The Ethics of Subjectivity

The Ethics of Subjectivity
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The Ethics of Subjectivity
Perspectives since the Dawn of Modernity
Edited by
Elvis Imafidon
Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria
Selection, introduction and editorial matter © Elvis Imafidon 2015
Chapters © Individual authors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-47241-0
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First published 2015 by
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The ethics of subjectivity : perspectives since the dawn of modernity /
[edited by] Elvis Imafidon, Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Subjectivity. 2. Ethics. I. Imafidon, Elvis, 1984– editor.
BD222.E89 2015
126—dc23 2015003206
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction: Modernity, Ethics and the Subject 1

Elvis Imafidon
1 From Chaos to Order: The Role of the Self in Hobbes’

Moralism 11
Francis Offor
2 Kant’s Contribution to Moral Evolution: From

Modernism to Postmodernism 24
Joseph Osei
3 The Moral Agent: Bradley’s Critique of Hegel’s

Evolutionary Ethics 43
Anthony O. Echekwube
4 Reflections on Kierkegaard’s Inwardness and Ethics of

Subjectivity 54
Blessing O. Agidigbi
5 Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual and the Ethics of

Subjectivity 71
Sharli Anne Paphitis
6 A Case for Foucault’s Reversal of Opinion on the

Autonomy of the Subject 103
Bob Robinson
7 The Ethics and Politics of Self-Creation in Foucault 126

AB (Benda) Hofmeyr
8 Jacques Derrida on the Ethics of Hospitality 144

Gerasimos Kakoliris
9 Karl Popper’s Contribution to Postmodernist Ethics 157

Joseph Osei
v
vi Contents
10 Open Standard, Open Judgment and Value Revision in

Karl Popper’s Moral Philosophy 189
Peter A. Ikhane
11 Navigating Feyerabend’s Moral Philosophy from

Boundaries Without Values to Values Without Boundaries 201
Isaac E. Ukpokolo
12 Outlines of Jacques Lacan’s Ethics of Subjectivity 214

Gregory B. Sadler
13 Ayn Rand’s Ethics of Rational Selfishness 240

Precious O. Ighoroje
14 Habermas’ Ethics of Intersubjectivity 255
Elvis Imafidon
15 Levinas Meets the Postcolonial: Rethinking the

Ethics of the Other 280
AB (Benda) Hofmeyr
16 Rorty’s Contribution to Postmodern Ethics 296

Amaechi Udefi
17 Human Conversation and the Evolution of Ethics in

Kitcher’s Pragmatic Naturalism 310
Farinola Augustine Akintunde
Selected Bibliography 326
Index 341

Acknowledgements
Sometime in May 2013, I had become very eager to develop what I

strongly felt was a common thread running through moral discourse
since modernity: a deliberate concern for, or interest in, the role of the
self or the subject in defining systems and principles of human action.
As is customary with me when I am perturbed by an idea, I read widely
about it, discussed it with some friends and colleagues, shared it with
likeminded scholars privately or publicly in some discussion forums, and
the idea began to germinate. It quickly grew, in about eighteen months,
into what is now presented in the pages that follow. Within this span of
time, a number of persons, to whom I am very grateful, have played key
roles in watering the idea and making it grow in quite discouraging soil.
J. T. Craig, Gregory B. Saddler and Gary Moore were among the very first
persons to support me with their positive comments on some LinkedIn
discussion groups where I had shared the idea. The contributors of the
chapters of this volume have been a source of encouragement in no
small way. I am particularly thankful to Prof. Benda Hofmeyr who played
a key role in the review process. The Senior Commissioning Editor for
Philosophy at Palgrave Macmillan, Brendan George, and his assistant,
Esme Chapman, have been very helpful right from the initial assess-
ment and review of the proposal for publication to the final production
stages. I am very thankful for the wonderful suggestions made.
But, there are a few who have always stood by me through thick
and thin, who never complained even when they could have done
so legitimately. There has always been the one who understood with
me when I had to keep late nights in the study, when I was absent
from the room, when I was too busy to keep her company. My loving
wife, Sandra, and my beautiful daughters, Evelyn and Ellen, have
always provided the perfect atmosphere for study and research. I am
always indebted to them and gladly so. There are also those who have
always been a source of encouragement and support. My parents,
Mr. & Mrs. M. U. Imafidon, my brothers: Collins, Felix and Kester,
my sisters: Rita, Itohan and Ivie, my senior colleagues, particularly
Professors J. A. Aigbodioh, Isaac E. Ukpokolo, Joseph Osei, Thaddeus
Metz and Jim I. Unah. To these, I am grateful. I also thank the staff
and students of the Philosophy Department, Ambrose Alli University,
Ekpoma, Nigeria for their unflinching support.
vii
viii Acknowledgements
Two chapters in this volume are revised versions of papers published

in two reputable journals:
Sharli Anne Paphitis’ article titled “Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual

and the Ethics of Subjectivity” is a revised version of her article,
“Vulnerability and the Sovereign Individual: Nussbaum and Nietzsche
on the Role of Agency and Vulnerability in Personhood” published in
The South African Journal of Philosophy.
Benda Hofmeyr’s article titled, “The Ethics and Politics of Self-creation
in Foucault” is a revised version of her article, “The Power No to Be
(What We Are): The Politics and Ethics of Self-formation in Foucault”
published in the Journal of Moral Philosophy.
I am grateful to the editors/publishers of the journals for granting

permission to reprint.
Above all, I am grateful to the Nonpareil Being for guiding me and
leading me through right paths of life.

Notes on Contributors
Blessing O. Agidigbi is Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy,

Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. He specializes in existen-
tialist philosophy, epistemology and African philosophy. He is particu-
larly interested in the works of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and he has
published a number of essays in these areas. He is the author of the
monograph, Themes and Issues in Existentialism Philosophy.
Sharli Anne Paphitis has taught in the fields of Ethics, Existentialism and
Nietzsche Studies at Rhodes University and the University of Fort Hare
in South Africa. She has been awarded the Cohen and Oosthuizen Prizes
for Philosophy, and was a Mellon, NRF, and Erasmus doctoral scholar,
reading Nietzsche at Rhodes University and Jagiellonian University in
Poland. She has published original articles on Nietzsche in the South
African Journal of Philosophy.
Farinola Augustine Akintunde is a doctoral research student in the

Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria. He
specializes in logic, ethics, and philosophy of science. He is particularly
interest in Philip Kitcher’s philosophy with its interesting twist of ethics
and the science of evolution.
Anthony O. Echekwube is Professor of Philosophy at Ambrose Alli

University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. He specializes in ethics, philosophy of reli-
gion and African philosophy. He has published many essays on modern
philosophers such as Hegel, Bradley, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. He is
the author of Contemporary Ethics: History, Theories and Issues.
AB (Benda) Hofmeyr is currently affiliated to the Department of

Philosophy, University of Pretoria, South Africa. She lived and worked
in the Netherlands while completing her doctoral studies and post-
doctoral research. She still maintains strong collaborative ties with the
Radboud University Nijmegen where she obtained her doctoral degree in
Philosophy on the work of Foucault and Levinas. Her research interests
fall within the broad ambit of contemporary Continental philosophy
with an enduring fascination for the inextricable entanglement of the
ethical and the political.
ix
x Notes on Contributors
Precious O. Ighoroje is a doctoral research student in Philosophy at the

University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. She specializes primarily on the
Epistemology of Ignorance and Continental philosophy with particular
interest in works of Ayn Rand.
Peter A. Ikhane is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the

Dominican Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria. Having written a master’s disserta-
tion on Popper’s epistemology, he continues to research on other areas
of Popper’s philosophy particularly his contribution to ethics. He is
currently doing his Doctoral research at the Department of Philosophy,
University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
Elvis Imafidon is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Ambrose

Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. He specializes in ethics, ontology, the
philosophy of science modern/postmodern philosophy and African
philosophy. He has been particularly interested in the ontology of
Heidegger and the discourse ethics of Habermas which he takes up in his
master’s dissertation and doctorate thesis respectively. He has published
several essays on these areas. He is the editor of Ontologized Ethics: New
Essays in African Meta-ethics (co-edited by Prof. Tunde Bewaji) and the
author of The Question of the Rationality of African Traditional Thought:
An Introduction.
Gerasimos Kakoliris studied philosophy at Essex University and

Warwick University. He is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy
at the University of Athens. He has published a book on Derrida and
Deconstructive Reading in Greek as well as various papers on this topic
and more generally on language, theories of reading, Foucault, Nietzsche,
and Heidegger. He is currently working on Derrida’s ethical thought.
Francis Offor is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Acting Head,

Department of Philosophy at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
He specializes in socio-political philosophy and logic and has published
extensively in these areas with particular interest in the philosophy of
the social contract theorists. He is the author of “Hobbes’ Political Theory
and the New Global Order” (Lumina) and “The Modern Leviathan and
the Challenge of World Order: Thomas Hobbes Revisited” (Journal of
Philosophy and Nature).
Joseph Osei is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Fayetteville State

University, North Carolina, United States. His research interests include
ethics, social and political philosophy, African philosophy and culture,
philosophy of development. He has written a number of essays on Kant
Notes on Contributors xi
and Popper. Some of his recent publications include Eugenics: A Critical

Examination of Eugenics as a Public Policy Construct from the Perspective of
Professional Ethics, Social Justice, and Christian Ethics with Case Studies from
North Carolina (US) and Ghana, (co-author Dr. Kwame Boakye Sarpong),
Karl Popper’s Solution to the Freewill-Determinism Paradox: Freewill or
Compatibilism? in Thinking about Religion: Journal of the North Carolina
Religious Studies Association. He is the editor of the e-journal, Philosophical
Papers and Review.
Bob Robinson received his doctoral degree in Philosophy from Purdue

University. The majority of his previous research, including his disser-
tation, investigates and evaluates Foucault’s interpretations of Kant.
His more recent publications focus on the viability of Foucault’s ethics.
Robinson is currently teaching philosophy part-time at the University of
Portland, Portland, Oregon.
Gregory B. Sadler is an educator, speaker, philosophical counselor,

and author. The thinkers he has written about include Jacques Lacan,
Theodore Adorno, Max Scheler, G.W.F. Hegel, Thomas Hobbes, and
Aristotle. He is currently working on a book bringing Lacan into dialogue
with Virtue Ethics. He divides his time between teaching, speaking
engagements, counseling, scholarship, and producing philosophy-fo-
cused YouTube videos.
Amaechi Udefi is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy,

University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He specializes in epistemology and
analytic philosophy and is particularly interested in the philosophy of
Richard Rorty, an area where he has written several research papers in repu-
table journals. Such publications include “Rorty’s Neo-Pragmatism and the
Imperative of the Discourse of African Epistemology.” (in Human Affairs).
Isaac E. Ukpokolo is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ibadan,

Nigeria. Having written his PhD thesis on Paul K. Feyerabend’s episte-
mological anarchism, he has continued to develop fascinating areas of
Feyerabend’s philosophy. He has also published many essays in this area.
His specializes also in epistemology, the philosophy of science, conti-
nental philosophy and African philosophy. His published works include
“Methodological Anarchism: An Exposition of Paul K. Feyerabend’s
Contribution to Contemporary Epistemology,” “The Received View
of Rationality: A conceptual Survey from Descartes to Russell” and
“Rationality and the Dark Side of Modernity: A Humanist Reaction.”

