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duties
politics;
Keywords:Kant;Derrida;ethics;
Politics says, 'Be ye wise as serpents';morals adds (as a limitingcondition)
'and guileless as doves.'1
It is necessary todeduce a politics and a law fromethics.2
Recent
Note:
I would
Research
Council
and
for supporting my
South Wales
philosophy
seminar; Damian
Cox;
two anonymous
the
reviewers;
and the editor of Political Theory for constructive comments on earlier versions of this essay.
781
782
Political Theory
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
783
into conflict. Iwill briefly sketchKant and Derrida's overall views on their
relation and then consider inmore detail the differences between them. In
'Toward Perpetual Peace' Kant argues thatmorals, in termsof right,should
be takenmuch more seriously in political decisions; in fact, it should be the
overriding consideration. As he writes, '[A]ll politics must bend its knee
before right.'8 It should be noted that it is only the enforceable aspect of
ethics that is relevant to politics forKant.
The firststep inKant's demonstration that there is no conflict between
politics and ethics is the view thatwe are always free to act ethically. He
contends thatmorals could not have any authority ifwe could not act on
them.9Kant's
people's
784
PoliticalTheory
Derrida
and its laws. Conditions on hospitality may be necessary, but they are not
truehospitality. Thus Derrida finds a kind of ethical imperative in the logic
of the concepts themselves. Insofar as we aspire topure hospitality and true
forgiveness, they provide an ethical demand by highlighting the ethical
inadequacy of conditional hospitality and forgiveness.
Derrida develops his position concerning the relation between ethics and
politics most explicitly in 'Ethics and Politics Today,'15 although he returns to
this question in a number of other works, including Adieu to Emmanuel
Levinas. What he focuses on is the responsibility tounderstand these concepts:
[R]esponsibilityof course requires thatany answer be preceded inprinciple
by a slow, patient,rigorouselucidation of theconcepts thatare used in dis
cussion. . . .For each of thewords ethics andpolitics, but also forall of the
words thatone immediatelyassociates with them.16
Nevertheless, in spite of this need for seemingly endless elucidation,
Derrida says thatall ethical and political decisions are structuredby urgency,
precisely because we have to take decisions without any certainty about the
rightnessof what we do. He writes that in ethics and politics, this structureof
urgency 'is simultaneously the condition of possibility and the condition of
impossibility of all responsibility."7For Derrida, ethics and politics also have
in common that they are answering the question 'What should I do?' and
thatwe should give thoughtful and responsible answers to the question.
Nevertheless, ethics and politics appear, at least, to be very different.Derrida
characterizes these perceived differences between ethics and politics.
Because ethical responsibilityappeals to an unconditional that is ruled by
pure and universal principles already formalized,thisethical responsibility,
thisethical response can and should be immediate,in short,rathersimple, it
should make straightfor the goal all at once, straight to its end, without
gettingcaught up in an analysis of hypotheticalimperatives,incalculations,
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
785
786
PoliticalTheory
distinguishes between
deduce politics from ethics, which is absolute and unconditional, and the
question of content thatwe have a responsibility to determine forourselves
in each particular case. In this sense we can see thatDerrida agrees with
Kant that ethical considerations always have a role in politics, but they do
not constrain politics in quite the same way. Rather than providing a limit
they set up an impossible injunction that politics can
rather
than follow. To understand thisdifference between the
only aspire to,
two on the intersection of ethics and politics more thoroughly,we need to
towhat is possible,
in which Kant
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
787
a very powerful state can be quite open about itsmaxims.27 The power of
such a state means it does not have to be concerned about opposition or
resistance to itsmaxims. Kant argues for this principle of public right as
follows:
788
PoliticalTheory
commensurable with
made
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
789
of the rights of the relative or indeed any other person. Although it is a dif
ficultpractical problem thathe does not examine in depth, he is quite clear
that such rights should never be violated and he does touch on the issue
briefly.
