or judge-
ments is deeply problematic and that it is potentially the wrong way
round to be doing things. We can look for solutions in promoting
ethical principles promoting human rights may well in some or
even all cases be an excellent route towards preventing genocide. But
this confuses the causes of the problem with the solution. Piecemeal
solutions, which call on the important political capital available to
those willing to invoke ethical principles, do a great deal of work,
much of which none of us would want to do away with. But as soon
as this work is framed in terms of not one of many possible and
imperfect solutions, but work in the service of righting the wrong
that has caused the problem in the first place (which must happen
once we have made the claim that genocide is wrong because it
violates human rights, for example), then a series of problematic
consequences follow. This is when opposition is marginalised or
discredited (who could not be for the ethical solution?), debate,
discussion or dissent silenced and the possibility of the very thing we
have been trying to prevent once again has the potential to emerge.
It seems, then, that at least something of the way in which ethics
is used and experienced happens at the limits of theory and theorisa-
tion, and, in response to this, the approach that the book pursues is
to trace the limits of theory. Perhaps ethical theory is not sufficient to
the task we have set it. But perhaps this insufficiency is not a failing
of particular theories, but a problem with ethics as theory, as such.
Recognition of the limits of theory and particularly ethical theory
matters, not because the questions to which we look to ethics for
the answers are unimportant, but because they are too important;
because theory does not offer enough protection or because theory
itself may be deeply implicated in the very wrongs which we wish
to confront.
concepts of ethics and politics are related. Both Levinas and Derrida,
I suggest, retain a commitment, even if only as a starting point, to
demonstrating their interpenetration, to thinking ethics and politics
in opposition. Nancy, on the other hand, shifts the terms of the
debate somewhat, focusing instead on the line or limit as the starting
point. Nancys ontology of being-with thus provides one alternative
way of approaching questions of ethics and politics, which allows
for a move outside the framing of the debate in terms of how ethics
might inform politics.
Having brought into focus the questioning of the line between
ethics and politics, Chapter 5 then investigates the implications of
this for the original research question. This chapter asks whether
we need to appeal to an outside to provide ethics or an ethical
disruption, and whether there are grounds on which we can know
if this disruption is the better way to proceed. Can ethics solve the
questions of politics? Can a politics of anything be derived from it?
The final chapter investigates the implications of an approach
which refuses an answer to the problem of ethics. It asks whether this
ultimately leads back to relativism and a disengagement from politi-
cal decisions. It seems very difficult to break away from a notion of
ethics as decidable, so a corresponding notion of politics as answer-
able is always present. In this instance, politics slips back into being
answerable, rather than a question of practices. Re-emphasising
practical politics goes some way towards resisting the temptation
to theorise political answers, but this move can only be made once
the relationship between ethics and politics and the nature of these
concepts has been re-examined. However, and perhaps more impor-
tantly, what emerges is that the decision to recognise or cover over
the difficulties in providing programmes or theories are ultimately
ethical and political ones. The book does not provide grounds for
arguing that this uncovering or politicisation is the better way to pro-
ceed. The philosophical literature drawn on, it is argued, provides no
guidance. This leads to neither relativism, nor inconsistency, but to
unlimited ethical and political decisions and interventions, whether
recognised as such or not, for which, in the absence of grounds, we,
as singular-plural, are always responsible.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethics-Politics-After-Poststructuralism-Political/dp/0748685138/