political theory 2007 la caze 781 805

http://ptx.sagepub.com/Political Theory

http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/35/6/781The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0090591707307324 2007 35: 781Political Theory

Marguerite La Cazeand Politics

At the Intersection : Kant, Derrida, and the Relation between Ethics

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:Political TheoryAdditional services and information for

http://ptx.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://ptx.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/35/6/781.refs.htmlCitations:

What is This?

- Nov 6, 2007Version of Record >>

at Vienna University Library on November 15, 2011ptx.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Political TheoryVolume 35 Number 6

December 2007 781-805 2007 Sage Publications

10.1177/0090591707307324http://ptx.sagepub.com

hosted athttp://online.sagepub.com

781

Authors Note: I would like to thank the Australian Research Council for supporting myresearch; audiences at the Society for European Philosophy conference, Reading University; theUniversity of New South Wales philosophy seminar; Damian Cox; two anonymous reviewers;and the editor of Political Theory for constructive comments on earlier versions of this essay.

At the IntersectionKant, Derrida, and the Relationbetween Ethics and PoliticsMarguerite La CazeUniversity of Queensland, Australia

To elucidate the tensions in the relation between ethics and politics, I constructa dialogue between Kant, who argues that they can be made compatible, andDerrida, who claims to go beyond Kant and his idea of duty. For Derrida, ethicsmakes unconditional demands and politics guides our responses to possibleeffects of our decisions. Derrida argues that in politics there must be anegotiation of the non-negotiable call of ethical responsibility. I argue thatDerridas unconditional ethics cannot be read in precisely Kantian termsbecause his impossible reals can be destructive. Moreover, Derrida expandsthe reach of ethics beyond Kant by making all ethical demands unconditionalor perfect, yet he does not articulate a politics that would enable us to respondto these demands. We need to take account of these difficulties in theorizinghow ethics should constrain politics and how politics can provide the conditionsfor ethics.

Keywords: Kant; Derrida; ethics; politics; duties

Politics says, Be ye wise as serpents; morals adds (as a limiting condition)and guileless as doves.1It is necessary to deduce a politics and a law from ethics.2

Recent interpretations of Jacques Derridas work note a close connectionwith themes found in Immanuel Kants writing.3 Nevertheless, most ofthese discussions have not focused on the specific question of the relationbetween ethics and politics, which is central to Derridas thought. In recentyears Derrida refers extensively to Kants ethics and political philosophy,for example in The Politics of Friendship and On Cosmopolitanism and


782 Political Theory

Forgiveness and in essays on justice and law, democracy, and terrorism.4 Onthe one hand, Derrida is influenced by Kants approach to ethics and poli-tics, and on the other hand, he wants to go further than Kant, saying, So Iam ultra-Kantian. I am Kantian, but I am more than Kantian.5 Derridashyperbolic ethics goes beyond political considerations and yet he acceptsthat we must act according to political concerns. In Adieu to EmmanuelLevinas, Derridas position is that it is necessary to deduce a politics and alaw from ethics.6 Like Kant, Derrida concerns himself with questions ofethics and politics within the state, between states, and between individualsand states. Understanding the relationship between Kant and Derridathrough an engagement with these questions enables a more productiveconception of the intersection between ethics and politics that takes seri-ously the tensions involved.

Kant argues that ethics, or rather morality for him, and politics do notcome into conflict because ethics places limits on what can be done in poli-tics.7 Derrida argues similarly that ethics must always take precedence orthat politics must be derived from ethics. However, for Kant ethics or moral-ity is based on what is possible, and for Derrida ethics is necessarily guidedby the impossible. For Derrida, ethics is comprised of unconditionaldemands, and politics of the strategies we must develop to respond to possi-ble consequences and effects of our decisions. On Kants account, right(those duties that can be enforced) along with virtue (duties that cannot beenforced) comprise morals or ethics. While Kant believes that only thosemoral constraints that can be imposed should be part of politics, Derrida seesthe ethical virtues as being essential to politics as well. I argue that Derridagoes beyond Kant, as he claims, but without explicitly acknowledging thedifficulties that arise from expanding the influence of ethics on politics inthis way. Moreover, Derrida simultaneously gives up on the acceptance ofany principles that cannot be overridden, as I will demonstrate by examin-ing his position on human rights. In this sense, he gives up a very importantfeature of Kants position. I construct a dialogue between Kant and Derridain order to demonstrate what is at stake in the disagreements between themand to explore the potential conflicts between ethics and politics that mustbe considered in any attempt to produce an ethical politics.

The Intersection of Ethics and Politics

To understand how ethics and politics might intersect, the first questionthat needs to be considered is whether ethics and politics inevitably come


into conflict. I will briefly sketch Kant and Derridas overall views on theirrelation and then consider in more detail the differences between them. InToward Perpetual Peace Kant argues that morals, in terms of right, shouldbe taken much more seriously in political decisions; in fact, it should be theoverriding consideration. As he writes, [A]ll politics must bend its kneebefore right.8 It should be noted that it is only the enforceable aspect ofethics that is relevant to politics for Kant.

The first step in Kants demonstration that there is no conflict betweenpolitics and ethics is the view that we are always free to act ethically. Hecontends that morals could not have any authority if we could not act onthem.9 Kants further argument is that there is

no conflict of politics, as doctrine of right put into practice, with morals, astheoretical doctrine of right (hence no conflict of practice with theory); for ifthere were, one would have to understand by the latter a general doctrine ofprudence, that is, a theory of maxims for choosing the most suitable meansto ones purposes aimed at advantage, that is, to deny that there is a [doctrineof] morals at all.10

Given that Kant sees politics as the application of morality (that aspect ofmorality described in the doctrine of right), it follows that any conflict inthe application would undermine the idealism of morality and make it ego-istic or self-interested.11 Thus, complaints of conflict between politics andethics are simply complaints of inconvenience. This is what Kant means byhis claim that a moral politician, who makes political prudence conform tomorals, is possible, but a political moralist, who makes morals conform tothe political interests of a statesperson, is not.12 Any attempt to make moralsconform to political interests, he argues, undermines the concept of rightaltogether and replaces it with force, so that it is no longer morals at all. Hesays there is only a conflict between morality and politics subjectively inpeoples self-interested inclinations,13 and he observes that the real dangerto acting morally is self-deception that convinces us we are justified in fol-lowing our own interests rather than duty. Kant is of the view that follow-ing our own interests is an unreliable business as it is difficult to calculatewhether our actions will have the right results, but in acting according tomorals we have a dependable guide.