In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant says that 'there is a categorical
imperative, Obey the authoritywho has power over you (in whatever does
not conflict with innermorality).'40 Morals can conflict with political prac
tice if a leader demands we do something unethical, and when they do we
must obey morals. However, here and elsewhere, as I noted, Kant con
demns revolutions, a condemnation that seems counter to his own theory. It
is rarely observed thatKant 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 judgmenthaving thevalidityof law[,] is
against the law; consequently the people cannot rebel except in the cases
which cannot at all come forwardin a civil union, e.g., theenforcementof a
religion,compulsion tounnaturalcrimes,assassination, etc.41
The implication appears to be that if such acts were generally forced upon
a people, they could not properly be in a civil union. Therefore, tyrannical
and totalitarian regimes may well not count as civil unions forKant. Then
revolution 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 the
state and other duties that could be brought against Kant would be
accounted forby this caveat. However, revolution for such reasons as poor
government or inequity would still be excluded as they could occur in a
civil 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
trineof virtue. Kant also believes thatpolitics and virtue should agree, but
notes thatphilanthropy is an imperfectduty, or in otherwords thathow it is
fulfilled is to a great extent a matter of discretion. In any case, his view is
thatpolitics easily agrees with this sense of morality 'in order to surrender
the rights of human beings to their superiors.'42What he has inmind here
is that 'politics,' or rather those in power, like to pretend thatperfect duties
of right are imperfect duties that theybestow only as benevolence and so
are very ready to claim they are moral in that sense. This distinction
between perfect and imperfect duties, a distinction rejected by Derrida,
important to conceiving an ethical politics, I argue.
is
790
PoliticalTheory
Levinas's
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
791
Categorical Imperative
792
Political Theory
in a Time of
Terror, Derrida outlines three reservations about aligning what he calls his
impossible reals with Kant's possible ideals. First, Derrida says, his impos
sible is 'what ismost undeniably real' in itsurgency and its demands.56 This
can be seen as in contrast to a possible ideal thatwe work toward, likeKant's
cosmopolitan ideal. Unlike Kant's dictum thatought implies can, Derrida's
dictum is that 'ought implies cannot.' This
is an important difference
between the two.On Derrida's account, one can take imperatives to be real
even ifone does not think theycan be reached or satisfied. I would note that
ideals can also be real in the sense of being urgent and making demands. At
one point, Kant says thatvirtue 'is an ideal and unattainable, while yet con
stant approximation to it is a duty.'57The fundamental difference is thatKant
believes thatwe can fulfillour duty in this approximation, butDerrida holds
that such approximation is in no sense a fulfillmentof 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 be
imposed on by heteronomy or the imperative of the other, of politics, of the
conditional, and theremust be a transaction between these two impera
tives.58The unconditional imperative demands thatwe go beyond duty.The
unconditional imperative of justice contrasts with law, as unconditional
hospitality and forgiveness contrast with their conditional pairs.59 In every
case
the unconditional
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
793
expression of "categorical
imperative" is not unproblematic; we will keep itwith some reservations. '61
The concern with needing to go beyond a rule thatdetermines actions is one
synonym for "unconditional,"
the Kantian
that requires some discussion, and I will return to this issue after briefly
considering
Derrida's thirdreservation.
third reservation returns toKant's metaphysics, saying that if
Derrida's
'have to subscribe
hospitality
is not only
impossible
but also
positively
claim is that
794
PoliticalTheory
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
795
if they could involve rule following. This is one of the paradoxical aspects
of Derrida's
thinking.While
he makes
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, forDerrida, are always made in relation to an
unconditional injunction.While in judging, one must reinterpretand reaf
firmexisting rules; the judge is not just ifhe or she
doesn't referto any law, to any rule or if,because he doesn't take any rule
he suspends his decision, stops
forgrantedbeyond his own interpretation,
shortbefore theundecidable or ifhe improvisesand leaves aside all rules,
all principles.69
Such a process of judgment involves the recognition of the specificity of
particular cases, something likeKant's notion of a reflective judgment that
begins with the particular, but itdoes not require the creation of new prin
ciples. Derrida acknowledges that new judgments can conform to existing
laws but theymust reaffirmthem.How I understand his point is as theneed
to consider each situation afresh even when applying a law or principle.
This point is reasonable, but more difficult to accept is Derrida's
idea of
Human Rights
Reconstructing
I am critical of both Kant and Derrida and find insights in both their
work. On the issue of human rights,Kant's overall framework ismore pro
ductive thanDerrida's even though he identifies inconsistencies inKant's
account. Kant's argument provides an important step toward an ethical
politics, in spite of his unappealing condemnation of revolutions and lack
796
PoliticalTheory
Rights as a means
of challenging
the concepts related to human rights, and in that sense, there is no problem
with thatkind of questioning.