Introduction: Modernity, Ethics
and the Subject
Elvis Imafidon
It is perhaps fitting to begin this volume by saying a few things, a few

indeed – considering what can be said – about modernity and how it is
generally understood in the pages of the present volume. This is particu-
larly because the discourse on the ethics of subjectivity here is intrin-
sically affiliated with the emergence of modernity and its subsequent
unfolding in human history. Also, the use of modernity in any discourse
often has the annoying effect of stirring up the modern-postmodern
controversy. Thus, I will attempt in the next few lines to at least hibernate
such a controversy as much as I can as far as this volume is concerned by
setting out a sense in which modernity is understood here and how such
an understanding, rather than resurrecting an ugly modern-postmodern
controversy, may in fact resist and avoid such.
Modernity, simply put, consists of periods in human history when
humans exhibit a radical and obvious shift from, abandonment of, and
an attitude of questioning of conventional ideas about reality due to
an enthronement of, and exercise of, reason and, by implication, the
advancement of knowledge. Modernity with a philosophical twist
designates various moments of abundant epistemological optimism.
For instance, in the 14th century, nominalism was the via moderna in
contrast with the discredited via antique of realism; in the 18th, Descartes
was hailed as the “father of modern philosophy thanks to his confidence
in mathematics and natural science.”1 Modernity is therefore generally
associated with an attitude of abandoning old ways of seeing things for
new ways due to the subject’s conscious use of, and dependence, on the
capacity to reason.
Modernity manifests itself in various forms in different periods. It is
generally believed to begin with the Enlightenment reflected in philos-
ophy particularly in the works of Descartes and Kant. The Enlightenment
1
2 Elvis Imafidon
provides the central characteristics of modernity such as the enthrone-

ment of reason, human autonomy and scientific knowledge which, to a
large extent, influence the ever unfolding manifestations of modernity.
Reill gives an apt description of the Enlightenment and its important
place in modernity:
The Enlightenment is… considered the beginning of modernity, the

time when the basic questions facing our world were posed…, the
Enlightenment can be seen from two vantage points. On the one
hand, its shapers and followers undertook a far-ranging critique of
the world they had inherited… on the other hand, proponents of
the Enlightenment attempted to establish adequate grounds of for a
clearer and surer understanding… In short, the Enlightenment was
characterized by the dynamic between criticism and innovation.2
And criticism of old ways and innovation of new ways remain the back-
bone of modernity in whatever way it manifests itself.
Besides the Enlightenment, modernity has manifested itself in other
forms such as modernism and postmodernity. This is why it doesn’t
seem so right to make a contrast between modernity and postmodernity
as it has become common and widespread, for the latter is nothing more
than a phase of the former. Postmodernity, for instance, is a reaction not
to modernity as such but to earlier manifestations of it: Enlightenment
and modernism (which itself was a rejection of the Enlightenment’s
domineering epistemological optimism). According to its most prom-
inent advocate, Jean-Francois Lyotard, the essence of postmodernism
is a carefree skepticism about every possible attempt to make sense of
history. It anarchically rejects all the “meta-narratives” of progress.…3
As Stuart Sim puts it:
One of the best ways to describing postmodernism as a philosoph-

ical movement would be as a form of scepticism – scepticism about
authority, received wisdom, cultural and political norms, etc. –
and that puts it into a long running tradition in Western thought
that stretches back to classical Greek philosophy… The technical
term to describe such a style of philosophy is “antifoundational”…
Postmodernism draws heavily on the example set by antifoundation-
alist philosophers, perhaps most notably the iconoclastic nineteenth
century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, whose call for the
“revaluation of all values” constitute something of a battle-cry for the
movement.4
Understood in this sense, this volume consists of essays on philoso-

phers that cut through the different phases or manifestation of moder-
nity – Enlightenment, Modernism, and Postmodernism, with particular
interest on their rendering of the place of the self in ethical discourse.
The self or the subject, understood simply as the conscious human
person, has always had a place in the numerous ethical systems that have
evolved since antiquity. Either s/he was cast into an allegedly unalterable,
meta-finite, absolutist, and authoritarian moral framework believed to
be firmly erected on foundations transcending the subject’s finitude and
instabilities, or s/he was, in fact, the architect and builder, through reason,
of the moral systems. Even when s/he built, s/he either built for, or with
others, or solely for her/himself.5 The subject who is cast into fixated and
unalterable moral systems I will call the “subject of antiquity” while the
subjects who build moral systems I will call “the modern subject.”
The subject of antiquity dominated the ancient and medieval eras
of philosophy. These eras succeeded in producing fixated, unalterable,
authoritarian and objectified moral systems that determined which
actions were permissible or impermissible. The subject didn’t need to
exercise his or her reason in determining the permissibility or impermis-
sibility of his/her actions. Such evaluation was, in a sense, made easy
by an assessment of the subject’s conformity to some fixated princi-
ples and standards of human action. In the medieval era, for instance,
Judeo-Christian ethics exhibited these features. Judeo-Christian ethics,
which presupposed the existence of an objectively good and just way of
life, essentially influenced the choices made by the subject of antiquity.
The permissible way was recommended by the omnipotent creator of
an ordered cosmos, God. As Finlayson explains, in this tradition, each
human being has a dual role, as a member of a religious community of
neighbors, and as an individual whose salvation depends on God’s judg-
ment. This duality is reflected in two aspects of morality: (i) universal
respect for others and accountability to all others, and (ii) the fixated
nature, absoluteness and unconditionality of moral requirement.6 Such
a fixated moral structure did not encourage the liberal use of reason on
moral matters. By implication, the enthronement of reason and freedom
by the modern subject invariably resulted from the disenchantment or
abandonment of pre-modern moral systems and worldviews.
The modern subject, then, is one who is enlightened; and enlighten-
ment, as Kant puts it, is:
… man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity

is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from
4 Elvis Imafidon
another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in

lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] “Have
courage to use your own understanding!” – that is the motto of
enlightenment.7
Or as Horkheimer and Adorno describe it, “Enlightenment, under-

stood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed
at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters…
Enlightenment’s program was the disenchantment of the world. It
wanted to dispel myths, to overthrow fantasy with knowledge.”8 Kant
thus queries authorities of pre-modern (moral) systems “who have so
benevolently taken over the supervision of men [and] have carefully
seen to it that the far greatest part of them… regard taking the step to
maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult.”9
The enthronement of freedom and reason since modernity has funda-
mentally influenced the place of the subject in ethics as one who is not
merely cast into a fixated, untouchable ethical framework but one who
significantly partake in such framework through the exercise of reason
and freedom. But such partaking has produced different sorts of ethics
since modernity. Johan Taels in “Ethics and Subjectivity: A Reversal of
Perspective” identifies and explains, broadly speaking, two sorts of ethics
that emanates from the modern subject: a narrower approach to ethics and
a broader approach to ethics.10 The narrower approach to ethics is formal-
istic and universalistic in nature. It is clearly seen in the moral theories of
modern scholars such as Hobbes, Kant, Bentham, Rawls and Habermas. In
this approach, the subject either solitarily (as in Kant) or inter-subjectively
(as in Habermas) attempts to construct, through the use of reason and by
means of freedom, a formal and universal, foundational or fallible ethical
principle or framework. Through such monological or dialogical process,
the subject consciously architects and designs normative moral systems
that all rational persons can willingly accept on the basis of some universal
presuppositions. The broader approach to ethics, as seen in the works
of scholars such as Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, and Feyerabend, evolves
primarily from the subject’s concrete space of dwelling, his/her experience
of a here. The subject in not here concerned primarily with the building
of universalistic moral systems but with the concrete day-to-day relations
with oneself, the other and ones space of dwelling. In Tael’s words:
In such an understanding, ethical issues take point of departure

from an ethos, a concrete engagement, an attitude of being open
to appeal. Precisely because of its bondedness to concrete situations

and persons, such a life is vulnerable by definition and is always
marked with uncertainty. The tragedy of an inappropriate attitude or
misplaced choice or an unforeseeable failure can never be excluded
in advance. Of course, such a vulnerability does not mean that the
subject is neither able to bring forward for his or her attitude and
decisions… [but such] must be related to the subject’s self-image, its
most intimate designs and desires, its Sitz im Leben.
In both approaches, however, what becomes apparent in the ethics of

subjectivity since modernity is the decentering and disenchantment of
pre-modern or traditional moral authorities such as God, the Monarch
and Nature, and the placement of the self at the core of the moral world,
with emphasis on the subject’s ratio, libertatis and human agency. Thus,
the modern subject is in many ways the Cartesian subject, endowed
with rationality and autonomy and capable of making moral deci-
sions, rather than waiting for such to be made on his/her behalf. But in
the modern subject’s exercise of freedom, reason and agency, dualities
between the self and other, between identity and difference continu-
ally emerge.11 While some modern moral systems, evolving from the
autonomous and rational subject consciously or unconsciously, seek to
defend and/or maintain such dualities, others have deliberately sort to
mediate between such dualities.
The Ethics of Subjectivity: Perspectives since the Dawn of Modernity
emerges from a hunger to present in a volume an analysis and critical
examination of the place of the subject in ethical discourse since moder-
nity particularly as presented in works of key modern (moral) philoso-
phers. Each of the 17 chapters examines the role ascribed to the modern
subject in the works of a particular figure in the modern/postmodern
era. The volume appropriately begins with Thomas Hobbes’ rendition
of the origin of ethical principles and the role of the modern subject
therewith. Francis Offor shows that in Hobbes rendition, ethics is not
some fixated structure which the subject of antiquity sought to fit into,
but a framework evolved by the modern subject in the bid to stamp out
anarchy and maintain order in the state that emerged from the social
contract. He then goes on to identify some methodological inconsist-
encies with Hobbes’ analysis which accounts for the failure of Hobbes’
narrower approach to ethics to ensure the social peace that it sought for
in the state. In Chapter 2, Joseph Osei engages some of the basic (post-
modernist) criticisms that has been leveled against Kant’s formal and
universalistic approach to ethics, which demands of the modern subject
6 Elvis Imafidon
to ignore concrete situations and act, as a matter of duty, only in ways

that can be universalized. While recognizing some inherent weaknesses
in Kantian ethics, Osei asserts that with some essential modifications,
Kantian ethics can be incorporated into a broader approach to ethics
that can meet with any postmodern challenge.
If there was any attempt in the modern age to mimic antiquity by
inventing gigantic absolutist metaphysical, epistemological and ethical
systems that the modern subject must fit into, it is to be found in Hegel
and his numerous followers. Anthony Echekwube engages, in Chapter 3,
using Bradley’s notion of the moral agent, Hegel’s theory of the Spirit
and its implication for the self in relation to the modern conception of
ethics. In Hegel’s system, the modern subject is in many ways similar
to the pre-modern subject as his (moral) freedom is subsumed under
the will of the Spirit. But in Bradley’s conception of the moral agent,
the modern subject is presented as the architect of his/her ethical life
because the failure to exercise his moral freedom is considered by Bradley
as a moral failure. The subject’s moral freedom is once again emphasized
in the works of Soren Kierkegaard, which Blessing Agidigbi develops
in Chapter 4. He develops an ethics of inwardness from Kierkegaard’s
existentialist philosophy as an ethics that emerges or emanates from a
subject’s concrete situations, existential experiences and convictions as
against an ethics of the herd. This is not surprising considering the fact
that Kierkegaard’s personal and concrete life situations and experiences
(with his father and state for instance) had tremendous influence on his
thoughts.
Sharli Anne Parphitis presents, in Chapter 5, a rather interesting anal-
ysis of the depiction of the modern ethical self as the Sovereign Individual
in Nietzsche’s philosophy. The Sovereign Individual, as Nietzsche
construes him, far from merely being a moral agent, is one who exercises
self-control and expresses the highest affirmation of human life imagi-
nable. Paphitis thus presents a critical analysis of a recent Stoic reading
of Nietzsche’s ethics by Martha Nussbaum as a limited understanding
of the Sovereign Individual. The discourse on ethics since modernity,
particularly as inaugurated in Kant, in fundamentally hinged on the
modern subject’s autonomy which allows reason to be elevated over
and above authority as the sole basis for the subject’s moral decision.
Consequently, Bob Robinson shows, in Chapter 6, how Foucault remains
true to this understanding of the moral autonomy of the subject. This
comes as a much needed response to a well made case in scholarship
that Foucault presents, in his works, a critique of the subject that is not
in agreement with the Kantian account of autonomy. In like manner,
Benda Hofmeyr examines in Chapter 7 aspects of Foucault’s later works

that, unlike some of his early writings, place much emphasis on self-for-
mation, that is, the ability of the subject to create its values as against his
earlier theorization of the modern subject as one caged under the influ-
ence of power. Hofmeyr shows that the subject’s ability to create itself
does not only have ethical implications but is intrinsically political.
The concern with the self in ethics since modernity brings at once to
the fore the issue of the other/in other words, there is always a recog-
nition of the presence of alterity and the background question of the
modern subject’s responsibility to the other. One area where this subject
is obvious is in the ethics of hospitality towards the other. And who best
be discussed than Jacques Derrida. In Chapter 8, Gerasimos Kakoliris
examines Derrida’s rendering of the ethics of hospitality as consisting
of a continuous effort to negotiate between unconditional and condi-
tional hospitality. Kakoliris reveals an inherent contradiction between
Derrida’s rendering of the ethics of hospitality and his general philos-
ophy of deconstruction and proposes that a shift of focus to Derrida’s
conception of the violence that resides in every act of hospitality can
help remedy the paradox.
Chapters 9, 10 and 11 present an interesting reading of two of the most
renowned philosophers of science/epistemologists of the 20th century,
Karl Raymond Popper and Paul Karl Feyerabend. The reading involves an
extraction of their moral philosophy which is not farfetched from their
general (post)modernist philosophical outlook. In Chapter 9, Joseph
Osei constructs Popper’s moral philosophy from his theory of evolu-
tionary epistemology, the three-world theory, his theory of science and
the theory of open society as well as their derivative principles. He shows
that the moral theory that emerges does not only satisfy the basic condi-
tions for establishing a sustainable ethical system but remains true in
many ways to (post) modern ethics. In like manner, Peter Ikhane, asserts
vehemently in Chapter 10 that Popper’s moral philosophy essentially
consists of the modern subject’s appreciation of open standards, open
judgment and value revision. This, he argues, is contained in Popper’s
discourse on open society, anti-historicism, conjectural knowledge and
falsification theory. Isaac Ukpokolo presents a fine analysis of the moral
philosophy of Paul K. Feyerabend. While most reading of Feyerabend’s
works focus on his contribution to epistemology and philosophy of
science, Ukpokolo explores his postmodern ethics as deducible in some
of his key works including the not-too-popular ones such as The Conquest
of Abundance and Killing Time. Ukpokolo shows that Feyerabend privi-
leges a moral framework which rejects any foundationalist tendency and
8 Elvis Imafidon
strives to maintain a balance between self-confidence and a concern for

