Affirmation versus Vulnerability

Abstract

At the end of postmodernism politics is in decline, whereas ethics triumphs in the public debate.This is not in itself a progressive move as once again the charge of moral and cognitive relativism is moved against any project that shows a concerted effort at displacing or decentering the traditional, humanistic view of the moral subject.This attitude asserts the belief in the necessity of strong foundations, such as those that a liberal view of the subject can guarantee.Doxic consensus is set: without steady identities resting on firm grounds, basic elements of human decency, moral and political agency and ethical probity are threatened.In opposition to this belief, which has little more than longstanding habits and the inertia of tradition on its side, I want to argue in this essay that a post-humanistic and nomadic vision of the subject can provide an alternative foundation for ethical and political subjectivity.This argument is framed by a larger dispute, which I will not explore here-that of the thorny relationship between poststructuralist ethics in Continental philosophy, on the one hand, and the dominant, mostly Anglo-American traditions of moral philosophy on the other.Todd May (1995) argued persuasively that moral philosophy as a discipline does not score highly in poststructuralist philosophy or in French philosophy as a whole.This is no reason, however, to move against it the lazy charges of moral relativism and nihilism.One only has to look across the field of French philosophy-Deleuze's ethics of immanence (1972; 1980), Irigaray's ethics of sexual difference (1984), Foucault's attempt to self-style the ethical relationship, Derrida's and Levinas' emphasis on the receding horizons of alterity-to be fully immersed in ethical concerns.It is the case that ethics in poststructuralist philosophy is not confined to the realm of rights, distributive justice, or the law; it rather bears close links with the notion of political agency, freedom, and the management of power and power-relations.Issues of responsibility are dealt with in terms of alterity or the relationship to others.This implies accountability, situatedness, and cartographic accuracy.A poststructuralist position, therefore, far from thinking that a liberal individual definition of the subject is the necessary precondition for ethics, argues that liberalism at present hinders the development of new modes of ethical behavior.The proper object of ethical enquiry is not the subject's moral intentionality, or rational consciousness, as much as the effects of truth

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