While Derrida also believes that politics should be deduced from ethics,he is not as sanguine as Kant concerning the possibilities of conflictbetween them. This is due to the strong contrastindeed, contradictionhe finds between unconditional ethical concepts and their conditional pairs.Derridas account of unconditionality emerges from the deconstruction of

La Caze / Kant, Derrida, and Ethics and Politics 783


particular ethical concepts in a series of texts. He does not provide an ethi-cal system or give an explicit or detailed answer to the question Why bemoral? because he is not addressing the moral skeptic. In addition to jus-tice, which for him is undeconstructible, he deconstructs concepts such ashospitality and forgiveness into their pure and impure or unconditional andconditional forms. For example, pure hospitality involves a complete open-ness and welcome of the other independent of any invitation, whereas con-ditional hospitality depends on a wide range of criteria concerning identity,length of stay, and so on.14 In relation to asylum seekers, one of the issuesDerrida is concerned with, these criteria are often determined by the stateand its laws. Conditions on hospitality may be necessary, but they are nottrue hospitality. Thus Derrida finds a kind of ethical imperative in the logicof the concepts themselves. Insofar as we aspire to pure hospitality and trueforgiveness, they provide an ethical demand by highlighting the ethicalinadequacy of conditional hospitality and forgiveness.

Derrida develops his position concerning the relation between ethics andpolitics most explicitly in Ethics and Politics Today,15 although he returns tothis question in a number of other works, including Adieu to EmmanuelLevinas. What he focuses on is the responsibility to understand these concepts:

[R]esponsibility of course requires that any answer be preceded in principleby a slow, patient, rigorous elucidation of the concepts that are used in dis-cussion. . . . For each of the words ethics and politics, but also for all of thewords that one immediately associates with them.16

Nevertheless, in spite of this need for seemingly endless elucidation,Derrida says that all ethical and political decisions are structured by urgency,precisely because we have to take decisions without any certainty about therightness of what we do. He writes that in ethics and politics, this structure ofurgency is simultaneously the condition of possibility and the condition ofimpossibility of all responsibility.17 For Derrida, ethics and politics also havein common that they are answering the question What should I do? andthat we should give thoughtful and responsible answers to the question.Nevertheless, ethics and politics appear, at least, to be very different. Derridacharacterizes these perceived differences between ethics and politics.

Because ethical responsibility appeals to an unconditional that is ruled bypure and universal principles already formalized, this ethical responsibility,this ethical response can and should be immediate, in short, rather simple, itshould make straight for the goal all at once, straight to its end, withoutgetting caught up in an analysis of hypothetical imperatives, in calculations,



in evaluations of interests and powers. . . . Whereas, on the contrary, stillaccording to the same appearance, political responsibility, because it takesinto account a large number of relations, of relations of power, of actual laws,of possible causes and effects, of hypothetical imperatives, requires a time foranalysis, requires a gamble, that is, a calculation that is never sure and thatrequires strategy.18

This rich description of the fundamental difference between ethics and pol-itics reflects Kants distinction between the dependability of ethics and theunreliability of mere hypothetical imperatives. Ethics is seen as occupyinga higher and more impractical realm whose unconditional principles meanthat one can respond immediately, whereas politics is seen as concernedwith day-to-day practical strategies that need to be carefully planned out.

However, Derrida immediately notes that these characteristics are onlyapparent, and that politics can be understood as more urgent than ethics. Heargues that there must be a negotiation of the non-negotiable, so in thatsense the political is always inscribed in the ethical.19 For example, whenhostages are taken, a refusal to negotiate is an acceptance of the risk to thehostages on the basis that it will save others in the future. Similarly, a deci-sion to negotiate with the hostage takers is a decision to try to save thehostages in the hope that it will not be detrimental to others lives. In bothcases Derrida writes, the political imperative and the ethical imperativeare indissociable.20 This example is quite convincing as both alternativescan be understood in ethical terms. Those who refuse to negotiate believe itis more ethical to risk these hostages lives than to allow a practice ofhostage taking to go on. Similarly, negotiating with hostage takers does notshow that one has abandoned ethics, unless one takes the extreme view thatsimply communicating with such people is unethical. Thus political deci-sions inevitably involve ethical considerations on Derridas account. and incases like this they are difficult to make because the outcome is uncertainand the risks great.

Derrida famously claims in Force of Law that [j]ustice in itself, if sucha thing exists, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructible.21 He sees justiceas primarily an ethical concept and it is contrasted with law, or right, whichis a concept that is deconstructible. In Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Derridadiscusses the Torah in Jerusalem as an exemplification of the problem ofethics and politics. According to him, the problem is fundamentally one ofnegotiation between the demands of ethics and the realities of politics. TheTorah is read by Levinas in Cities of Refuge as justice: The Torah is jus-tice, a complete justice . . . because, in its expressions and contents, it is acall for absolute vigilance.22 Derrida says that the Torah in Jerusalem



must still inscribe the promises in the earthly Jerusalem. And henceforthcommand the comparison of incomparables (the definition of justice, of theconcession made, out of duty, to synchrony, co-presence, the system, andfinally, the State.) It must enjoin a negotiation with the non-negotiable so asto find the better or the least bad.23

The complete justice of ethics must be inscribed in concrete politics and law.In general Derrida distinguishes between the formal injunction to

deduce politics from ethics, which is absolute and unconditional, and thequestion of content that we have a responsibility to determine for ourselvesin each particular case. In this sense we can see that Derrida agrees withKant that ethical considerations always have a role in politics, but they donot constrain politics in quite the same way. Rather than providing a limitto what is possible, they set up an impossible injunction that politics canonly aspire to, rather than follow. To understand this difference between thetwo on the intersection of ethics and politics more thoroughly, we need tosee the ways in which Kant takes seriously potential conflicts betweenethics and politics.

Tensions between Ethics and Politics

Kants understanding of politics as bending its knee before ethics maysuggest that he has no conception of the reality of politics. Yet in some wayshis view shows more awareness of the complexities of politics thanDerridas. Kant notes that following ethical imperatives should be com-bined with political wisdom or an understanding of how best to institute orwork toward perpetual peace.24 This is what it means to be as wise as a ser-pent. Furthermore, Kant sees it as important to explain why there is a per-ceived conflict between ethics and politics and to make some caveats andexceptions to his general view.

First, adherence to political maxims must derive from the concept of theduty of right. Within states, these rights are to freedom, equality, and inde-pendence, which are the principles upon which states should be estab-lished.25 For morals in the form of right to be applied in politics, Kantmaintains that rights must be able to be made public. His transcendentalformula of public right is All actions relating to the rights of others arewrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity.26 The key idea is thatactions that affect the rights of others are unacceptable if they need to bekept secret. However, the reverse is not held to be trueactions that areconsistent with publicity are not necessarily right, as Kant observes, because



a very powerful state can be quite open about its maxims.27 The power ofsuch a state means it does not have to be concerned about opposition orresistance to its maxims. Kant argues for this principle of public right asfollows:

For a maxim that I cannot divulge without thereby defeating my own pur-pose, one that absolutely must be kept secret if it is to succeed and that Icannot publicly acknowledge without unavoidably arousing everyones oppo-sition to my project, can derive this necessary and universal, hence a prioriforeseeable, resistance of everyone to me only from the injustice with whichit threatens everyone.28

This principle is both ethical (part of the doctrine of virtue) and juridical(related to right), and Kant attempts to show how it is relevant to civil,international, and cosmopolitan right. First, civil right concerns rightwithin a state. Kant upholds the right of human beings to respect by thestate, saying, The right of human beings must be held sacred, howevergreat a sacrifice this may cost the ruling power.29 Nevertheless, withregard to the rights of people against the state, Kant argues that rebellionis shown to be wrong by the fact that publicly revealing a maxim of rebel-lion would make it impossible, whereas a head of state can publiclydeclare their willingness to punish rebels.30 I will say more about this pointfurther on. Kants view is that systems of law are justified by their foun-dation. Once they are founded, however, they should not be overthrown. Incontrast, Derrida believes that a system of law can only be justified bywhat comes after its institution.31 Second, international right is the rightof nations. This right, Kant says, must be an enduring free associationbetween states.32 Cosmopolitan right is the right to hospitality or the rightto visit all the countries in the world.