others. The modern subject ought to be concerned about concrete duties
to self and others rather than with universal moral principles. This is in
the same manner Feyerabend shows that epistemology does not begin
with abstract principles or with theories of knowledge but with specific
acts of knowing.
In Chapter 12, Gregory Saddler presents an interesting analysis
of Lacan’s contribution to the ethics of subjectivity in his analysis of
psychoanalytic practice and theory. He shows that in Lacanian ethics,
ethical discourse is never complete and the subject in relation to the
other plays an important role in its continuous development. He engages
Lacan’s rendering of Freudian analysis into a new form of ethics showing
that it is yet another stage in the development of ethics by the subject
that, although not sufficient, can be beneficial to the ongoing ethical
project. Precious Ighoroje explores in Chapter 13 Ayn Rand’s ethics of
rational selfishness or rational egoism which emphasizes self-interest or
the preservation of one’s life as the greatest moral principle and the
role of reason in the acquisition of moral virtues and the preservation
of life. Ighoroje, however, asserts strongly that Rand’s ethical theory of
rational selfishness presents a paradox because although Rand’s ethics
prioritizes the subject’s self-interest, Rand remains firmly convinced that
her ethical theory is objective and formal in nature.
In Chapter 14, I explore Habermas’ dialogical ethics. I show that it
remains true to the modernist project of the enthronement of reason
and the dethronement of conventional, pre-modern authorities in the
validation of moral norms. I find in Habermas a more robust moral
theory than in Kant because while Kant who inaugurates the modern
approach to ethics puts all his faith in the solitary modern subject to
supply us with universal moral norms, Habermas shows that rather than
a solitary subject, a community of subjects is better fit to take up such a
responsibility through commitment to the universal presuppositions of
discourse. I then examine some issues with Habermas’ discourse ethics
particularly the charge of a perceived gap between theory and praxis
in his moral philosophy. Benda Hofmeyr in Chapter 15, once again,
presents us with a fine piece on a prominent figure in (post)modern
ethics, Emmanuel Levinas. If all of Levinas’ (moral) thought has been
guided by a yearning to uncover the violence done by the self (symbol-
ized by the Western mind) to the other (anything different that comes
its way), then Hofmeyr is right on point to inquire, as she does, about
an encounter between Levinas’ thought and non-Western, postcolonial
ethical thought and discourse of the self. In the search for an answer,
Hofmeyr pays attention to Levinas’ ethical metaphysics, his notion of

the self, of radical alterity and of racism as the greatest evil conceivable.
She concludes that a fruitful encounter between Levinas and the postco-
lonial is possible at the moments of radical passivity.
Amaechi Udefi presents, in Chapter 16, Richard Rorty’s contribution
to postmodern ethics. If there are scholars that can be classified with less
controversy as postmodern philosophers, Rorty would definitely make
the list. This is particularly seen in the way he critiques the attempt to
professionalize philosophy since Plato down to the modern age, and
his insistence on the absence of any universal ethical system. In Rorty,
as Amaechi shows, the subject remains the architect of ethical systems
and Rorty draws evidence from the multiculturalism and diversity
of cultures and civilizations. In the 17th, and final, chapter Farinola
Akintunde explores Philip Kitcher’s theory of pragmatic naturalism as an
evolutionary theory of ethics. Kitcher, denying any absolute, divine and
objective theory of ethics, presents in his works, particularly The Ethical
Project, an inter-subjective theory of ethics that has evolved from human
history since the failure of the psychological altruism of our ancestral
hominids. Ethics, for Kitcher, is a socially constructed technology, an
outcome of the conversation among subjects. Akintunde, however,
raises some issues with Kitcher’s theory, particularly concerning the
extent to which his historical account of the evolution of ethics is true
or reliable.
What has become clear from ethical discourse since modernity, which
is implied in the chapters of this volume, is that the subject is not one
who discovers some fixated or divinely ordered system of morality but
the one who builds or designs such a system. But what should be the
focal point of an ethical system: norm, virtue, action, self-interest, and
so on? How should it be built: by the solitary self or through inter-sub-
jective means? And why should it be built? Such questions have bred a
multiplicity of answers, and continue to do so. This, in no small way,
enriches the ongoing discourse in ethics.
Notes
1. Jonathan Ree & J. O. Urmson (eds) (2005), The Concise Encyclopedia of Western
Philosophy (London: Routledge), p. 258.
2. E. J. Wilson & P. H. Reill (2004), Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (New York:
Facts on File Inc), p. ix.
3. Jonathan Ree & J. O. Urmson, p. 306.
4. Stuart Sim (2001), “Postmodernism and Philosophy,” in Stuart Sim (ed.), The
Routledge Companion to Postmodernism (London: Routledge), p. 3.
10 Elvis Imafidon
5. In fact, it is arguably true that the subject has always been the architect,
through reason, of ethical systems even those thought to transcend human
temporality such as Nature and God. The difference between the subject as
one subsumed under a “given” moral system and one who builds the moral
systems, I believe, is merely a difference in the subject’s attitude toward, and
appreciation of, the power of reason. In the former, the subject is content
with what a privileged few constructs as moral systems on his/her behalf.
But in the later, the subject is eager to use his/her reason by her/himself,
what Kant describes as the Enlightenment orientation, having “courage to
use your own understanding.” (See Immanuel Kant (1784), An Answer to the
Question: What is Enlightenment? Prussia: Konigsberg).
6. G. I. Finlayson (2000), “Modernity and Morality in Habermas’ Discourse
Ethics,” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 43–2, pp. 319–340.
7. Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? p. 1.
8. M. Horkheimer & T. W. Adorno (2002), Dialectics of Enlightenment (Stanford:
Stanford University Press), p. 1.
9. Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? pp. 1–2.
10. Johan Taels (1995), “Ethics and Subjectivity: A Reversal of Perspective,”
Ethical Perspectives 2–3, pp. 167.
11. Cf. E. Jeffry Popke (2003), “Poststructuralist Ethics, Subjectivity, Responsibility
and the Space of Community,” Progress in Human Geography 27–3,
pp. 301–302.

1
From Chaos to Order: The Role of
the Self in Hobbes’ Moralism
Francis Offor
Introduction
In this essay, an attempt is made to extrapolate from Hobbes’ political

theory, his views on morality, as espoused in his seminal work, Leviathan.1
Hobbes’ goal in Leviathan was not primarily to evolve a moral theory, but
because the socio-political situation that precipitated his theorizing was
beginning to defile all known rules of morality, it becomes imperative
to examine the place of morality in his philosophical construct. Besides,
the book Leviathan also detailed Hobbes’ physicalist outlook, which
greatly influenced his interpretation of human actions on the basis of
materialism. Hobbes’ concern and enthusiasm for science underscore
his belief that everything that happens can be accounted for by the law
of motion. For him, “knowing” and “willing” are merely the appear-
ances of subtle motions and they underlie our desires and aversions,
which ultimately define our concept of good and evil. Morality is thus
not hinged on some reality beyond the reach and control of men, as was
often held by his predecessors – particularly before Descartes. Rather it is
a product of human social dwelling, a creation of social actors.
It is with this strong background in science that Hobbes approached
the discipline of philosophy, whose main task for him, is to understand
bodies:2 most especially the processes through which they were generated.
Bodies for Hobbes are either natural or artificial. Natural bodies are made
by God, while artificial bodies are made out of nature by man. Thus, man
played a dual role in Hobbes’ political philosophy: first, as part of nature (a
created body), and second, as a creator. This is the reason Hobbes’ explo-
ration in Leviathan started with an assessment of those universal natural
qualities of man as part of nature. From there, he extended his analysis
to a consideration of what it will be like, for men with distinct natural
11
12 Francis Offor
qualities to live and interact with one another, and then extrapolated the
logical consequences of such interaction. At this level of existence, there
is no obligation for men to respect others and simpliciter, no morality
in the traditional sense of goodness and justice. It is the rather unfortu-
nate consequences arising from this form of co-existence which gave no
room for morality and necessitated the construction of a body politic
where moral precepts and rules were eventually instituted. When they
transited from this natural state of war to that of organized society, men
started to become moral creatures. This emphasizes further that morality,
in the Hobbesian sense, is a creation of the self for the sake of social
order and peace. We concluded by re-examining Hobbes’ central argu-
ments upon which he built his ideas of morality, and of a social contract
which would produce a society in which social peace could be enhanced,
but found these arguments to be inconsistent in terms of coordination,
systematization and methodology. However, to draw our extrapolations
more sequentially, we begin by looking at Hobbes’ depiction of human
psychology, as this is the first crucial step to understanding more explic-
itly his entire theory of a “state of nature,” devoid of moral laws, and of
a political society in which moral precepts and laws are instituted and
employed to achieve social order.
Hobbes’ amoral conception of man
We describe Hobbes’ account of man as “amoral” because it lacks any

religious or moral presuppositions. Hobbes’ examination of man as one
physical animal, started with an analysis of those universal natural qual-
ities which play a pivotal role in the determination of man’s actions.
One of such qualities is passion. As he puts it in the Leviathan:
For as in the middle of the sea, though a man perceive no sound

of that part of the water next him, yet he is well assured that part
contributes as much to the roaring of the sea ... , so also though we
perceive no great unquietness in one or two men; yet we may be well
assured that their singular passions are parts of the seditious roaring
of a troubled nation.3
For Hobbes, the different interpretations people give to different things

and situations are due to the fact that they construe such situations
from the different angles of their passions. The passion then becomes
the propeller of the human person because it pushes man towards those
things that afford him pleasure, and draws him away from those things
From Chaos to Order 13
that cause him displeasure. Those things that afford man pleasure or
delight, Hobbes calls “desire,” while those that cause him displeasure he
refers to as “aversion.”
The moral implication of Hobbes’ analysis here is that there is nothing
that is absolutely or objectively good or evil, since what is good and what
is bad is based on our appetite or desire, implying further that there is
no common rule for what is good and what is evil. As he explains in
Leviathan:
Whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire; that is it

which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate, and
aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these
words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to
the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and abso-
lutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from
the nature of the objects themselves; but from the person of the
man ... .4
If the above opinion is anything to go by, it therefore follows that

man, in the opinion of Hobbes, does not have a static essence, since his
passions can change over time; neither is he constrained at any time to
act according to any moral rule. Man is therefore not inherently good
or evil, but essentially an activity, or dynamism; but this dynamism is
not in any way propelled by moral standards. Therefore, even when a
man decides out of his own will to take a course of action, the choice of
action that results is not prejudiced by any moral standard or law. Put
differently, even when an action is taken by a being who is able “either
to will to do or to will not to do something”5 the “being” in this context
is still able to choose between doing and not doing a particular thing.
But this freedom of choice, which the voluntary agent has, does not
in Hobbes’ view obliterate the fact that the concrete choice of a partic-
ular course of action, made by an agent, is not driven by existing moral
precepts or standards, but by desires and aversions, powered by passion.
So, instead of assigning a role to morality in the determination of man’s
actions, Hobbes ascribed such a role to passion. Hobbes, however, argued
that, since passion either drives one towards what is good, or repels one
from evil, it tends towards particular private interest. He also identified
another quality in man, which always points towards what is univer-
sally necessary. This quality is called “reason.6 ” In the dealings of men
with one another, however, reason and passion are bound to conflict,
since they tend towards separate interests. But because the passion of
14 Francis Offor
men is commonly more potent than their reason, it remains the motive
power of all voluntary actions.
The foregoing analysis of man’s psychology would have no serious
implications if men lived alone, but when men live together in the form
of groups, our understanding of their individual psychology becomes
important in explaining not only their conduct towards one another, but
also the general causes of their actions. This is why, after treating man in
isolation, Hobbes then postulates a multiplicity of men, deducing a rela-
tionship that develops among them given their psychological make-up.
This group-life and interpersonal relationship is assumed to exist in a
natural setting, which Hobbes refers to as the “state of nature.”
The pre-moral “state of nature”
Hobbes’ pre-political state of nature is devoid of all the restraints of

morality and law associated with society. Humans in the Hobbesian state
of nature live as wild savages roaming the woods and fields like animals.
They have no religion, no system of duties, no legitimate marriages, no
morality or any code of law – and yet, each man is equal to every other.
Equality here does not mean that all men possess the same degree of
physical strength or quickness of mind, but is to be understood in the
sense that, by and large, an individual’s deficiencies in one respect can
be compensated for by other qualities.7 According to Hobbes:
Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind; as
that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger
in body and of quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned
together, the differences between man and man is not so consider-
able as that one man can there upon claim to himself any benefit to
which another may not pretend as well as he.8
It is this natural equality of all human beings that provides the basis
for the war of “every man against every man” in the state of nature.
Hobbes’ explanation is this: since humans are naturally equal, this
natural equality produces in men an equal hope of attaining their ends.
Therefore, nobody resigns himself to making no effort to attain the end
to which he is naturally impelled on the ground that he is not equal
to others. And so, there is competition. But because of mutual mistrust
and the fact that everyone seeks his own conservation, every man seeks
a means of outdoing the other man. Consequently, “if any two men
desire the same thing which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they
become enemies and in the way to their end ... endeavor to destroy or
subdue one another.”9
In this constant flux and reflux of warring individuals, civilized
existence becomes an impossibility. In an often-quoted passage in the
Leviathan, we are provided with a list of those characteristics of civilized
living lacking in the state of nature. In such a condition writes Hobbes:
There is no place for industry because the fruits thereof is uncertain;