However, it is when this idea is combined with Derrida's view thatwe
have to negotiate with the unconditional that his position becomes more
difficult. If such things as human rights are always potentially negotiable,
then they cannot be relied on as principles to guide ethical or political
decisions. Questions of the death penalty, denaturalization, treatment of
refugees, and conduct of war, forexample, are not subject to any limitations
as such. Any unconditional demands are always weighed up against condi
tional exigencies. So, for instance, even torturemight be justifiable if it can
be negotiated or exchanged for some other value or in the light of condi
tional considerations. This is the implication of Derrida's claim that the
Torah 'must enjoin a negotiation with the non-negotiable,' quoted earlier.74
It is also the implication of unconditional demands, such as hospitality, that
comments on democracy are quite
useful for thinking about political systems, as he says that democracy is
preferable to other systems because it opens onto a future and is per
fectible.75These criteriamay enable us to determine preferable courses of
are themselves destructive. Derrida's
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
797
from the role of active citizens.77Nevertheless, one could extend this prin
ciple in an inclusive way. Another problem I see inKant's account of right
is his acceptance of capital punishment for the crimes of high treason and
murder.78 This acceptance appears to be in conflict with the categorical
imperative to treateveryone as ends in themselves and with thewhole tenor
of theKantian view thatwe should treatothers with respect. However, as
Nelson Potter argues, in both these cases Kant can be revised in a manner
thatmakes his view more consistent, particularly since Kant himself was
offering a critique of the contemporary cruel punishments often carried out
as well as arguing for a limitation on the crimes capital punishment should
be applied to.79These are reconstructions thatwould be necessary for gen
uine compatibility between ethics and politics, inmy view.
Derrida does not address this question of how importantKant takes the
death penalty to be, although he emphasizes Kant's connection of the jus
talionis (law of retribution) to the basis of criminal justice.80 I would argue
that one could retain this conception of punishment but still maintain an
abolitionist stance, although itwould be preferable to have a differentview
of punishment as well.8" Kant's ideas of rights need to be reconstructed in
a number of ways, some of which they already have been in practice (at
leastwidely), to include women as active citizens, and some of which they
have not, to exclude capital punishment, for example. An ethical politics
should make an explicit commitment to certain rights and work out how
theycan be established and upheld. While Derrida is doubtless against cap
ital punishment, for example, he does not set out the principles on which
thatopposition is based, but says thatboth the death penalty and abolition
ist discourse are deconstructible.82 This analysis suggests that the death
penalty is negotiable, and that raises an issue about how his view could be
made compatible with a commitment to human rights.
Conclusion
This engagement between the two philosophers is interesting in itself,
yetmy aim in pursuing this encounter between Kant and Derrida is also to
798
PoliticalTheory
an ethical politics.
vision. Derrida is right to claim thathe goes beyond Kant. I contend that in
raising the importance of virtue as well as right to politics, his view is an
important advance
on Kant's.