On Kants account, politics can be made commensurable with moralityonly within a federative union of states that maintains peace:

Thus the harmony of politics with morals is possible only within a federativeunion (which is therefore given a priori and is necessary by principles ofright), and all political prudence has for its rightful basis the establishment ofsuch a union in its greatest possible extent, without which end all its sub-tilizing is unwisdom and veiled injustice.33

This point suggests, reasonably, that so long as states are at war or are notwilling to pursue peace, political practice and morality are likely to conflict.



Although Kant believes that politics can be made commensurable withmorality, he concedes that practical circumstances or conditions can makeit difficult to bring this ideal into effect and that it may be brought aboutgradually. For instance, states may have to wait to introduce reforms untilit can be done peacefully.34 In her book Kants Politics, Elisabeth Ellis dis-cusses the role that provisional right, or right that acknowledges the diffi-cult circumstances under which we are likely to be applying morals, playsin Kants account of politics.35 She notes that Kant recommends that evenin the midst of war, for example, we should act in accordance with princi-ples that always leave open the possibility of . . . entering a rightful con-dition.36 In this way, Kant provides guidance to those making decisions inless than ideal conditions.

While Kant is confident about ethics and politics agreeing, there aresome complicated exceptions he mentions in the essay On the commonsaying: that may be correct in theory but it is of no use in practice.37 Heobserves that sometimes unconditional or perfect and conditional or imper-fect duties might conflict. This sense of imperfection refers to the latitudeallowed in fulfilling the duty rather than a state of imperfection in societiesthat are not yet governed ideally, which provisional right is concerned with.Kant defines a perfect duty as one that admits no exception in favor ofinclination (1996a, 4:422), whereas an imperfect duty is one that is virtu-ous and worthy to fulfill but it is not culpable not to do so unless that ismade into a principle (1996a, 6: 390). I should note here that this distinc-tion between perfect and imperfect duties divides the virtues. Duties of thevirtue of respect to others are perfect, whereas duties of love are not, or, inother words, we have discretion as to when we should follow them.38 Suchduties may conflict

if it is a matter of preventing some catastrophe to the state by betraying a manwho might stand in the relationship to another of father and son. This pre-vention of trouble to the former is an unconditional duty, whereas preventingmisfortune to the latter is only a conditional duty (namely, insofar as he hasnot made himself guilty of a crime against the state). One of the relativesmight report the others plans to the authorities with the utmost reluctance,but he is compelled by necessity (namely, moral necessity).39

In this case, the duty to prevent catastrophe to the state clearly trumps theduty to prevent misfortune to a relative provided the relative is actingtreacherously. However, Kant does not discuss a case where preventinggreat misfortune to the state would conflict with a duty to prevent a violation



of the rights of the relative or indeed any other person. Although it is a dif-ficult practical problem that he does not examine in depth, he is quite clearthat such rights should never be violated and he does touch on the issuebriefly.

In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant says that there is a categoricalimperative, Obey the authority who has power over you (in whatever doesnot conflict with inner morality).40 Morals can conflict with political prac-tice if a leader demands we do something unethical, and when they do wemust obey morals. However, here and elsewhere, as I noted, Kant con-demns revolutions, a condemnation that seems counter to his own theory. Itis rarely observed that Kant had an ingenious caveat to his view on revolu-tions. In his notes concerning the Doctrine of Right, he comments,

Force, which does not presuppose a judgment having the validity of law[,] isagainst the law; consequently the people cannot rebel except in the caseswhich cannot at all come forward in a civil union, e.g., the enforcement of areligion, compulsion to unnatural crimes, assassination, etc.41

The implication appears to be that if such acts were generally forced upona people, they could not properly be in a civil union. Therefore, tyrannicaland totalitarian regimes may well not count as civil unions for Kant. Thenrevolution could be ethical in the sense that such a revolution would be cre-ating a civil union. Thus such examples of conflict between duties to thestate and other duties that could be brought against Kant would beaccounted for by this caveat. However, revolution for such reasons as poorgovernment or inequity would still be excluded as they could occur in acivil union.

Cases where the state tried to prevent philanthropy provide other exam-ples of conflict between politics and morality, this time relevant to the doc-trine of virtue. Kant also believes that politics and virtue should agree, butnotes that philanthropy is an imperfect duty, or in other words that how it isfulfilled is to a great extent a matter of discretion. In any case, his view isthat politics easily agrees with this sense of morality in order to surrenderthe rights of human beings to their superiors.42 What he has in mind hereis that politics, or rather those in power, like to pretend that perfect dutiesof right are imperfect duties that they bestow only as benevolence and soare very ready to claim they are moral in that sense. This distinctionbetween perfect and imperfect duties, a distinction rejected by Derrida, isimportant to conceiving an ethical politics, I argue.



Derridas account of the relation between ethics and politics treats thesecomplications in a different way from Kant, as one might expect, becausehe relies on the idea of negotiation to overcome these complications. Oneof the criticisms of Derridas deconstructive ethics is that it does not give usany guidance as to how to make decisions. For example, Simon Critchleywrites, I would claim, with Laclau, that an adequate account of the deci-sion is essential to the possibility of politics, and that it is precisely this thatdeconstruction does not provide.43 Derridas view that we must negotiatebetween ethics and politics leaves us with the question of how far towardeach we should tend in our negotiations. Ethics with its unconditionaldemands is impossible to satisfy for Derrida, and politics must be limitedby ethics. They seem to act as constraints on each other such that the deci-sion, and the action, will always lie somewhere between the two. There isan in-between position or many in-between positions that Levinas gesturestoward in Politics After!:

So there would be no alternative between recourse to unscrupulous methodswhose model is furnished by Realpolitik and the irritating rhetoric of a care-less idealism, lost in utopian dreams but crumbling into dust on contact withreality or turning into a dangerous, impudent and facile frenzy which pro-fesses to be taking up the prophetic discourse.44

Levinass presentation of a case against ethics in politics often put explic-itly or implicitly highlights its absurdity and the need to sketch out alterna-tive in-between positions. This is what Derrida attempts to do.