and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of
the commodities that may be imported by sea; no instruments of
moving and removing such things as required much force; no knowl-
edge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters,
no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of
violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and
short.10
The fact that these qualities of civilized living are lacking is a reflec-
tion of the dearth of laws, morality and other codes of conduct in the
Hobbesian state of nature. Given the conditions in the state of nature –
which lacks such institutions as morality, law and government that
would regulate human conduct and engender social order, coupled with
man’s possession of the right of nature, which enjoins him to do what-
ever he considers best conducive to preserving his own life – it follows
that the state of nature must necessarily lead to war. For Hobbes, there-
fore, there is no sin in man or any sin done by man in the state of
nature, because there is actually no common rule or code for good or
bad that people recognize. The passions of men are not in themselves
sin, neither are the actions that follow from these passions. In the “war
of all against all,” therefore, the actions of people cannot be considered
good or evil, just or unjust, because there is no objective morality by
which actions can be so classified.
Hobbes’ presentation of the “state of nature” is not an arbitrary intru-
sion into his philosophical system, but a deduction from his consid-
eration of the nature of man and his passions. It is man’s passions,
according to Hobbes, which drive him to define good and evil in his
own private, indifferent and inconstant ways. If, therefore, a number
of men are placed in close proximity to one another, as in the state
of nature, then these private definitions are bound to lead to disputes,
controversy, and at last war, since there are no laws or moral codes to
regulate their conduct. Moreover, every man in the state of nature still,
as was said earlier, retains the “right of nature” to do whatever action he
16 Francis Offor
judges most conducive to maintaining his own life, even if this extends
to taking the life of another person. In Leviathan, Hobbes defines the
“right of nature” as:
The liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself
for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life
and consequently, of doing anything which in his own judgement
and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means there unto.11
Liberty here is defined by Hobbes as the absence of external impedi-

ments, and as a right of nature: it is the freedom to act according to one’s
own judgment and reason. Consequently, freedom is not to be subjected
to the judgment and reason of others. Liberty is the unlimited exercise
of this right, together with the passions and the natural equality of all
humans that are responsible for the creation and continuation of war in
the state of nature.
Having sketched the fundamentals of man’s psychology, which is
rooted in the passion, and of the state of nature, which gives no accom-
modation to morality, Hobbes then compensates for this flaw by intro-
ducing the concept of the laws of nature. It is at this point that the
idea of morality (though of a non-obligatory character) starts filtering
into Hobbes’ analysis. Hobbes defines the law of nature as a precept or
general rule discovered through reason: a man is forbidden to do that
which is destructive to his life or take away the means of preserving the
same, or to omit that by which he thinks it may be best preserved.12
Since they were found out by reason, these are not actual laws, as in
legislation, but the mere dictates of egoistic prudence.
Among these laws are those which enjoin man to (i) pursue “peace as
far as he has hope of obtaining it” and, where peace is not forthcoming,
to “seek and use all helps and advantages of war”;13 (ii) enter into
mutual agreements or covenants which restrain their original natural
right to all things;14 and (iii) put these covenants into action once made.
It is this third law that actually laid the foundation for the origin of
morality and justice. Without a covenant no right can be said to have
been transferred – every man retains the right to everything or whatever
he wishes. But, once a valid covenant is made breaking it would then
raise questions that are fundamental to discussions of morality and the
issue of justice. Since the performance of one’s covenant is enjoined by
this law of nature said law therefore provides the basis for distinguishing
between a just and an unjust act, and, simpliciter, between what is moral
and what is immoral. The remaining laws of nature outlined by Hobbes
enjoin men to embrace the attitudes of gratitude, modesty and mercy; to

restrain unilaterally those passions that tend to war; to recognize fellow
men as equals and to observe certain procedures based on the idea of
equality, which facilitate the peaceful settlement of disputes.
The enforcement of these laws, however, leaves much to be desired,
given the human make-up and conditions in the state of nature. Since
there are no rules or precepts regulating human conduct, it becomes
convenient for man, for instance, to break his own covenant – espe-
cially when doing so would be to his own benefit or advantage.15 This
is the reason Hobbes describes the laws of nature as “ ... conclusions or
theorems concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence
of themselves” (men).16 In other words, it is only when the observation
of these theorems conduces to man’s self-preservation that it becomes
rational for man to desire their observance. Otherwise, they remain vain
and empty words.
Thus, the laws of nature merely enjoin us to do things, but there is no
moral obligation implied until men have moved up to a political society.
It is at the level of society that men covenant, not only to give up some
of their liberty but to also keep the terms of the covenant. It follows,
therefore, that we are not moral creatures until we have moved through
a social contract into a society in which we are obliged to follow that
society’s contract. Without the social contract, in the state of nature,
there is no right or wrong when we act against other people or do any
type of action. In fact, the only good things are those that we desire,
and the only bad things are those that we don’t desire: as defined by our
passions. But once a contract is instituted, to follow it would be moral
and just; not to follow it would be immoral and unjust. Thus, moral
good and evil is defined through conformity, or non-conformity, of our
actions to the covenant setting up the contract.
Hobbes’ analysis so far shows man as an egoistic animal seeking self-
preservation and security, though he is unable to attain these ends in the
state of nature. The laws of nature, which are supposed to guide man in
achieving these goals, are not only contrary to man’s natural passions,
they can justifiably be violated by man so long as doing so tends to man’s
benefit or advantage. The problem is further compounded by the “right
of nature,” which every man possesses in the state of nature. Given
these conditions, and the calculation that social cooperation comes with
manifold benefits,17 man begins to weigh the gains of living in a state of
nature against the consequences of doing so, and to consider the need to
transit from this natural state of war to the state of men living in organ-
ized society, where their conduct could be regulated by some standards.
18 Francis Offor
Morality, justice and the social contract
The Hobbesian “state of nature,” as seen in the foregoing section, is a

state of affairs in which no norms or standards exist to guide human
conduct. But, because of the human capacity to reason, the rational
man soon recognizes that the liberty to do anything, which in theory is
enjoyed in the “state of nature,” comes at too high a price. That humans
wish to carry on living rather than die is a fundamental fact of life and
people in the state of nature, having realized this fact, start to seek a situ-
ation that is most conducive to the achievement of that end. The only
such situation so far arrived at, is the establishment, through a social
contract, of a society.
This transition, from the “state of nature” to civil society, is done via
the mutual transferal of rights. To transfer one’s right here means: to lay
down one’s right to have anything, and to divest oneself of the liberty
to deprive another person of his own right to the same things. It is this
mutual transferring of rights that Hobbes refers to as a “covenant.”18 But
if a man merely gives up his rights on the promise that others would
do likewise, what then happens if others fail to keep their own part of
the agreement? The mere entering into a covenant by men is there-
fore not enough to achieve the desired goal; for such a covenant would
still depend for its implementation on the same self-free, equal and
passionate beings, since those natural conditions symptomatic of the
state of nature still persist. The covenant in this case merely takes the
form of an agreement to respect one another’s rights, and mere agree-
ment is not strong enough to hold in check the an-archic passions of
the contractors: “for the bonds of words,” says Hobbes “are too weak to
bridle men’s ambition, avarice, anger and other passions.”19
There must, therefore, be a force behind the agreement that makes the
pains of breaking it outweigh the pains of keeping it. This common force
is created by the entire people, by conferring all their powers upon one
man or assembly of men, to whom they surrender all their basic natural
rights to govern themselves. It is only after this has been done that
the covenant so made begins to acquire the status of law or regulatory
standard, since there will now be an enforcer behind the agreement.
Certain distinct features mark out this new covenant entered into by
people from the state of nature. Not only do the participants identify
themselves with whatever their authorized representative(s) shall do for
the sake of their common peace and safety, but the Sovereign’s actions
and deeds are seen as emanating from the people. As a result, the people
cannot legitimately complain of any of the actions of the Sovereign,
even when they suffer from such actions, as this would amount to
complaining about actions of which they themselves are the authors.
This automatically places the Sovereign above moral blame and punish-
ment, since to blame or punish the Sovereign will amount to blaming or
punishing another person for actions committed by oneself.20 The cove-
nant is also contracted between the citizens only, and not authorized
representative(s). It would therefore be improper to hold the Sovereign
liable for breaking a covenant to which he is not a party. Hobbes puts
this point more succinctly in Leviathan:
Because the right of bearing the person of them all is given to him
they make sovereign by covenant only of one to another and not of
him to any of them, there can be no breach of covenant on the part
of the sovereign.21
The powers, duties and rights of the sovereign are immense; but at the
heart of these rights Hobbes places one that is in effect the original and
natural right of man. The sovereign, writes Hobbes, has the right:
To be judge both of the means of peace and defence and also of the
hindrances and disturbances of the same; and to do whatsoever he
shall think necessary to be done before hand, for the preserving of
peace and security by prevention of discord at home and hostility
from abroad: and when peace and security are lost, for the recovery
of the same.22
In other words, it is the sole responsibility of the sovereign to maintain

a stable order and ensure social peace. Apart from this primary duty,
the sovereign has other functions, which are all meant to complement
the achievement of this primary task of maintaining social peace. For
instance, the sovereign, according to Hobbes, possesses the right to be
the ultimate arbiter of the type of religious doctrine and the form of
public worship the citizens observe, as well as setting the rules within
which citizens may conduct their trade and enjoy their goods. These and
other remaining attributes of the sovereign listed by Hobbes are essen-
tially those powers that are necessarily implied by the need to expunge
anarchy or the possibility of war from the body politic.
The foregoing powers of the sovereign are, however, not sacrosanct:
they can be challenged or even invalidated by the citizens. For instance,
the citizens, according to Hobbes, can withdraw their obligation and
thereby invalidate the sovereign’s authority at the moment the sovereign
20 Francis Offor
is no longer in a position to protect them. This, according to Hobbes, is

because:
The obligation of subjects to the sovereign ... last as long and no

longer than the power lasted, by which he is able to protect them.23
The moment the sovereign fails, or the citizens are convinced that the
sovereign is no longer in a position to protect them, then they are at
liberty to protect themselves by such courses as their own discretion
shall suggest to them. In other words, as long as the citizens still retain
the right to protect themselves when none else can protect them, they
may continue to exercise this right even against the sovereign whenever
the occasion arises.
Despite, however, these few possible ways of neutralizing the authority
of the sovereign, Hobbes, through his theory, was able to demonstrate
that it is only by constituting a state through agreement and instituting
a sovereign to enforce the agreement that the centrifugal tendencies of
individuals, and their proneness to self-destructive mutual enmity and
war, are checked and social peace restored. This agreement becomes the
common basis of morality and of the determination of all that is right
or wrong, just or unjust. The foregoing clearly shows that morality, from
the Hobbesian perspective, does not consist of some absolute transcen-
dental system of rules and norms or some reality beyond the reach and
control of men. Rather, it is a product of human social dwelling, a crea-
tion of social actors for the sake of social order and peace.
Hobbes’ moralism and methodological inconsistency
So far in this essay we have attempted to extrapolate Hobbes’ moral

principles from his general philosophical discussions on man, the state
and the challenge of social order. However, careful reflection on some of
Hobbes’ central arguments upon which he built his idea of morality, and
of the social contract that would produce the society that would guar-
antee social peace, betrays some inconsistency in terms of coordination,
systematization and methodology. In the first instance, Hobbes’ pres-
entation of men existing as atomic individuals in the state of nature, is
not consistent with a well thought-out and systematized philosophical
method. The point here is that, since it is only natural for human beings
to give birth to other human beings, it follows that, if the newly born are
to survive at all, then they would owe their lives and well-being to those
who cared for them when they were immature and helpless. Hobbes’
picture of the existence of atomic individuals in a state of nature there-