Derrida's
focus on unconditional
ethics
brings the imperfect duties of Kant to the forefrontof politics. This insis
tence on the importance of unconditional ethical demands to politics forces
us to thinkmore carefully about the role of these demands and about the
responsibility of both ethics and politics to each other. Derrida's work
reminds 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, it
does not clarify how important ethics should be or suggest what conditions
would facilitate the negotiation between ethics and politics. Precisely
because Derrida goes further thanKant by bringing up the importance of
thevirtues, he should have more to say about what would make them flour
ish.However, Derrida does not account for the conditions thatwill support
an ethical politics and make ethical livingmore likely, perhaps because he
believes that any specific suggestions would be 'totalitarian.'The idea of a
'democracy to come' involves some important suggestions for international
institutions but does not articulate changes thatwould be needed to assist
groups and individuals tomeet those demands. His emphasis on uncondi
tional ethical concepts such as forgiveness and hospitality places the onus
on the individual to try to live up to unconditional demands. Yet a distinc
tion should be made between unconditional demands that are necessarily
destructive 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 of
virtue or imperfect duties, he does not advance beyond Kant by suggesting
what kind of political structures would enable the flourishing of these
virtues. His
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
799
political organization should take account of the need for practical benevo
lence and ethical responses. Understanding the intersection of ethics and
politics in thisway requires a sense of what it is to act with respect and
benevolence forothers, so thatall decisions have these ethical standards as
touchstones to judgment. In order forDerrida's suggestion of an expansion
of the ethical realm tomake sense, political lifewould involve creating the
best conditions for ethical relations to ourselves and to others, in addition
to the constraints Kant believes ethics should place on politics. While we
should acknowledge the special circumstances of politics, politics should
be ethical inmore 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.83
However, I disagree with Kant thatwe should simply hope thatvirtue fol
lows in thewake of rightor, to thinkof it anotherway, that love will follow
respect 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 thatwe are able ormore likely to carry out imperfectduties to our
selves, such as the duty to perfect ourselves, and the imperfect duties of
benevolence to others. To give priority to ethics as Derrida conceives it, the
virtues of respect and of love would have to be encouraged and form the
basis of politics. These ethical considerations are relevant to the three
within states, between states, and
spheres thatKant discusses-relations
between states and individuals. It is also relevant to relations between indi
viduals. Thus, the complexities of including the virtues in an ethical poli
ticswould have to be carefully considered with regard to all these relations.
These features of an ethical politics involve both basic human rights as
advocated by Kant and the cultivation of virtues as suggested by Derrida.
Furthermore,pursuit of thevirtues itselfcan facilitate a transformationof pol
itics and political conditions, and I take thispoint to be implicit inDerrida's
800
PoliticalTheory
Notes
trans.Mary J.Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge
1. Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy,
University Press, 1996), 8:37.
2. Jacques Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael
Naas (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1999), 115.
3. See, for example, Christopher Norris, What's Wrong with Postmodernism:
Critical
(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990), 194
Theory and the Ends of Philosophy
relation to Kant's epistemological
207, for a discussion of Derrida's
project; Irene Harvey,
and The Economy ofDiff?rance
is concerned with the influence of Kant's
Derrida
and Forgiveness,
1997); and Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism
Michael Hughes (London: Routledge, 2001).
5. Jacques Derrida, Questioning God, ed. John Caputo, Mark
Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 66.
trans.Mark Dooley
Dooley,
and
and Michael
J.
Bankovsky,
"Derrida
Law," Philosophy
Cosmopolitical
relation of both to Kant. Derrida
inRichard
1996), 46-70.
(London: Routledge
7.1 prefer the term ethics tomorality as it seems less focused on individual mores
contemporary ear.
to the
the moral
law when we
construct maxims
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
801
can act against our strongest desires and even our love of life in order to act ethically (ibid.,
(in Kant, Practical Philosophy), Kant argues that
5:30). By contrast, in the Groundwork
because we are autonomous we are bound by themoral law: 'If, therefore, freedom of thewill
is presupposed, morality together with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of its
in a review of Schulz's
concept' (ibid., 4:447). Elsewhere,
'[ajttempt at an introduction to a
doctrine of morals,' he asserts thatwithout this possibility of freedom, any imperative is absurd
and 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 conditions
under which the choice of one can be united with the choice of another in accordance with a
law of freedom' (ibid., 6:230). He further distinguishes between natural or private
right,which includes rights to property, rights to contracts, and domestic right, and public or
civil 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.
universal
11. The doctrine of right concerns the a priori basis of ethical laws. One might disagree
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,
with Kant's
2003),
147-58.
whereas
and Rational
Theology,
and George
Questioning
Ethics:
di Giovanni
(Cambridge:
Contemporary
Debates
in
trans.Elizabeth
essay was first
hard to justify a refusal to negotiate as there is not enough order for one to argue that such
negotiation would 'create a precedent.'
21. Jacques Derrida, "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority,'" trans.Mary
in Deconstruction
and the Possibility of Justice, ed. Drucilla Cornell, Michel
Quaintance,
Rosenfeld,
(London: Routledge,
1992), 14.