Derrida claims that there are no rules to determine what would be thebetter or least bad alternatives. Another way that Derrida expresses theproblem is by writing The hiatus, the silence of this non-response con-cerning the schemas between the ethical and the political, remains. It is afact that it remains, and this fact is not some empirical contingency, it is aFaktum.45 It is not clear how to deduce politics from ethics. However, healso says that politics and law must be deduced from ethics, in order todetermine that democracy is better than tyranny and political civiliza-tion remains better than barbarism.46 Derridas promotion of democracyand respect for international law (as well as reflection on its foundations)parallels Kants concern with republicanism and establishing a cosmopoli-tan world order.47 He accepts with Kant and Hannah Arendt that a worldgovernment is not desirable, and yet believes we need to go beyond theirviews to think of a democracy to come (la dmocratie venir) that willunite law and justice.48 The reason Derrida is so positive about the concept



of democracy is that it is the only one that welcomes the possibility ofbeing contested, of contesting itself, of criticizing and indefinitely improv-ing itself.49 This democracy to come is not intended to refer to a future stateof democracy but to a call for a militant and interminable political cri-tique.50 This democracy is envisioned by Derrida to challenge the author-ity and sovereignty of the state and, on an international scale, to emerge innew institutions such as the International Criminal Court. Further on in theessay, I will show how Derridas ideas about democracy stand out from hisoverall account of negotiating between ethics and politics.

In the next section, I examine the differences between Kants regulativeideals and the categorical imperative and Derridas idea of unconditionalethical demands that motivate his conception of an ethical politics. This dis-cussion will clarify their very distinctive accounts of unconditionality.

Unconditional Ethics, Regulative Ideals, and theCategorical Imperative

The central features of Derridas ethics, namely, the linking of ethicswith politics, the setting up of unconditional ideals, and his concern withcosmopolitanism, make him sound very Kantian. This interpretation hasbeen both encouraged and resisted by Derrida. For instance, in Limited,Inc., Derrida says that he uses the term unconditionality not by accidentto recall the character of the categorical imperative in its Kantian form, andit is independent of every determinate context, even of the determinationof a context in general.51 However, Derrida does not characterize theinjunction that recommends deconstruction in Kantian terms because suchcharacterizations seemed to me essentially associated with philosophemesthat themselves call for deconstructive questions and he has reservationsabout thinking of the unconditional as a regulative idea or ideal.52 It is impor-tant to clarify this idea because it sheds light on Kants and Derridas under-standing of ethical action.

One problem with Derridas disclaimer here is that a regulative ideal inKants sense does not appear to relate to unconditionality. As Derrida notes,this term is used too loosely in philosophical discourse.53 Kant discusses thenotion of regulative ideas in the Critique of Pure Reason.54 These regulativeideas are that of the existence of the human soul, an independent world, andGod. These ideas cannot be proven; nevertheless we should posit them asthey play an important role in our thinking by directing our studies of psy-chology and physics in the case of our ideas of the soul and the world. The



idea of God provides the sense that everything in the world is part of anorganized unityas if all such connection had its source in one single all-embracing being, as the supreme and all-sufficient cause.55 In contrast,Derridas unconditional concepts are not ideas that we posit as useful fortheorizing but concepts we take seriously as action guiding, although wecannot fulfill their demands.

In a detailed discussion of justice and duties in Philosophy in a Time ofTerror, Derrida outlines three reservations about aligning what he calls hisimpossible reals with Kants possible ideals. First, Derrida says, his impos-sible is what is most undeniably real in its urgency and its demands.56 Thiscan be seen as in contrast to a possible ideal that we work toward, like Kantscosmopolitan ideal. Unlike Kants dictum that ought implies can, Derridasdictum is that ought implies cannot. This is an important differencebetween the two. On Derridas account, one can take imperatives to be realeven if one does not think they can be reached or satisfied. I would note thatideals can also be real in the sense of being urgent and making demands. Atone point, Kant says that virtue is an ideal and unattainable, while yet con-stant approximation to it is a duty.57 The fundamental difference is that Kantbelieves that we can fulfill our duty in this approximation, but Derrida holdsthat such approximation is in no sense a fulfillment of duty.

Like Kant, Derrida sees autonomy as the foundation of any pure ethics,of the sovereignty of the subject, of the ideal of emancipation and of free-dom, but unlike Kant he believes that this autonomy will always beimposed on by heteronomy or the imperative of the other, of politics, of theconditional, and there must be a transaction between these two impera-tives.58 The unconditional imperative demands that we go beyond duty. Theunconditional imperative of justice contrasts with law, as unconditionalhospitality and forgiveness contrast with their conditional pairs.59 In everycase the unconditional tempers the conditional and must be taken intoaccount when making decisions. Derrida presents his understanding as ananalysis of the logic of these concepts, which, when deconstructed, splitinto these doubles. The result is that Kants imperfect duties, which allowsome latitude in how we fulfill them, become perfect duties on Derridasaccount. They are perfect in the sense that we cannot put limits on what itis to fulfill them, although we will inevitably fall short of their demands.

Second, Derrida says that his notion of responsibility is one of goingbeyond any rule that determines my actions. Here, Derrida seems to beshifting from Kants metaphysics, where the regulative ideas or postulatesof world, God, and the soul play a role, to his ethics, where the categorical



imperative and maxims play the central role.60 He says that as a quasi-synonym for unconditional, the Kantian expression of categoricalimperative is not unproblematic; we will keep it with some reservations.61The concern with needing to go beyond a rule that determines actions is onethat requires some discussion, and I will return to this issue after brieflyconsidering Derridas third reservation.

Derridas third reservation returns to Kants metaphysics, saying that ifwe were to take up the term regulative idea we would have to subscribeto the entire Kantian architectonic and critique.62 This point is rather anexaggeration, yet I believe he is right to reject the notion that he under-stands unconditional demands as regulative ideas. As I have pointed out,the concepts function very differently. Finally, I can also see why Derridarejects a Kantian reading of his unconditional ethics in the case of hospi-tality, because whereas Kants categorical imperative is something we canaim to act on even if we cannot be confident of achieving it, Derridasunconditional hospitality is not only impossible but also positivelydestructive since if we are completely open to any kind of visitation wegive up our sovereignty and therefore our capacity to offer hospitality.While it can be held up as an impossible real to improve our politics andethics, we do not want to come too close to it. Nevertheless, forgivenessand justice seem not to be destructive in the same way as hospitality. Andjustice, as Derrida says in Force of Law, is not deconstructible. Thus theanswer to the question of whether Derridas unconditional ethical conceptsare like those of Kants ethical imperatives can only be answered by look-ing at particular examples. A further difference is that Kant accepts thathospitality is conditional and that forgiveness is an imperfect duty. SoDerrida is going beyond Kant in making conditional and imperfect dutiesinto unconditional and perfect ones, albeit duties that have to be negotiatedwith their conditional equivalents.

What Derrida does not say is how we can or should negotiate betweenethics and politics, between unconditionality and conditionality. A consid-eration of the issue of rule following, mentioned above, provides some indi-cations. He hints that there is a connection with Kants ethics when he notesthat if we simply apply a rule when acting, I would act, as Kant would say,in conformity with duty, but not through duty or out of respect for the law.63Thus, the problem of negotiation appears to become a question of how tomake a decision or reach a judgment. Derridas claim is that

[w]ithout silence, without the hiatus, which is not the absence of rules but thenecessity of a leap at the moment of ethical, political, or juridical decision,



we could simply unfold knowledge into a program or course of action. Nothingcould make us more irresponsible; nothing could be more totalitarian.64

Derrida sees Kant as both irresponsible and totalitarian in prescribing rulesfor action as if we were nothing more than calculating machines.