fore contradicts this simple view about humans. Besides, if men in a
state of nature are able to come to a rational understanding of certain
issues (like leaving the state of nature for a political society), this presup-
poses, for instance, the existence of a common language with which
to deliberate; and the existence of a common language further presup-
poses that men were already living, not as atomic individuals (as Hobbes
claims), but in groups. And group-life further presupposes some form of
regulatory standard, the existence of which Hobbes fervidly denies in
the state of nature.
Again, Hobbes’ analysis of man, most especially in the “state of nature,”
presents man as a being in contradiction with himself. According to
Hobbes’ analysis, man seeks ardently for his own felicity only to end
up destroying the very basis of felicity itself, which is life. Furthermore,
the climate of fear and apprehension supposed by Hobbes in the state
of nature undercuts the requirements of rational calculation, and even
such calculations and their implementation would hardly be possible
without a common language; and language, as we have just pointed out,
would not be possible if humans were to live as atomic individuals, as
Hobbes envisions.
Also, by vesting so much power, authority and privileges in the levia-
than, all in the quest for social peace, Hobbes seems to have exposed
man to greater danger and uncertainty by further compromising the
natural privileges man hitherto enjoyed in the state of nature. The argu-
ment here is that man stands to benefit more positively in the Hobbesian
state of nature than in his political society under the absolute rule of
the sovereign. The question to ask is this: which condition is likely to
be worse for man – exposure to the arbitrary power of one man who
has the authority and backing of all other men, as in Hobbes’ political
state; or exposure to the arbitrary powers of every other man, as in the
state of nature?24 History is replete with examples of societies whose
peoples have faced horrors and dangers as a result of subjection to the
rule of one man with absolute power. For Hobbes to insist, therefore,
that people fare better when exposed to the tyranny of one man who
has the support of every other man appears to run contrary to the logic
of a well thought-out analysis.
Finally, Hobbes’ analysis seems not to have moved beyond the suppo-
sitions of the state of nature when it comes to inter-state relationships as
it is completely devoid of considerations of morality at that level. Rather
than lay down a well thought-out arrangement that would guarantee
morality at the inter-state level, in Leviathan Hobbes busies himself with
22 Francis Offor
the issue of war and conquest among states, which is said to diminish
the authority of the sovereign. Due to this absence in Hobbes’ analysis
(an international arrangement which would entrench principles that
regulate conduct at the inter-state level), the relationship among states
remains loose, as in the state of nature. Even the intensification and
consolidation of sovereign power that Hobbes so much favors, will only
end up strengthening the capacity of individual states to participate
more ferociously in wars with other states, in pursuance of their separate
interests.25 All of these present Hobbes’ general analyzes, upon which
he built his idea of morality and of the social contract that produces
a society in which social peace is guaranteed, as epistemologically
challenging and logically inconsistent.
Conclusion
In this contribution, we have attempted to extrapolate Hobbes’ views on

morality from his general philosophical construct. This is to show that
morality from the Hobbesian perspective is the creation of social actors
and the product of human society, not some absolute transcendental
system of rules and norms or some reality beyond the reach and control
of men. To establish this, we started by looking at Hobbes’ depiction of
human psychology, as this is the first crucial step to understanding more
explicitly his entire theory of the “state of nature,” which is devoid of
moral laws, and the political society in which moral precepts and laws
are instituted and employed to achieve social order. Hobbes’ analysis
of man’s psychology would have no serious implications if men lived
alone. However, when men live together in groups, an understanding
of their individual psychology becomes important in explaining, not
only their conduct towards one another, but also the general causes of
their actions. Given conditions in the state of nature, which is devoid
of all the restraints of morality and law associated with society, on the
one hand, and given also the manifold benefits that come from social
cooperation, men have decided to transit from the natural state of war
to that of organized society, where their conduct is regulated by some
standards. It is at this point that men started to become moral creatures,
emphasizing further that morality, in the Hobbesian sense, is a crea-
tion of the self for the sake of social order and peace. We concluded by
re-examining Hobbes’ central arguments upon which he built his ideas
of morality and the social contract that would lead to a society where
social peace is guaranteed, but found these arguments to be inconsistent
in terms of coordination, systematization and methodology.
Notes
1. T. Hobbes (1968), Leviathan, C. B. Macpherson (England: Penguin Books,
1968).
2. Bodies here include not only the whole physical structure of man and
animals, but also a mass collection of matter and mental, heavenly bodies
like sun, moon and stars, social groups and political arrangements and all
forms of behavior.
3. T. Hobbes (1968), Leviathan, p. 141.
4. The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (chapter VI). Available at www.thomas-
hobbes.com/works/leviathan/7.html. Accessed on May 14th, 2014.
5. M. Forsyth (1992), “Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan” in M. Forsyth & M. Keens-
Soper (eds), The political classics: a guide to the essential texts from Plato to
Rousseau (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 131.
6. M. Forsyth (1992), “Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan,” pp. 133–134.
7. F. Copleston (1985), A history of philosophy, Book Two Vols. IV, V and VI (New
York: Image Books, 1985), p. 32.
9. Ibid., p. 184.
10. T. Hobbes (1968), Leviathan.
11. Ibid., p. 189.
13. Ibid., p. 190.
15. D. Gauthier (1999), “Hobbes” in R. L. Arington (ed.), A companion to the
philosophers (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), p. 307.
16. T. Hobbes (1968), Leviathan, pp. 216–217.
17. M. M. Goldsmith (1993), “Hobbes: ancient and modern” in T. Sorell (ed.),
The rise of modern philosophy: the tension between the new and traditional philos-
ophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),
p. 325.
19. Ibid., p. 196.
20. Ibid., p. 232.
21. Ibid., p. 230.
22. Ibid., p. 238.
23. Ibid., p. 272.
24. A. G. N. Flew (1964), “Hobbes” in J. D. O’Connor (ed.), A critical history of
Western philosophy (New York: The Free Press, 1964), p. 166.
25. B. Russell (1948), History of Western philosophy (London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1948), p. 579.

2
Kant’s Contribution to Moral
Evolution: From Modernism to
Postmodernism
Joseph Osei
Introduction
The landscape of ethics or moral philosophy in the Western tradition has

been thoroughly shaken and restructured by a late 20th-century philo-
sophical and literary movement, generally known as postmodernism.
Spearheaded by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1960s,
the movement is distinguished from others by its broad skepticism
about reason or rationality in traditional Western ethics and its vigorous
defense of subjectivism or relativism. It is also marked by a general suspi-
cion of the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and
economic power.1 This movement’s preferred method of philosophizing
has been identified by Derrida as “deconstruction,” by which he means
a form of philosophical and literary analysis with close examination of
the language and logic of philosophical and literary texts.2
A superficial reading of postmodernist literature might leave one with
the impression that Kant’s ethics could not survive deconstruction or
a sustained assault from Hegel, Foucault, the Logical Positivists, the
Critical Theorists, Relativists, Moral Objectivists or the Circle of Care
Ethics Sisters. I contend, however, that a more thorough reading and
analysis will leave one in no doubt of the strength of Kant’s ethics to
withstand such attacks and its immense contribution to the ongoing
evolutionary process of moral reconstruction and moral thinking since
the last half of the 20th century.
To appreciate Kant’s contribution to the evolution of ethics, from
modernism to postmodernism, it is essential to adopt a conceptual
schema similar to the Hegelian dialectic, aimed at explaining the growth
24
Kant’s Contribution to Moral Evolution 25
of human knowledge from thesis, to antithesis, to synthesis. Thus

equipped, this chapter will explain how, on the basis of his modernist
epistemological principles, Kant developed his ground work for ethics.
We will also argue in support of the view that Kant inadvertently opened
the door to postmodernism, or its own criticism and deconstruction,
when he maintained that our moral duties are only those that can be
universalized into absolute or categorical imperatives that cannot be
overridden under any circumstance.
With reference to actual and hypothetical dilemmas, this chapter
will demonstrate some of the weaknesses of Kantian ethics. Using
Development Ethics as a paradigm case, I will argue that, with few essen-
tial modifications, several Kantian ethical principles, such as objectivity
and universality, can be incorporated into the ongoing postmodernist
moral reconstruction.
Kant’s contribution to the modernist project
Modernism, most philosophers will agree, began with Descartes’ skep-

tical methodology in search of the indubitable foundations of objective
knowledge. Remarkable as the Cartesian reflections were, it could not
withstand Hume’s radical skepticism on causal relations, the self, and
our certainty based on sense data.3
Awakened from his “dogmatic slumber” by Hume’s skepticism, Kant
saved the day for modernism by drawing attention to 12 categories or
mental structures that enable our understanding of cause and effect
relations, self-identity, and other rational bases for knowledge. By his
classification, objective knowledge required not only synthetic and
synthetic-a posteriori propositions derived from empirical observation,
but also a priori, as well as synthetic-a priori propositions – fundamental
concepts presupposed by the very possibility of experience.4
Comparing his epistemological methodology to the Copernican
Revolution, Kant believed that his achievement in epistemology was as
important to metaphysics and morality as the Copernican Revolution
was to the growth of our knowledge in physics.
Kant and the search for the indubitable

foundation of ethics
Convinced that a solid moral foundation could not be built on

synthetic and synthetic-a-posteriori propositions or empirical claims,
given the unstable nature of the empirical world, Kant sought to base
26 Joseph Osei
moral foundations on only a priori and synthetic-a priori principles. Kant

therefore rejected Consequentialist Moral Theories (Utilitarianism and
Egoism) since they are grounded in empiricism. This implies that their
imperatives cannot be categorical but only hypothetical: Do X if you
want Y, knowing that Y is based on fluctuating sensory experiences and
emotions. Kant therefore rejected hypothetical imperatives in favor of
Categorical Imperatives formulated as:
1. “Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will it to
become a universal law.”5
2. “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your
own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means
but always at the same time as an end.”6
As a moral duty, Kant explains, we must consider these principles as

absolute in the sense of being unconditional, unchanging, objective,
emotionally neutral, and non-overridable.
Postmodernism and the deconstruction of Kantian ethics
Whereas Kantian ethics and similar modernist theories thrived, or

claimed to thrive, on solid foundations of knowledge, postmodern
philosophy emphasized the elusiveness of meaning and knowledge
and thus set in motion sustained attacks on Kantian Ethics and similar
modernist claims to objectivity, certainty, and absolutism, especially in
the humanities and social sciences.7 In this section, we pay attention to
some of the criticisms leveled against Kantian ethics.
The Hegelian critique

Hegel was apparently the first to expose the mere formalism of Kantian
ethics. He argued that the simple principle of Universalizability cannot
generate determinate moral norms, and is dependent for its content on
the actual practices of a society.8 Kantian defenders are, however, quick
to respond that Hegel’s criticism is mistaken, since Kant did not mean
the principle to be taken as a sufficient condition for deriving a moral
obligation but only as a necessary condition or a test case.9 If it were a
sufficient condition, then one could imagine morally grotesque coun-
ter-examples, such as morally depraved fathers who a) would be willing
to molest their own little daughters while willing that other fathers do
the same to their daughters, or b) would be willing to allow their fathers
to molest them if they were little.
Foucault’s deconstruction
Foucault is by far the most dominant of the critics of modernism,
described as deconstructionists. His project has been to critique the
modern historical era by problematizing or raising issues with modern
forms of knowledge, rationality, social institutions, objectivity and
absolutism, including Kant’s Ethics.10 Foucault contends that, in spite
of their claims to rationality, objectivity, and absolutism, and so on,
the theories and principles are contingent socio-historical constructs or
subjective ideologies of power and domination. Foucault draws upon an
anti-Enlightenment tradition that rejects the equation of reason, eman-
cipation, and progress, arguing that an interface between modern forms
of power and knowledge has served to create new forms of domination.
Drawing on his background in psychiatry and the social sciences, as well
as philosophy, Foucault substantiated this theme from various perspec-
tives, including psychiatry, medicine, punishment and criminology, and
the social sciences.11
Though often cited as poststructuralist or postmodernist, Foucault
ultimately rejected these labels in preference to being a critic of modern
forms of knowledge and how they are aligned with the state to oppress
the masses by exposing: hidden agendas, inequality, as well as racial
and gender discrimination, and especially discrimination against
homosexuals.12
Critique from the hermeneutical-historical orientation in

African philosophy
Lucius Outlaw and other African-American philosophers devoted to
the Hermeneutical-Historical Orientation in African Philosophy, have
unearthed several explicit and implicit racist remarks in the writings of
Kant, Hume, and Hegel. Kant is on record for some regrettable remarks
he made about non-Caucasian races and a black fellow he had appar-
ently encountered in a philosophical discourse or debate. Arguing in
support of David Hume’s thesis that there was no civilized nation of any
complexion other than white, Kant states:
(So) fundamental is the difference between the two races of men, and
it appears to be as great in regard to mental capacities as in colour.13
Applying this controversial thesis to an unnamed black fellow he

presumably encountered, Kant remarks, “[This] fellow was quite black
from head to foot, a clear proof that what he was saying was stupid.”14
28 Joseph Osei
This remark presupposes the axiom that the lighter a person’s skin the
more intelligent he is; and conversely, the darker a person’s skin, the
less intelligent he must be. Using the color of a person as an index for
gaging the quality of his/her intelligence or arguments may have been
commonplace in 18th century Germany, under the spell of wild and
wonderful tales from voyagers, missionaries returning from Africa, but
it is certainly inconsistent with Kant’s status as a master logician and
author of the Critique of Pure Reason.
Critique from logical positivism