Political Theory
802
Mole
as a citizen
and likewise in
(ibid., 8:290);
and in Immanuel Kant,
(in ibid., 6:314),
state are freedom, equality, and
Perpetual Peace, Kant says that the principles of a Republican
'of all upon a single common legislation (as subjects)' (in ibid., 8:350). A
the dependence
comparison of Kant's republicanism with Derrida's idea of democracy is one I do not have the
Immanuel
Philosophy,
ed. Ronald
Beiner
(Chicago:
32. Kant's examples of ethical constraints on politics between states include the non
acquisition of existing states, the abolition of standing armies, no national debts with regard
to external affairs, non-interference with the governments of other states, and not using duplic
itous means inwar; definitive articles recommend republicanism for all states, a federalism of
free states, and the cosmopolitan right of hospitality. Kant examines three cases of apparent
conflict between politics and morals in international right and presents their resolution: where
one nation promises to aid another nation but decides to release itself from the promise
of the effects thatkeeping the promise would have on its own well-being, where lesser
nations 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 itwould absorb smaller nations if it
because
thought that necessary to its preservation (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:383-84). Third, Kant
that cosmopolitan right's maxims work by analogy to those of international right.
Cosmopolitan
right is interesting since the power imbalance between individuals and states is
says
enormous.
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
803
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 considered
a wide duty'; ibid., 6:450.
39. Ibid., 8:301.
40. Ibid., 6:371.
41. Immanuel Kant, "Doctrine of Right," in The Metaphysics
ed. Mary Gregor
ofMorals,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), XIX, 594-95, quoted in Robert J. Dostal,
"Judging Human Action: Arendt's Appropriation ofKant," Review ofMetaphysics 37 (1984): 732.
42. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:386.
43. Critchley, The Ethics of Deconstruction,
200. In a later essay, Critchley presents
Derrida's account of the decision more sympathetically by describing it as non-foundational
but non-arbitrary and necessarily contextual; Simon Critchley, "Remarks on Derrida and
Habermas," Constellations 1, no. 4 (2000):
44. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, 194.
45. Ibid., 116.
461-62.
46. Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, 114-15. Another way thatDerrida expresses this
problem is by writing, as shown above in the text, 'The hiatus, the silence of this non-response
concerning the sch?mas between the ethical and the political, remains. It is a fact that it
remains, and this fact is not some empirical contingency, it is a Faktum1 (ibid., 116).
47. Quoted inGiovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues
with J?rgen
Habermas
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,
to come in "Remarks on Derrida and
discussion of what Derrida means by democracy
Habermas," 463-64.
51. Jacques Derrida, Limited,
University Press 1988), 152.
52. Ibid., 153.
Inc.,
ed. Gerald
Graff
(Evanston,
111.: Northwestern
Smith (London:
804
PoliticalTheory
55. Ibid.,A686,B714.
in a Time of Terror, 134. Derrida also says he hesitates to con
56. Borradori, Philosophy
flate his idea of justice with a Kantian regulative idea (Derrida, "Force of Law," 25). He
repeats his reservations inDerrida, Rogues (83-85), in a discussion concerning democracy.
57. Kant, Practical
Philosophy, 6:409.
in a Time of Terror, 131-32.
58. Borradori, Philosophy
and Forgiveness.
59. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism
60. Kant's description of moral
experience,
is uncertain whether there is any object corresponding to it at all, as is the case with
the ideas of speculative reason; instead, the moral ideas, as archetypes of practical
perfection, serve as the indispensable rule of moral conduct and also as the standard
of comparison. (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 5:127).
is referring tomoral virtues such as wisdom and holiness. This idea seems quite
to Derrida's
in experience can match
in the fact that they are impossible?nothing
them?but are not transcendent, and can be used as a standard.
Here Kant
close
to
6:452-55.
lack judg
[T]here can be theoreticians who can never in their lives become practical because they
are 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
to certain professional fields, not to ethics.
clear,
La Caze
/Kant, Derrida,
805
Marguerite
La
is an Australian
Caze
University of Queensland
Research
Fellow
(2003-2007)
in philosophy
forDifference."
at the
as Guides
Her publicationsincludeThe
publicationsinEuropeanphilosophyand feminist
philosophy.
Analytic
Cox
Imaginary
and Michael
and Derrida
(Cornell, 2002);
Levine
in Philosophy
(Ashgate, 2003);
Today (2004)
Political
Theory (2006).