Furthermore, Derrida criticizes Kant for conflating right and virtue orassuming that politics can be deduced from ethics. One commentator,Olivia Custer, finds this reading of Kant as emerging most clearly inDerridas discussion of hospitality, where Derrida criticizes Kant forimposing restrictions on hospitality, thereby turning an ethical concept intoa juridical one.65 However, I interpret Derridas insistence on hospitality asan ethical concept as one that is not fully adequate to the realities faced bythose seeking asylum, a concrete case to which he believes his account ofhospitality is relevant. As I argue in another essay, Derridas emphasis onhospitality as an ethical concept makes practical measures for asylum seek-ers and refugees dependent on goodwill, rather than putting a set of struc-tures, based on right, in place.66 This makes his conception of unconditionalethical duties, once negotiated with political realities, at most ameliorativeof the worst excesses of inhospitable or otherwise unethical governments.

As I noted earlier, for Kant virtue is that part of morality or ethics thatcannot be enforced or made part of politics. Thus, the accusation that Kantthinks one can deduce politics from ethics, understood as politics deducedfrom virtue, is inaccurate. Kant did not think that virtue and right were nec-essarily co-implicated but instead had a hope that people would live accord-ing to the virtues of love and respect once right restrained politics. In fact,Derrida himself brings virtue into politics by emphasizing the importanceof ethical concepts such as unconditional hospitality and forgiveness to pol-itics. Yet he avoids suggesting what hospitality would amount to or in whatcircumstances we should forgive.67

Kants further distinction between perfect and imperfect duties demon-strates the problems with Derridas reading. While perfect duties appear toprovide a rule for action, imperfect duties allow leeway concerning whatacting out of duty means. When I attempt to act from the duty of benefi-cence, for example, I need to consider the time, the context, those whowould benefit, and the appropriateness of my action.68 Thus Derridas crit-icism of Kants notion of duty could only apply to the perfect duties ofrespect. The duties of love do not follow determinate rules. There can alsobe conflicts between our imperfect conditional duties that we would haveto resolve for ourselves in the absence of rules. It is Derridas transforma-tion of imperfect duties into perfect ones that makes duties of love seem as



if they could involve rule following. This is one of the paradoxical aspectsof Derridas thinking. While he makes imperfect duties into perfect ones,their status as such is undermined by his view that they are impossible.They appear to be reminders of our inadequacy as ethical actors.

Particular judgments, for Derrida, are always made in relation to anunconditional injunction. While in judging, one must reinterpret and reaf-firm existing rules; the judge is not just if he or she

doesnt refer to any law, to any rule or if, because he doesnt take any rulefor granted beyond his own interpretation, he suspends his decision, stopsshort before the undecidable or if he improvises and leaves aside all rules,all principles.69

Such a process of judgment involves the recognition of the specificity ofparticular cases, something like Kants notion of a reflective judgment thatbegins with the particular, but it does not require the creation of new prin-ciples. Derrida acknowledges that new judgments can conform to existinglaws but they must reaffirm them. How I understand his point is as the needto consider each situation afresh even when applying a law or principle.This point is reasonable, but more difficult to accept is Derridas idea ofnegotiation and the impossibility of unconditional demands. I would sug-gest that most ethical choices are not impossible, although political lifetends to provide more of such dramatic choices than private life. For Kant,we are able to formulate moral laws for ourselves and act on them. He saysthat it takes only common human reason to work out our duty and that Ido not . . . need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do in orderthat my volition be morally good.70 Kant notes, however, that we can neverbe completely sure that our motives are pure.71 In the next section I willshow how Kants account fares better in relation to human rights, as anexample of true non-negotiability, and how Derrida goes beyond Kant, ashe claims, in introducing virtue to politics.

Reconstructing Human Rights

I am critical of both Kant and Derrida and find insights in both theirwork. On the issue of human rights, Kants overall framework is more pro-ductive than Derridas even though he identifies inconsistencies in Kantsaccount. Kants argument provides an important step toward an ethicalpolitics, in spite of his unappealing condemnation of revolutions and lack



of consideration of conflicts between human rights and duties to the state.Such a politics is one where at the very least certain human rights arerespected. It should be noted that Derrida refers to the Declaration ofHuman Rights as a means of challenging the sovereignty of states.72However, even these rights, which we need, must be subject to negotiationor transaction with the conditional and must be questioned. He writes,

To take this historicity and perfectibility [of human rights] into account in anaffirmative way we must never prohibit the most radical questioning possibleof all the concepts at work here: the humanity of man (the proper of manor of the human, which raises the whole question of nonhuman living beings,as well as the question of the history of recent juridical concepts or perfor-matives such as a crime against humanity), and then the very concepts ofrights or of law (droit), and even the concept of history.73

In one sense, what Derrida is saying is that we need to reflect more on allthe concepts related to human rights, and in that sense, there is no problemwith that kind of questioning.

However, it is when this idea is combined with Derridas view that wehave to negotiate with the unconditional that his position becomes moredifficult. If such things as human rights are always potentially negotiable,then they cannot be relied on as principles to guide ethical or politicaldecisions. Questions of the death penalty, denaturalization, treatment ofrefugees, and conduct of war, for example, are not subject to any limitationsas such. Any unconditional demands are always weighed up against condi-tional exigencies. So, for instance, even torture might be justifiable if it canbe negotiated or exchanged for some other value or in the light of condi-tional considerations. This is the implication of Derridas claim that theTorah must enjoin a negotiation with the non-negotiable, quoted earlier.74It is also the implication of unconditional demands, such as hospitality, thatare themselves destructive. Derridas comments on democracy are quiteuseful for thinking about political systems, as he says that democracy ispreferable to other systems because it opens onto a future and is per-fectible.75 These criteria may enable us to determine preferable courses ofaction in some circumstances and could be seen as parallel to Kants sug-gestion that in difficult circumstances such as war we should act in such away as to always leave open the possibility of . . . entering a rightful con-dition.76 What I mean by this is that in relation to the political organizationof states (at least) Derrida concedes that democracy really is preferable toother forms of government, and we can take the freedom and equality on



which it is based as guiding principles. However, I do not believe that thisexception resolves the problems in Derridas views on human rights.

I am not suggesting that Kants understanding of human rights is prefer-able to Derridas in every respect. Certainly Kants account of the details ofthe principles of right leaves much to be desired, particularly that of inde-pendence as a citizen, as he excludes women and nonproperty ownersfrom the role of active citizens.77 Nevertheless, one could extend this prin-ciple in an inclusive way. Another problem I see in Kants account of rightis his acceptance of capital punishment for the crimes of high treason andmurder.78 This acceptance appears to be in conflict with the categoricalimperative to treat everyone as ends in themselves and with the whole tenorof the Kantian view that we should treat others with respect. However, asNelson Potter argues, in both these cases Kant can be revised in a mannerthat makes his view more consistent, particularly since Kant himself wasoffering a critique of the contemporary cruel punishments often carried outas well as arguing for a limitation on the crimes capital punishment shouldbe applied to.79 These are reconstructions that would be necessary for gen-uine compatibility between ethics and politics, in my view.