The sustained attack from Logical Positivism from the early to mid 20th
century not only undermined Kantian Ethics and similar normative
moral theories, but also created a moral vacuum, subsequently filled
with non-cognitive or intellectually bankrupt moral theories, including
Emotivism, Extreme Moral Skepticism and Moral Nihilism.
Logical Positivism refers to a dominant philosophical school of
thought within the analytic tradition of Western philosophy that held
that “No proposition is meaningful unless it was verifiable or falsifi-
able (at least in principle).” By this canon, only scientific propositions
are meaningful since only such propositions satisfied their criterion of
meaningfulness. Conversely, metaphysical, religious, and normative
propositions – including ethics and aesthetics – were ruled out as not
only unscientific but also meaningless or irrational.
Emotivism is one of the non-cognitive meta-ethical theories that
emerged to fill the moral vacuum created by Logical Positivism. Led by
many leading analytic philosophers, including A.J. Ayer, it claimed that
moral judgments of right and wrong are meaningless and not different
from emotional vituperations or outbursts, such as “boo” for disapproval
and “hoorah” for approval.15 As a moral theory, however, emotivism is
mistaken since it cannot make a serious distinction between irrational
or non-rational propaganda and serious claims or moral arguments
which rational people make in support of policies, bills, or business
transactions.16
Logical Positivism also opened the gateway to the growth of extreme
moral skepticism and nihilism. Given their premise that normative
ethics was meaningless or irrational there could be no rational answer
to the perennial moral question: “Why should I be moral?” One could
not answer this question from a Kantian, or even from a religious, stand-
point since Logical Positivism also implied the irrationality of any meta-
physical or religious belief. Consequently, many philosophers and their
followers became extreme moral skeptics or moral nihilists, denying the

reality of morality.
Moral relativism
The work of anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict, who traveled globally
to several different cultures in the middle of the 20th century, revived
much interest in ethical relativism. Her thesis simply states: “Normality
is culturally defined.”17 The thesis implies the absence of absolute or
objective moral principles, like Kantian Categorical Imperatives, that
are universal or trans-cultural.18 As more anthropologists and moral
philosophers discussed the implications, two moral theories emerged
from this perspective: a) Individual Ethical Relativism, also known as
Subjectivism – the belief that truth or falsehood and rightness or wrong-
ness of actions depended exclusively on the opinion of each moral
agent; and b) Social Ethical Relativism, better known as Cultural Ethical
Relativism. It is the belief that moral rightness or wrongness depends
exclusively on the norms within each culture or social group.
Neither Subjectivism nor Cultural Ethical Relativism can withstand
critical scrutiny. As James Rachel has argued, if these moral theories are
right then they are morally infallible, implying no individual or culture
can ever be wrong in their moral decisions or need any externally-mo-
tivated improvement or reformation, even when they are practicing
slavery, infanticide or ritual murder. Even if all the different cultural
practices or norms reported by anthropologists are true, to infer from
such reports that what they are doing is also what they ought to do
would be committing the “Is–Ought” Fallacy.19 In other words, one
would be arguing that just because practices such as infanticide and
gang rape have been the norm in a given society or institution, this
implies that such practices are morally justified (within the society or
institution) and ought to be allowed to continue.
Critique from moral objectivism

Moral Objectivists, led by Ayn Rand, believe that the only rational moral
principle is Egoism, which she translates (wrongly) as “Selfishness.” She
maintains that all other moral theories require you to sacrifice your
values for the benefit of others and are therefore irrational. While Kant
urges us to do our duty, regardless of the benefits or disadvantages they
bring us as individuals or moral communities, Moral Objectivists deny
any such obligation to others.20 For Rand and her followers moral objec-
tivism is the belief that ethics is objective (not in the sense of having
30 Joseph Osei
an independent standard of right and wrong), but in the sense that the
standard by which one judges what is good or evil is one’s own life.
Hence “good” is defined as what is required for one’s own survival qua
man or woman, while evil refers to what undermines one’s ability to
survive.21 Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is
proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates,
opposes or destroys it is the evil.
Critique from care ethics

The latest postmodernist ethical theory to critique Kant’s moral philos-
ophy is Care Ethics. Inspired by the seminal research of Carroll Gilligan,
which shows a female orientation towards care, in contrast to a male
orientation towards justice, many feminist philosophers, including
Nel Nodding and Claudia Card, have written to identify with her
thesis. Others have also proposed modifications towards a full-fledged
feminist-oriented Care Perspective in ethical theory as an alternative to
the male-dominated Justice Perspective that takes Kantian Ethics, with
its exception-less and unemotional Categorical Imperative, to be the
paradigm case.
Care ethics philosophers are, however, not monolithic. As in general
philosophy there are disagreements and incompatible perspectives. Nel
Nodding, for example, argues that universal love is an illusion, that love
or care must begin in the home, and that it is unfair to expect mothers to
treat their children the same way as an African, Chinese or Indian child
they don’t know.22 Others reject such views as parochial, supportive
of favoritism and marginalization of the “Other,” and argue that Care
Ethics needs a justice perspective.23 Similar concerns have also led other
feminist philosophers, such as Claudia Card, to suggest that Care Ethics
should be a complement rather than an alternative to Justice Ethics.
One of the objections from Care Ethics theory to classical Kantian Ethics
can be demonstrated in a mother’s moral dilemma. For example, if an
American mother is confronted in her home by a notorious child rapist
who wants to harm her children and is asked to show where her children
are, does she have a moral obligation to tell the truth about where her
children are? Since, by the lights of Kant’s Categorical Imperative it is
everyone’s moral duty to tell the truth (irrespective of the consequences
for self or others), it is imperative that the mother tells the suspect exactly
where her children are. This demand, Care Ethicists think, is not only
counter-intuitive but is also unrealistic and unfair to the mother. Because
of a mother’s natural care for her children, they maintain, and I think
rightly, exceptions should be made for such circumstances. In agreement
with W.D. Ross, my own judgment is that the mother’s duty to protect
her children from the suspected child rapist is more stringent and should
be allowed to override her duty to tell the truth in this case.24 After all,
the intruder has no right or just claim to truth or the children, especially
when the mother knows him to be a notorious serial rapist.
Critique from act-utilitarianism

The problem with Kant’s absolutism can also be demonstrated in a
dilemma of a ship’s captain. Imagine a ship that is a few minutes away
from sinking in the middle of the ocean due to overweight. Every load
on board has been thrown into the sea but the ship is still sinking and
no help is close, despite repeated SOS calls. Each of the 100 people on
board, including the captain, is in danger of sinking with the boat unless
10% of them are ejected from the ship and thrown into the sea where
their instant death is assured. What is more, none of them is willing to
sacrifice for the rest by volunteering to be ejected into the sea. In spite
of the existential threat to everyone on board, Kant would insist using
the second Principle of the Categorical Imperative, also known as the
Human Dignity Principle: “Never threat anyone, including yourself, as
a mere means to an end, but always as an end.” In other words, each
human life has dignity, and it is therefore morally wrong to use the 10%
as a means of saving the 90%, since it would be without their consent
or approval. A postmodernist Act-Utilitarian would allow overriding the
rights of the 10% and eject them into the sea as a way of saving the lives
of the 90%. In the circumstances, it is both morally and rationally better
to save the 90% than to lose 100% even if one is not an Act-Utilitarian.
In general, classical Kantian ethics cannot resolve any moral dilemma
by considering the competing consequences in each action under
contemplation. Being non-consequential Kant’s ethics does not in prin-
ciple permit overriding any moral duty or right in favor of another,
based on their consequences. Since the most controversial national and
international moral issues – such as war, responding to global terrorism,
preventing or fighting epidemics like AIDS and Ebola – often involve
moral dilemmas, the absolutist stance in Kant’s ethics undermines its
usefulness in the search for global health, peace, freedom, and justice.
Kantian Ethics has survived all of the foregoing criticisms largely
because, instead of rejecting these criticisms, many Kantian moral philos-
ophers – Gewirth, Rawls, O’Neill, and Shur, for example – have modified
their versions of Kantians ethics, or included other perspectives in their
moral theories or arguments, instead of using exclusively the classical,
absolute, one-dimensional Kantian position. It is worth noting, however,
32 Joseph Osei
that while most of them consider their works as Kantian or Neo-Kantian

not all of them feel comfortable with the label “post-modern.”
Postmodern reconstruction of Kantian ethics
The lessons from postmodernist deconstruction or sustained criticism

have been reflected in most of the new or emerging moral theories,
discourses or dialogues in moral thinking, thus making this Section
the synthesis out of the thesis from Section I and the anti-thesis from
Section II. New approaches to ethics now tend to be multi-dimensional,
multi-cultural, and have multiple perspectives. When necessary, moral
rights and duties are regarded as prima facie rights and duties, following
the example of W. D. Ross, in order to allow an ethical hierarchy and the
possibility of overriding prima facie rights and duties with more strin-
gent ones.
Moral philosophers have also learned to be more tolerant and respectful
of alternative views in ethics and to be more humble in their ethical
claims. This epistemological and moral transformation is reflected in
their rejection of ethnocentrism and “Moral Absolutism,” “Moral
Realism,” or (Unqualified) “Realism” in favor of “Critical Realism;”
which implies their tentativeness about moral judgments and their will-
ingness to be corrected by others when they are shown to be wrong.
My objective in this section is to defend the thesis that Kantian influ-
ence and contribution to moral evolution is enormous and should be a
fundamental part of any moral reconstruction. Kantian ethical princi-
ples that can be adopted or adapted for postmodernist moral reconstruc-
tion include: the Principle of Objectivity, the Transformative Principle,
the Universality Principle, the Human Rights Principle, the Social
Justice Principle, and the Care Ethics Principle. One of the emerging
development theories that incorporates these principles is Development
Ethics.25
The objectivity principle

Objectivity is necessary for ensuring a common standard for moral
evaluation and for minimizing the influence of subjective emotions,
bias or prejudice in moral judgments. Such standards, as exemplified by
Human Rights, can be universal, in the sense of being trans-cultural and
trans-national and properly based in the normative beliefs of the major
cultures in the world through inter-subjectivity. Unlike absolutism, it
can help resolve moral issues and dilemmas by permitting overriding
of prima facie duties by more stringent duties. The duty of the mother
to protect her innocent children from the suspicious intruder, as seen

in the above example, overrides her duty to tell the intruder the truth
about her children’s location. Further, objectivity does not carry the
same metaphysical baggage as absolutism, which by nature is eternal
and unchanging, while an objective moral principle such as human
rights or social justice could be modified or adapted when necessary
to suit different circumstances, such as those of emerging democracies
with weak economies.
The universality principle

The two most famous formulations of the Categorical Imperative clearly
imply the ideal of universality or inclusivity: 1) Act only on that maxim
through which you can at the same time will that it should become
a universal law; 2.) Never treat anyone, including yourself, as a mere
means, but always as an end.
Kant explains that we must be able to will that a maxim or principle of
our action should become a universal law, applicable to all people without
exception, and should be used as a canon for all moral judgments.26 For
morality to remain pure and untainted by human desires, differences
in customs, prejudices and so on, Kant maintained, and rightly so, that
it must not be grounded in “the nature of man or his circumstances”
but solely in “a priori concepts of pure reason.” Unless morality is so
grounded, it can only yield practical rules but never a priori laws. In the
light of a postmodernist critique, Kant’s principle of Universalizability
can be modified as just a universality requirement to ensure inclusivity
for all human beings, irrespective of race, gender, religion, geographical
location and so on, as used by the UN. This avoids the mere formalism
charge by Hegel or Habermas while protecting moral theories from self-
contradiction or inconsistency, which, as explained by Robert Holmes,
should not be ignored since “It is part of the very idea of rationality that
actions be constrained by such rules of consistency.”27 Communication
theorists, including Benhabib and Dallmayr, have also argued that the
Universalizability condition can be used as a sufficient condition prin-
ciple when there is a communicative agreement which binds members
of a given moral community such as the UN, The Olympic Committee,
or FIFA.28
The principle also requires that we ensure that our actions do not
hinder others from acting in accordance with moral law. Kant envisions
an ideal society as a “kingdom of ends,” where no-one takes undue
advantage of the other but people are at once both the authors and the
subjects of the laws they obey, as in a constitutional democracy.29
34 Joseph Osei
Besides examples in which the principle is violated by acts of commis-

sion, Beauchamp and Bowie argue that the principle can be violated by
acts of omission as well. Failure to respect persons can be interpreted in
three ways: a) To reject the person’s considered judgments, b) To ignore
the person’s concerns and needs, or c) To deny the person the liberty to
act on those judgments.30
The second interpretation (b) is of particular interest for the Kantian
Philosopher of Development Ethics. For, although most Westerners
have no moral objections to charity, Libertarians tend not to consider
ignoring the needs of others, especially distant people, as a violation of
any moral obligation. Their typical explanation is that there is no moral
obligation to assist where one is not responsible for the condition of the
person in need. I find the Beauchamp and Bowie interpretation plausible
in view of Kant’s own example of not ignoring the needs of the poor
when we are rich because of the possibility of the reversal of fortunes
in some other possible world. Under this interpretation, which is also
consistent with O’Neil’s interpretation, the obligation to assist is totally
independent of the source of the problem and is therefore universally
applicable for responding to any need, if (with apology to Peter Singer)
we can do so “without losing anything of comparable moral worth.”31
The qualification from Singer is important since it emphasizes that the
obligation in question, although Kantian, is not in the absolute sense
rejected by postmodernism.
The Universality principle, like that of President George W. Bush’s
educational policy, is aimed at ensuring that at least in principle, “no
country (however distant or poor) is left behind”32 or marginalized.
In Rawls’ more sophisticated formulation, the maxims ensure that the
objective law protecting human rights and dignity respects everyone,
including “the least advantaged” individuals or nations, including the
Third World.
Therefore, whether we are considering the first or the second formu-
lation of the Categorical Imperative, it cannot be denied that Kantian
Ethics is thoroughly universalistic and consequently satisfies this
second requirement for inclusion in the foundation for Postmodern
Reconstruction and Development Ethics.
The transformative principle