Derrida does not address this question of how important Kant takes thedeath penalty to be, although he emphasizes Kants connection of the justalionis (law of retribution) to the basis of criminal justice.80 I would arguethat one could retain this conception of punishment but still maintain anabolitionist stance, although it would be preferable to have a different viewof punishment as well.81 Kants ideas of rights need to be reconstructed ina number of ways, some of which they already have been in practice (atleast widely), to include women as active citizens, and some of which theyhave not, to exclude capital punishment, for example. An ethical politicsshould make an explicit commitment to certain rights and work out howthey can be established and upheld. While Derrida is doubtless against cap-ital punishment, for example, he does not set out the principles on whichthat opposition is based, but says that both the death penalty and abolition-ist discourse are deconstructible.82 This analysis suggests that the deathpenalty is negotiable, and that raises an issue about how his view could bemade compatible with a commitment to human rights.

Conclusion

This engagement between the two philosophers is interesting in itself,yet my aim in pursuing this encounter between Kant and Derrida is also to



illuminate the difficulties that arise in conceiving an ethical politics.Derridas demanding view of ethics highlights some of the gaps in Kantsvision. Derrida is right to claim that he goes beyond Kant. I contend that inraising the importance of virtue as well as right to politics, his view is animportant advance on Kants. Derridas focus on unconditional ethicsbrings the imperfect duties of Kant to the forefront of politics. This insis-tence on the importance of unconditional ethical demands to politics forcesus to think more carefully about the role of these demands and about theresponsibility of both ethics and politics to each other. Derridas workreminds us how significant ethical virtues involved in hospitality, friend-ship, and forgiveness, for example, are to public life. Nevertheless,although his account demonstrates the significance of ethics to politics, itdoes not clarify how important ethics should be or suggest what conditionswould facilitate the negotiation between ethics and politics. Preciselybecause Derrida goes further than Kant by bringing up the importance ofthe virtues, he should have more to say about what would make them flour-ish. However, Derrida does not account for the conditions that will supportan ethical politics and make ethical living more likely, perhaps because hebelieves that any specific suggestions would be totalitarian. The idea of ademocracy to come involves some important suggestions for internationalinstitutions but does not articulate changes that would be needed to assistgroups and individuals to meet those demands. His emphasis on uncondi-tional ethical concepts such as forgiveness and hospitality places the onuson the individual to try to live up to unconditional demands. Yet a distinc-tion should be made between unconditional demands that are necessarilydestructive if fulfilled, such as hospitality, and those which are not neces-sarily destructive in the same sense, such as forgiveness.

While Derrida goes beyond Kant in emphasizing the importance ofvirtue or imperfect duties, he does not advance beyond Kant by suggestingwhat kind of political structures would enable the flourishing of thesevirtues. His transformation of Kants imperfect duties into perfect dutiesalso makes the development of such enabling structures even more unlikely.Thinking of the virtues as perfect duties sets us on a path to construing eth-ical politics as a utopian dream and could justify the careless idealismLevinas warns against or quietism in the face of impossibility. Derridasemphasis on the impossibility of following unconditional ethical demandsis likely to lead to the undermining of the authority of ethics that Kant wasconcerned about. While Kant was probably a little too confident about theease with which we act ethically (although without being sure that we aredoing so), ethical demands need to be within the realms of possibility for



us to be able to cultivate ethical responses and to construct political struc-tures that support the ethical life. Kant expresses a vision where one focuseson enforcing what needs to be enforced while leaving the other aspects ofethics to look after themselves, whereas I argue that we should also con-sider how to at least encourage virtue. These are the problems I believeneed to be addressed in conceptualizing an ethical politics.

What emerges is that the most credible conception of the relationbetween ethics and politics is one that considers both the norms of right thatKant outlines and the virtues, in Derridas sense, such as forgiveness, gen-erosity, and hospitality. What I mean is that the limits to action set up byKant should be acknowledged (and in some instances extended) and thatpolitical organization should take account of the need for practical benevo-lence and ethical responses. Understanding the intersection of ethics andpolitics in this way requires a sense of what it is to act with respect andbenevolence for others, so that all decisions have these ethical standards astouchstones to judgment. In order for Derridas suggestion of an expansionof the ethical realm to make sense, political life would involve creating thebest conditions for ethical relations to ourselves and to others, in additionto the constraints Kant believes ethics should place on politics. While weshould acknowledge the special circumstances of politics, politics shouldbe ethical in more than one sense.

There are risks here in the possibility of interference in private or ethi-cal relations to the self, which Arendt and Foucault, for example, fear.83However, I disagree with Kant that we should simply hope that virtue fol-lows in the wake of right or, to think of it another way, that love will followrespect because every aspect of our lives is affected by political decisions.Such decisions could play a role in ensuring at an institutional and individ-ual level that we are able or more likely to carry out imperfect duties to our-selves, such as the duty to perfect ourselves, and the imperfect duties ofbenevolence to others. To give priority to ethics as Derrida conceives it, thevirtues of respect and of love would have to be encouraged and form thebasis of politics. These ethical considerations are relevant to the threespheres that Kant discussesrelations within states, between states, andbetween states and individuals. It is also relevant to relations between indi-viduals. Thus, the complexities of including the virtues in an ethical poli-tics would have to be carefully considered with regard to all these relations.

These features of an ethical politics involve both basic human rights asadvocated by Kant and the cultivation of virtues as suggested by Derrida.Furthermore, pursuit of the virtues itself can facilitate a transformation of pol-itics and political conditions, and I take this point to be implicit in Derridas



focus on unconditional ethical demands. Nevertheless, the freedom impliedby the notion of an imperfect duty, where there is a great deal of discretion asto particular ethical decisions, should be retained. Between Kants possibleideals and Derridas impossible reals, there is a possibility of ethical andpolitical action that is not simply ameliorative. Politics must be conceived ina way that makes negotiating with ethics a more promising affair.

Notes1. Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1996), 8:37.2. Jacques Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael

Naas (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 115.3. See, for example, Christopher Norris, Whats Wrong with Postmodernism: Critical

Theory and the Ends of Philosophy (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990), 194-207, for a discussion of Derridas relation to Kants epistemological project; Irene Harvey,Derrida and The Economy of Diffrance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), whois concerned with the influence of Kants notion of critique and conception of the limits of rea-son; and Philip Rothfield, ed., Kant after Derrida (Manchester, UK: Clinamen, 2003), whichis a collection of essays on a range of Kantian themes.

4. Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship, trans. George Collins (London: Verso,1997); and Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans. Mark Dooley andMichael Hughes (London: Routledge, 2001).

5. Jacques Derrida, Questioning God, ed. John Caputo, Mark Dooley, and Michael J.Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 66.

6. Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 115. Levinass influence on Derridas ethics hasbeen explored more thoroughly than Kants. This work includes Simon Critchley, The Ethicsof Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press,1999); Simon Critchley, Ethics, Politics, and Subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas, andContemporary French Thought (London: Verso, 1999); Diane Perpich, A Singular Justice:Ethics and Politics between Levinas and Derrida, Philosophy Today 42, supp. (1998): 59-70;and Miriam Bankovsky, Derrida Brings Levinas to Kant: The Welcome, Ethics, andCosmopolitical Law, Philosophy Today 49, no. 2 (2005): 156-71, who also considers therelation of both to Kant. Derrida discusses Levinas in Jacques Derrida, Writing andDifference, trans. Alan Bass (London: Routledge, 2001); and in Derrida, Adieu to EmanuelLevinas. On Kant and Derrida on hospitality, see Marguerite La Caze, Not Just Visitors:Cosmopolitanism, Hospitality, and Refugees, Philosophy Today 48, no. 3 (2004): 313-24.Beardsworth analyses the relation between Kant and Derrida on law and violence in RichardBeardsworth, Derrida and the Political (London: Routledge 1996), 46-70.

7. I prefer the term ethics to morality as it seems less focused on individual mores to thecontemporary ear.

8. Immanuel Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, in Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:380.9. This position follows from his view that ought to implies can in Immanuel Kant,

Critique of Practical Reason, in Kant, Practical Philosophy. Kant says that our awareness ofthe moral law when we construct maxims of the will leads us to the concept of freedom.Furthermore, our experience confirms this concept of freedom when we remember that we



can act against our strongest desires and even our love of life in order to act ethically (ibid.,5:30). By contrast, in the Groundwork (in Kant, Practical Philosophy), Kant argues thatbecause we are autonomous we are bound by the moral law: If, therefore, freedom of the willis presupposed, morality together with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of itsconcept (ibid., 4:447). Elsewhere, in a review of Schulzs [a]ttempt at an introduction to adoctrine of morals, he asserts that without this possibility of freedom, any imperative is absurdand the only position we can adopt is fatalism (ibid., 8:13).

10. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:370. Kant defines right as the sum of the conditionsunder which the choice of one can be united with the choice of another in accordance with auniversal law of freedom (ibid., 6:230). He further distinguishes between natural or privateright, which includes rights to property, rights to contracts, and domestic right, and public orcivil right, which concerns the rights of a state, the rights of nations, and cosmopolitan right.The doctrine of virtue includes duties to ourselves and the duties to others of love and respect.

11. The doctrine of right concerns the a priori basis of ethical laws. One might disagreewith Kants view that politics is the doctrine of right put into practice and argue, for example,that ethics and politics are two separate spheres, as Arendt does in Hannah Arendt,Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken, 2003), 147-58.

12. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:372.13. According to Kant, the aims of moral evil are self-contradictory and self-destructive,

whereas those of moral goodness are consistent and conducive to happiness, so evil gives wayto the moral principle of goodness (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:379). See Kants discussionof radical evil in Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, in Religionand Rational Theology, trans. and ed. Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1996).

14. Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley, Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates inPhilosophy (London: Routledge, 1999), 70.

15. Jacques Derrida, Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews, 1971-2001, trans. ElizabethRottenberg (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 295-314. The essay was firstgiven as a talk in 1987.

16. Ibid., 295.17. Ibid., 298.18. Ibid., 301.19. Levinas also believes that we have to negotiate between ethics and politics. Robert

Bernasconi says that Levinas is not concerned to resolve conflicts between ethics and politics,yet the task of negotiating in practice the conflicting demands under which I find myself,involves the use of reason, that is, the third person perspective; Robert Bernasconi, TheThird Party: Levinas on the Intersection of the Ethical and the Political, Journal of the BritishSociety for Phenomenology 30, no. 1 (1999): 81. In his view, while Levinas favors ethics overpolitics, they are not in opposition for him.

20. Jacques Derrida, Ethics and Politics Today, in Jacques Derrida, Negotiations(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 305. Both these approaches have been usedin response to the taking of foreign hostages in Iraq. In that circumstance, I think it would behard to justify a refusal to negotiate as there is not enough order for one to argue that suchnegotiation would create a precedent.

21. Jacques Derrida, Force of Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority, trans. MaryQuaintance, in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, ed. Drucilla Cornell, MichelRosenfeld, and David Gray Carlson (London: Routledge, 1992), 14.



22. Emmanuel Levinas, Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures, trans. Gary D.Mole (London: Athlone, 1994), 46. For another reading of Levinass essay, in relation to theidea of political utopianism, see Oona Eisenstadt, The Problem of the Promise: Derrida onLevinas on the Cities of Refuge, Cross Currents 52, no. 4 (2003): 474-82.

23. Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 112. Levinass idea of justice appears to be verydifferent from Derridas. For Derrida, justice is the ultimate ethical ideal, the undecon-structible, that goes beyond particular laws (Derrida, Force of Law, 14). For Levinas, justiceis the political necessity of weighing different competing claims, contrasted with the infiniteresponsibility for the particular other that is the ethical relation. In Derridas outlook, justicetakes this concern with singularity.

24. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:377.25. In On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in prac-

tice, Kant defines the principles of a civil state as (1) the freedom of every member of thesociety as a human being, (2) his equality with every other as a subject, and (3) the indepen-dence of every member of a commonwealth as a citizen (ibid., 8:290); and likewise inImmanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (in ibid., 6:314), and in Immanuel Kant,Perpetual Peace, Kant says that the principles of a Republican state are freedom, equality, andthe dependence of all upon a single common legislation (as subjects) (in ibid., 8:350). Acomparison of Kants republicanism with Derridas idea of democracy is one I do not have thespace to pursue here.

26. Ibid., 8:381. The second transcendental principle of public right is as follows: Allmaxims which need publicity (in order not to fail in their end) harmonize with right and pol-itics combined (ibid., 8:386). Kants argument for this principle is that if maxims can only besuccessful through publicity, they must correspond to the universal public end, which is hap-piness, and for him this is what politics must do.

27. Ibid., 8:385.28. Ibid., 8:381.29. Ibid., 8:380.30. There has been a great deal of interest in Kants condemnation of rebellion here, par-

ticularly since he is a well-known supporter of the French Revolution; ibid., 6:320-23. See, forexample, Kimberly Hutchings, Kant, Critique, and Politics (London: Routledge, 1996), 46;and Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kants Political Philosophy, ed. Ronald Beiner (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1982), 44-51.

31. Derrida, Force of Law, 35.32. Kants examples of ethical constraints on politics between states include the non-

acquisition of existing states, the abolition of standing armies, no national debts with regardto external affairs, non-interference with the governments of other states, and not using duplic-itous means in war; definitive articles recommend republicanism for all states, a federalism offree states, and the cosmopolitan right of hospitality. Kant examines three cases of apparentconflict between politics and morals in international right and presents their resolution: whereone nation promises to aid another nation but decides to release itself from the promisebecause of the effects that keeping the promise would have on its own well-being, where lessernations could not make public the idea that they intend to attack a greater power preemptively,and where a large nation could not make it known that it would absorb smaller nations if itthought that necessary to its preservation (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:383-84). Third, Kantsays that cosmopolitan rights maxims work by analogy to those of international right.Cosmopolitan right is interesting since the power imbalance between individuals and states isenormous.