The Deconstructionists not only called ethics and morality into question.
Some, such as the Logical Positivists, led by A.J. Ayer, Rosenberg, and
C.D. Broad, sought to reduce the function of ethics to mere value clarifi-
cation: “The role of Philosophy is not to make prescriptions about right
and wrong or to provide moral guidance, but just to clarify thought.”33

Similarly, Rosenberg argued strongly against the transformative value of
philosophy as an instrument for moral guidance, saying:
Philosophy is not instrumental. It is not a tool. It aims at clarifying,

not as a means of facilitating action or other independent life goals,
but simply for the sake of clarity.34
Until the reactionary methods of Logical Positivists, the transforma-

tive nature of philosophy was taken for granted by most philosophers,
including Kant, who wanted to pursue global peace through the unifica-
tion of Europe under a single federal government and a common world
government. Kant’s philosophy, like the works of most other philoso-
phers and scholars, was largely shaped by the historical conditions into
which he was born. Born in 1724, Kant lived through “The Seven Years
War” and the Napoleonic Wars. He witnessed the severity of German
suffering in both wars and, as his biographers have pointed out, the
experience no doubt influenced his attitude towards war, peace, indi-
vidual rights, and freedoms.
Although the idea of the European Union did not materialize until
the close of the 20th century, it is evident that Kant was one of the
first, if not the first, European intellectual to argue for such a union
to curb the socio-political instabilities among the warring European
states in his time.35 If, without witnessing the horrors of Pearl Harbor,
the two World Wars including the total destruction of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, as well as the mayhem of September 11, with the devastating
physical and mental wounds endured by surviving US Afghan and Iraqi
veterans, Kant was so determined to end all wars, he should be a model
for postmodernist moral reconstructionist and Development Ethics. The
peace dividends could be channeled into humanitarian concerns for
alleviating famine, human suffering and preventable deaths from AIDS,
tuberculosis, Ebola, malaria and so on, in less developed countries.
The human rights principle

Kant devoted much of his time to the search for the abstract metaphys-
ical and epistemic principles underlying morals, laws, and politics. He
found this embedded in the concept of autonomy: the capability of
individuals to freely will and choose to do actions they deem fit or to
impose limitations upon themselves as moral beings. The implication
is that Kant rejects hard-determinism, which by definition is logically
incompatible with freewill, and consequently moral responsibility. This,
36 Joseph Osei
however, does not imply that Kant believes in indeterminism, the belief
that human behavior is completely unpredictable, since he believes
in our ability as rational beings to create or use discovered logical and
mathematical principles, as well as constitutional laws and moral codes
as regulative ideas, in making moral choices.36
Limitations are not to be imposed on these freedoms by other individ-
uals or even the state, except through laws which, in principle, are not
arbitrary but expressions of the general will of the people as in a consti-
tutional democracy. For Kant then, the state cannot be totalitarian since
that would undermine individual rights and the level of individualism
essential for autonomy and dignity. In his famous Critique of Pure Reason,
Kant reflected about the ideal constitution and concluded:
The just constitution is that which achieves the greatest possible

freedom of human individuals by framing the law in such a way that
the freedom of each can co-exist with that of all others.37
If that sounds familiar, it is because it is almost identical to John Rawls’

First Principle of Justice as Fairness and one more reason why Rawls is
regarded as a neo-Kantian.
Kant’s commitment to these ideals is also reflected in his moral
philosophy. For example, the second interpretation of the Categorical
Imperative states: “Act so you can treat humanity, whether in your own
person or that of another, always as an end never as means only.” Or,
“Never treat any one, including yourself, as a mere means to an end, but
always as an end.” Of course, this does not prohibit the reasonable and
reciprocal use of other people’s voluntary or paid services. What Kant is
prohibiting is any action that treats fellow human beings as if they were
“living tools, or slaves.”
In recent years, the Kantian scholar Henry Shur has argued, from an
essentially Kantian perspective, on rights to the conclusion that we all
have a fundamental moral obligation to alleviate world hunger. The
argument begins with a definition of a basic right as any right that would
be self-defeating when sacrificed for the enjoyment of some other right.
An example is the right to life or the right to physical security, in contrast
to the right to dress in some preferred way for a friend’s party. The moral
priority or superiority is self-evident since the right to dress is dependent
upon the guarantee of one’s physical security. For the same reason,
Shur argues, “The same considerations that support the conclusion that
physical security is a basic right support the conclusion that subsistence
(minimal economic security) is a basic right.” If a person is so hungry
that he cannot speak or dress, then his right to free speech or to dress any
way he finds fit are rendered meaningless, or defeated at least for that
moment. Consequently, Shur maintains that, if there are any rights the
basic right to minimal economic security must be one of them.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights features
articles that reflect Shur’s conception of basic rights similar to the
concept of positive rights. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free
choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to
protection against unemployment.38 (2). Everyone who works has the
right to just and favorable remuneration, ensuring for himself and his
family an existence worthy of human dignity.39 (3). Everyone has the
right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of
himself and his family, including: food, clothing, housing and medical
care and necessary social services.
The social justice principle

Kant held that humans are by nature free and equal. While these values
are not bestowed on man by the state, the state represents in principle
a social contract by which the natural rights of individuals are placed
under the guarantee of the whole people. Unlike Hobbes, Kant does not
subscribe to the idea of a historical contract, but only as a postulate or a
conceptual tool for analysis. Although the law may not be the result of
a democratic vote, it must be such that the whole people can reasonably
be expected to give assent.
Kant’s commitment to the ideals of social justice is reflected in his
support for constitutionalism in government. The adoption of a consti-
tution, he held, represents the process by which the state is established
and the general will expressed. The functions of the state, he explained,
were legislative, executive, and judicial; to avoid dictatorship and protect
liberty, Kant maintained that it is essential to separate the legislature
from the executive power.
In his Theory of Right, for example, Kant writes “Right (or justice) is
the sum total of the conditions which are necessary for everybody’s free
choice to co-exist with that of every body else, in accordance with a
general law of liberty.”40 Kant’s belief in equality can easily to be traced
to his Categorical Imperative in all its interpretations. Taking the first
interpretation, for example, we learn that we are to: “Act only on the
maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law.” By extending his scope of concern to everyone,
instead of limiting it to himself, his ethnic group, race or gender, Kant
clearly shows his belief in equality, and hence in social justice.
38 Joseph Osei
Social justice requires that no-one is treated as a slave or an inferior of

any other person before the law or any moral rights and obligations. In
his own examples, Kant shows how applying this test of Universalizability
will forbid us from taking advantage of others through false promises
or free-riding. Kant’s second formulation of the Categorical Imperative
reinforces his commitment to social justice when he states: “Never treat
anyone (including yourself) as a mere means, but always as an end.”
As a neo-Kantian, O’Neill rightly stresses treating people with dignity
in her analysis of this principle. We are not only to refrain from using
people, including ourselves, as mere means, we are also to treat all
people (including ourselves) as “ends in themselves;” meaning we are
to treat them as equal rational autonomous partners in life with their
own life aims. For O’Neill, this involves treating all people in such a way
that whatever their physical or intellectual limitations, or dependency
relations, we base our actions on principles “that do not undermine but
rather sustain and extend one another’s capabilities for autonomous
action.”41 Towards this goal, she submits it is imperative we support one
another’s ends and activities to some extent. Since we humans by nature
need each other to achieve our aims, failure to support our fellow human
beings in achieving their aims (when there is no risk to our own lives
or livelihood) amounts to a refusal or failure to treat others as fellow
rational and autonomous beings.
Most philosophers have no problem with maxims that require us to
refrain from hurting others in the name of justice. The second require-
ment, however – that helping others is a moral obligation – has always
been a controversial issue for libertarians such as Hospers and Nozick.
O’Neill defends her position with a rhetorical question:
Might it not be sufficient to argue that those of us fortunate enough

to live in the developed world are far from famine and destitution, so
if we do nothing but go about our usual business will we successfully
avoid injustice to the destitute?42
In others words, O’Neill, like Shull, is maintaining that the obligation

for non-interference is not enough for westerners, especially in view of
Western involvement in the underdevelopment of Africa. To libertar-
ians, and others who hold this view, O’Neill points out, “There seems
to be nothing more to just action than non-interference with others.”
That, however, is not the case (O’Neill explains), given the limitations
of human rationality and autonomy, caused in part by centuries of
economic exploitation by Western countries, the current asymmetrical
economic structural dependence relations, and so on, and its impact

especially on countries so close to the margins of subsistence. For these
and similar reasons, she concludes, “We can see that mere non-inter-
fering ... is not enough.”43
For these Neo-Kantians there is an imperative to assist the needy as
a requirement of just action; not to do so, when we can without losing
anything of comparable moral worth, is a form of social injustice. This
argument from Neo-Kantian ethics should be welcomed as a great contri-
bution to Development Ethics, not only because it supports its goals but
also because it is logically sound.
Care and compassion

It might seem out of place to raise issues of care and compassion when
discussing arguably the most rationalistic and formal ethical theory in
the history of ethics. For example, in recent years some feminist propo-
nents of Care Ethics, including Neill Nodding, have sought to discredit
Kantian Ethics for being too legalistic and incapable of addressing issues
of care and compassion.
Yet, a close analysis of Kantian ethical principles, as found in the
work of O’Neil, clearly shows a deep-seated concern for the vulnerable
members of society and our moral obligations towards them. The key to
discovering and appreciating Kant’s care and compassion seems to lie in
the proper understanding of the second principle. For we are not only
to refrain from treating others as mere means, or unjustly (as already
covered by the Universalizability Principle), we are also to treat others as
ends, which means treating them with dignity as fellow rational autono-
mous beings with their own maxims.
Understanding this duty according to O’Neill requires recalling what
Kant repeatedly stressed (but later Kantians seem to have unfortunately
forgotten), that while humans are rational they are only finite rational
beings in several important ways. Hence, humans are not ideal rational
calculators – we are limited in our abilities to assess or foresee the
consequences of our actions; and while morally all are said to be equal,
this does not imply that we are equal in talents or in socio-economic
status. These limitations are not only true of individuals but equally
true among the nations of the world, given the historical conditions
that have created the wide socio-economic gaps between developed and
underdeveloped nations, and the asymmetrical structural dependence
between the North and the South.
To treat one another as ends within the realities of such socio-economic
conditions, O’Neill insists, “Non-interference with the rights of others
40 Joseph Osei
is not enough, if we are to be true to the imperatives of Kant’s second

principle.”44 For it requires inter alia that those in the strong position
not only refrain from manipulative or paternalistic actions which would
undermine the capabilities for autonomous action of the vulnerable
ones, but also take positive action to extend and sustain their capabilities.
It is interesting to note in this connection that leaders of the NGOs the
IMF and the World Bank have been referring to responsible Third World
governments as partners in development. Similarly, President Obama,
speaking at the All Africa White House Summit on August 5, 2014, did
not focus on famine relief, or poverty alleviation, but on “capability-
building,” and “partnerships for development” so that the vulnerable
people could be empowered enough to participate in decision-making
for their own development.45
A central requirement of this principle then, says O’Neill, is “to share
and support one another’s ends and activities to some extent.” Recent
examples include South Sudan women who are taught not only how
to operate well-pumping machines for clean water, but also how to fix
them when broken. In Kenya, illiterate Massai men with basic reading
and arithmetic are being taught how to use a modern instrument with
radar, telescopes and video cameras for monitoring the movement of
lions and other wild animals for their own protection and the protection
of lions and other wildlife.46 Since part of what it means to be a finite
rational being is that generally we cannot achieve our aims without
some help and assistance from others, O’Neill argues, “a general refusal
to help and support [the needy] amounts to failure to treat others as
rational and autonomous beings, and hence, as ends in themselves.”47
Given such flexible interpretations, Kantian Ethics clearly satisfies the
Care & Compassion condition for Ethics of Development, which is the
last of the six necessary conditions for recognition as a foundation for
Development Ethics.
Conclusion
The objective in this chapter has been to show how Kantian Ethics has
contributed to the evolution of ethics in three phases: from modernism,
postmodernist deconstruction to postmodernist reconstruction,
adapting the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, anti-thesis to synthesis. The
thesis phase demonstrated how Kant, following Descartes’ example in
epistemology, contributed his own epistemological and metaphysical
foundation for ethics through the two formulations of his Categorical
Imperative. The anti-thesis phase involved several examples from
Foucault’s deconstruction, to the onslaught of Logical Positivism and