33. Ibid., 8:385.34. Another example Kant gives is that

it cannot be demanded of a state that it give up its constitution even though this is adespotic one (which is, for all that, the stronger kind in relation to external enemies),so long as it runs the risk of being at once devoured by other states; hence, as for thatresolution, it must also be permitted to postpone putting it into effect until a morefavorable time. (Ibid., 8:373)

Thus, it is reasonable to wait until the state is secure from invasion before rectifying injusticeif that injustice is protecting the state.

35. Elisabeth Ellis, Kants Politics: Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World (NewHaven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005), 112-54.

36. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 6:347.37. Ibid.38. Another way Kant puts this point is that although respect is a mere duty of virtue, it

is regarded as narrow in comparison with a duty of love, and it is the latter that is considereda wide duty; ibid., 6:450.

39. Ibid., 8:301.40. Ibid., 6:371.41. Immanuel Kant, Doctrine of Right, in The Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary Gregor

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), XIX, 594-95, quoted in Robert J. Dostal,Judging Human Action: Arendts Appropriation of Kant, Review of Metaphysics 37 (1984): 732.

42. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:386.43. Critchley, The Ethics of Deconstruction, 200. In a later essay, Critchley presents

Derridas account of the decision more sympathetically by describing it as non-foundationalbut non-arbitrary and necessarily contextual; Simon Critchley, Remarks on Derrida andHabermas, Constellations 7, no. 4 (2000): 461-62.

44. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, 194.45. Ibid., 116.46. Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 114-15. Another way that Derrida expresses this

problem is by writing, as shown above in the text, The hiatus, the silence of this non-responseconcerning the schemas between the ethical and the political, remains. It is a fact that itremains, and this fact is not some empirical contingency, it is a Faktum (ibid., 116).

47. Quoted in Giovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with JrgenHabermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 114-15.

48. Ibid., 120.49. Ibid., 121.50. Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas

(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005), 86. Critchley has a very good, albeit brief,discussion of what Derrida means by democracy to come in Remarks on Derrida andHabermas, 463-64.

51. Jacques Derrida, Limited, Inc., ed. Gerald Graff (Evanston, Ill.: NorthwesternUniversity Press 1988), 152.

52. Ibid., 153.53. Derrida, Rogues, 83.54. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London:

Macmillan, 1986), A669-704, B697-732.



55. Ibid., A686, B714.56. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 134. Derrida also says he hesitates to con-

flate his idea of justice with a Kantian regulative idea (Derrida, Force of Law, 25). Herepeats his reservations in Derrida, Rogues (83-85), in a discussion concerning democracy.

57. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 6:409.58. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 131-32.59. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness.60. Kants description of moral ideas in the Critique of Practical Reason also seems helpful:[I]f I understand by an idea a perfection to which nothing adequate can be given inexperience, the moral ideas, are not, on that account, something transcendent, that is,something of which we cannot even determine the concept sufficiently or of which itis uncertain whether there is any object corresponding to it at all, as is the case withthe ideas of speculative reason; instead, the moral ideas, as archetypes of practicalperfection, serve as the indispensable rule of moral conduct and also as the standardof comparison. (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 5:127).

Here Kant is referring to moral virtues such as wisdom and holiness. This idea seems quiteclose to Derridas in the fact that they are impossiblenothing in experience can matchthembut are not transcendent, and can be used as a standard.

61. Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmentelle Invites Jacques Derrida toRespond, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000), 81.

62. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 135.63. Derrida, Force of Law, 17.64. Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 117.65. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 21-22; and Olivia Custer, Kant after

Derrida: Inventing Oneself out of an Impossible Choice, in Rothfield, Kant after Derrida,171-204.

66. La Caze, Not Just Visitors.67. See Marguerite La Caze, Should Radical Evil Be Forgiven? in Forensic Psychiatry:

Influences of Evil, ed. Tom Mason (Totowa, N.J.: Humana Press, 2006), 273-93, where I arguethat Derridas view of forgiveness implies that the onus is on the victim to forgive, althoughhe does not argue for it explicitly.

68. See Kant, Practical Philosophy, 6:452-55.69. Derrida, Force of Law, 23.70. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 4:403. Kant observed that even experts could lack judg-

ment in his essay on theory and practice:

[T]here can be theoreticians who can never in their lives become practical because theyare lacking in judgment, for example, physicians or jurists who did well in their school-ing but who are at a loss when they have to give an expert opinion. (Ibid., 8:275)

He thinks that this is due to a lack of the natural talent of judgment. But, as Kant makes clear,this difficulty in judgment applies to certain professional fields, not to ethics.

71. Ibid., 4:407-8.72. Derrida, Rogues, 88.73. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 133.74. Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 112.75. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 113-14.



76. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 6:347.77. Ibid., 6:314-15. Kant makes a distinction between active citizens, who are independent

and can vote, and passive ones, who he argues are dependent on the will of others.78. Ibid., 6:320, 6:333.79. Nelson Potter, Kant and Capital Punishment Today, Journal of Value Inquiry 36, nos.

2/3 (2002): 267-82.80. Jacques Derrida and Elisabeth Roudinesco, For What Tomorrow . . . a Dialogue, trans.

Jeff Fort (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004), 148.81. I do not have the space to argue for my position here, but I think it is important to indi-

cate the points where I think Kant is misguided. Of course there are other points, such as hisview of the status of wives and servants (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 6:277, 6:315), which aredeeply problematic; I have only focused on two important issues.

82. Derrida and Roudinesco, For What Tomorrow, 148.83. Arendt contends that ethics involves a concern with the self whereas politics involves

a concern with the world; Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment, 153. Michel Foucault believesthat subjects must be free to practice ethical relations with themselves and others; MichelFoucault, Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, vol. 1, ed. Paul Rabinow (London: Penguin,1997), 281-301.

Marguerite La Caze is an Australian Research Fellow (2003-2007) in philosophy at theUniversity of Queensland working on a major project on Wonder and Generosity as Guidesto the Ethics and Politics of Respect for Difference. She has research interests and numerouspublications in European philosophy and feminist philosophy. Her publications include TheAnalytic Imaginary (Cornell, 2002); Integrity and the Fragile Self, coauthored with DamianCox and Michael Levine (Ashgate, 2003); and recent articles with a focus on the work of Kantand Derrida in Philosophy Today (2004) and Contemporary Political Theory (2006).



/ColorImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorImageDict > /AntiAliasGrayImages false /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict > /GrayImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayImageDict > /AntiAliasMonoImages false /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict > /AllowPSXObjects false /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox false /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName (http://www.color.org) /PDFXTrapped /Unknown

/DetectCurves 0.100000 /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveFlatness true /CropColorImages true /ColorImageMinResolution 150 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /CropGrayImages true /GrayImageMinResolution 150 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /CropMonoImages true /MonoImageMinResolution 1200 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /SyntheticBoldness 1.000000 /Description >>> setdistillerparams> setpagedevice

political theory 2007 la caze 781 805

Documents

kants ethics

relationbetween ethics

theorizinghow ethics

conditionsfor ethics

politics of friendship

political philosophy

recentyears derrida

compolitical theory