sustained attacks from Emotivists, Relativism, moral objectivism, Care
Ethics and so on. Finally, the synthesis phase demonstrated how six of
the moral principles in Kant’s moral theory are being adopted or modi-
fied for incorporation into some of the emerging ethical theories and
arguments which use Development Ethics as a model.
What remains to be pointed out at this stage is that Hegelian Dialectics
has not been adopted, but adapted, since unlike the classical formula-
tion the synthesis is not considered absolute or final. The synthesis is
rather presented here as a tentative solution which invites new critique
and constructive ideas or suggestions for its further improvement, as
Kantian Ethics evolves to the next stage of moral evolution.
Notes
1. www.encyclopediabritannica. Accessed December 03, 2014.
2. www.encyclopediabritannica.
3. A. Flew, (1984) A Dictionary of Philosophy (New York: St Martin’s Press).
4. Editors, Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed April 08, 2014.
5. Immanuel Kant (1785), Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals.
6. Ibid.
7. A. J. Ayer (1936), Language Truth and Logic (London: Oxford University
Press).
8. J. Habermas (1992), “Further Reflection on Public Sphere,” in C. Calhoun
(ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
9. A. Flew. Dictionary of Philosophy.
10. Ibid., p. 42.
11. http://www.uta.edu/huma/pomo_theory/ch2.html.
12. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ibid., April 08, 2014.
13. T. Serequeberhan (1991), African Philosophy: The Essential Readings (New York:
Paragon House), p. 6.
14. T. Serequeberhan, African Philosophy, p. 6.
15. A. J. Ayer, Language Truth and Logic. Cf. C. L. Stevenson (1944), Ethics and
Language (New Haven: Yale University Press).
16. A. Flew. Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 42.
17. Ruth Benedict (1999), “A Defense of Ethical Relativism,” Conduct &
Character: Readings in Moral Theory Wadsworth, NY, p. 66.
18. See Mark Timmons (2003), Conduct and Character: Readings in Moral Theory
(New York: Wadsworth).
19. “Metaethics,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed December 03,
2014.
20. J. Rachels (2003), “Egoism and Moral Skepticism,” in Mark Timmons (ed.),
Conduct and Character: Readings in Moral Theory (New York: Wadsworth),
pp. 25–35.
21. Ayn Rand (2014), “Objectivist Ethics,” Morality, www.AynRandexicon.
Accessed December 03.
42 Joseph Osei
22. Nel Noddings (1999), “An Ethic of Care,” Conduct and Character, Readings
in Moral Theory, Wadsworth, by Mark Timmons: NY, p. 197.
23. Card, Claudia (1990), “Caring and Evil.” Ibid., p. 209. Original article in
Hypatia 5.1, pp. 101–108.
24. W. D. Ross (1930), The Right and the Good (New York: Oxford University
Press).
25. J. Osei (2010), Ethical Issues in Third World Development: A Theory of Social
Change (New York: Edwin Mellon Press), p. 10.
26. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals, pp. 70, 88, 89, and 91.
27. Robert L. Holmes (2003) “Kantianism,” in Mark Timmons (ed.), Conduct and
Character: Readings in Moral Theory (New York: Wadsworth), p. 159.
28. J. Habermas, (1992), Further Reflection on Public Sphere, p. 67.
29. http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/kant/. Accessed July 15, 2014.
30. Tom L. Beauchamp and Norman E. Bowie (2004), Ethical Theory and Business,
7th edition (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall), p. 24.
31. P. Singer (1972), “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public
Affairs 1–3, pp. 229–243.
32. J. Rawls (2001), Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: Belknap
University Press).
33. J. Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement.
34. J. F. Rosenberg (1978) Handbook for the Practice of Philosophy (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall), p. 9.
35. Kant (1775), Perpetual Peace.
36. Kant (1998), “The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals,” in L. Pojman
(ed.), Ethical Theory, Classical and Contemporary Readings (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth), p. 289.
37. Kant, (1998) “Critique of Pure Reason,” in L. Pojman (ed.), Ethical Theory,
Classical and Contemporary Readings (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth), p. 373.
38. UN Article 23: 1.
39. UN Article 23: 3.
40. K. Popper (1971), The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato (New
Jersey: Princeton University Press), p. 247.
41. See L. Pojman (ed.), Ethical Theory, Classical and Contemporary Readings,
p. 338.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid., p. 339.
44. Ibid.
45. CNNnews.com 08/05/2014.
46. CNN TV 07/26/2014 advert for UNICEF.
47. L. Pojman (ed.), Ethical Theory, Classical and Contemporary Readings, p. 338.

3
The Moral Agent: Bradley’s
Critique of Hegel’s Evolutionary
Ethics
Anthony O. Echekwube
Introduction
A chapter of a book is barely sufficient to provide comprehensive and

comparative analysis of the place of the subject in the moral philosophy
of two of the most important figures in modern philosophy. So, it is
important to note from the outset that what is attempted here is only
a concise yet explicit analysis. Such a task is however a daunting one. I
begin by summarizing the basic difference in Hegel and Bradley’s treat-
ment of the modern subject that necessitates the conclusions reached
in this chapter.
Essentially, Hegel worked on a philosophical theory of social and
political development, seeking to promote the self-development of
human talent, as shown in his essay entitled: “The System of Ethical
Life” published in 1802. He teaches that human beings begin with an
immediate relation to nature and their social existence takes the form of
a non-self-conscious relation to nature and others. With the passage of
time, the satisfaction of human desires led to the reproduction of such
conditions and, with the invention of tools, to labor, which transformed
the world. These conditions facilitate communal settlement, labor crea-
tion and the subjugation of the “weaker” for the satisfaction of the
stronger and more resourceful members of society.
The state regulates the economic life of society in the manner presented
by the German sociologist, Max Weber, who articulates social practices
rationally by codification and predictability.1 Furthermore, Hegel clearly
affirmed that: “The State ... is mind objectified. The individual mind
which on account of its passions, its prejudices, and its blind impulses,
43
44 Anthony O. Echekwube
is only partly free, subjects itself to the yoke of necessity – the opposition
of freedom in order to attain realization of itself in the freedom of the
citizen.”2 The peculiarity of Hegel’s form of idealism, on this account,
lies in his idea that the mind of God becomes actual only through its
particularization in the minds of “his” finite material creatures. Thus,
in our consciousness of God, we somehow serve to realize his own self-
consciousness, and thereby his own perfection.
Hegel had tremendous influence on Marx, Engels, and the English
“absolute idealists.” His philosophy does not differ strongly from that of
his predecessors, as indicated by Mautner, who states that:
Hegel’s own philosophy contains, and does not simply compete with
earlier philosophies: it is the universal philosophy, an all-comprehen-
sive system. Hegelian idealism does not exclude materialism or realism,
but sublates or embraces them. Thus, one of Hegel’s responses to
skepticism is that his system is not one position among others, but
the integration of all propositions ... 3
The foregoing clearly exhibit the influences surrounding Hegel, with

special reference to the Cartesian cogito ergo sum, and give priority to
human thought over the human person doing the thinking. Herein lies
the objection of Bradley, who conceives of the human person as a moral
agent – one who bears great responsibilities for the positive develop-
ment of the world.
Francis Herbert Bradley’s philosophical system was greatly influenced
by the German idealists, especially those of Kant and Hegel, though
his own contributions were remarkably different from theirs. Bradley
strongly opposed the excesses of the Utilitarians, in his major work
Ethical Studies (1876), for propagating maximum happiness as the norm
for good ethical behavior. He equally rejected the psychology of the
empiricists, whose teaching on the association of ideas in the human
mind proved highly deficient because the nature of human thought
impedes clarity of ideas and cannot competently embrace the whole
of reality. He rather advocates alertness and openness to all the ramifi-
cations of reality, which, though multiple in appearance, are basically
one. This explains why, like Socrates and Kierkegaard, he places a high
premium on self-knowledge. Bradley truly sought and cherished the
knowledge of self as he considered it to be an indispensable duty on
earth. Hence, he also asked the question: “Why should I be moral?”4
The intention of this chapter is to show that the imposition of the will
of the Absolute Spirit on the freedom of an individual, who is striving
The Moral Agent 45
to realize his or herself, inhibits the modern subject’s freedom, but that
Bradley’s notion of the moral agent remains relevant to the modernist
project by promoting the individual’s self-involvement as a responsible
moral agent.
Extracting the ethical self from Hegel’s thought
The Absolute Spirit

In The Phenomenology of Spirit, published in 1807, Hegel examines, in
“Biography of Spirit,” an account of consciousness epistemologically,
anthropologically and culturally within the context of human history.
These aspects of life are comprehensively undertaken to ensure proper
exposition to the intricacies of life with a view to competently handling
them. Hegel expects that, in this manner the individual person would
live a successful life. Hence he confidently avers: “Only in a realm of
ethical life can self-determination be fully conscious to the extent that
universal freedom is reflected in the life of each individual member of
society.”5 This concept is further developed in what Hegel calls “The
dialectic of Ethics,” a principle which is present in the composition of
what portrays freedom. He describes freedom as the actualization of
Spirit, which is manifested in the human community as the positive
growth of mankind through the development of the individual and
self-realization. In accordance with this position, Hegel asserts: “The
dialectic of self-determination is, for Hegel, inherent in the very struc-
ture of freedom, and is the defining feature of Spirit (Geist). The full
actualization of Spirit in the human community requires the progressive
development of individuality which effectively begins with the realiza-
tion in self-consciousness of the truth of self-consciousness.”6
This process culminates in the form of a shared common life in a
community of Love and Reason, founded on the realization of the basic
truths of incarnation, resurrection, death and forgiveness, as related
and grasped in speculative religion. This system of reasoning is best
explicated in the Trinitarian relationship, which unfolds in the form of
Thesis, Anti-thesis and Synthesis – as we shall explain shortly.
In order to define and understand the meaning and purpose of the
Absolute, we need to perceive the ultimate reason and purpose for “all
education and all philosophy,” and this is the turning point of all science
and religion. And, from this perspective, we have the force and strength
to explain the history of the world. This leads to the discovery of the
“Mind” (Spirit), as unveiled in the early periods of human history. The
spirituality of God becomes the lesson of Christianity, while philosophy
becomes the intelligible unity of what had been given as a mental image
and ultimate reality: “and that problem is not genuinely, and by rational
methods solved so long as liberty and intelligible unity is not the theme
and the soul of philosophy.”7
Zusatz self-manifestation
Hegel postulates that zusatz is the self-manifestation of the spirit, a
quality which belongs to the mind and which is manifested in three
different forms. In the first form, the mind in itself, or as a logical idea,
manifests itself through the release (umschlagen) of the idea into the
immediacy of external and particularized existence.
This is the coming-to-be of Nature. Nature too is a posited existence;
but its positedness has the form of immediacy of a being outside of
the idea. This form contradicts the inwardness of the self-positing Idea
which brings forth its presupposition. The Idea, or mind implicit, slum-
bering in Nature,, overcomes therefore, the externality, separateness,
and immediacy creates for itself an existence conformable to its inward-
ness and universality and thereby becomes mind which is reflected into
itself and is for itself self-conscious and awakened mind or mind as
such.8
The second form of mind’s manifestation consists of the mind positing
Nature as a reflectedness-into-itself, stripping Nature of its form of other-
ness and converting the other into something it has itself posited. But,
at the same time, this other still remains independent of mind – some-
thing immediately given, not posited, but only presupposed by mind as
something. Therefore, the positing is antecedent to reflective thought.
Hence from this standpoint the positedness of Nature by mind is not
yet absolute but is effected only in the reflective consciousness; Nature is,
therefore no yet comprehended as existing only through infinite mind,
as its creation. Here, consequently, mind still has in Nature a limitation
and just by this limitation is limited mind.9
However, this limitation is removed by absolute knowledge in the third
and supreme manifestation of mind, the level at which the dualism of a
self-substance Nature or of mind vanishes, turning into “asunderness,”
and also becoming merely incipient self-awareness of mind, which does
not comprehend its unity with the former. By this, Hegel avers that:
Absolute mind knows that it posits being itself, that it is itself the
creator of its Other, of Nature and finite mind, so that this Other
loses all semblance of semblance in face of mind, ceases altogether to
be a limitation for mind and appears only as a means whereby mind
The Moral Agent 47
attains to absolute being-for-itself, to the absolute unity of what it is

in itself, of its Notion and its actuality.10
This process of self-awareness and becoming of the Absolute Spirit is

further clarified by Enoch and Fieser, who state that:
Hegel’s philosophy has its culmination in our knowledge of the Absolute.

In the process of dialectic of the Absolute is the synthesis of subjective
spirit and objective spirit. Because reality is rationality (Thought, Idea),
it followed for Hegel that our knowledge of the Absolute is actually the
Absolute knowing itself through the spirit of human beings. Just how
this moment of self-consciousness of the Absolute occurs in the spirit
of people is described by Hegel in a final dialectic.11
To further enhance understanding of the status of the Absolute Spirit,

Bunnin and Yu assert clearly that:
... for Hegel, an idea is not something mental or separate from partic-
ulars, but is the categorical form of spirit. The absolute idea is the
idea in and for itself, an infinite reality and an all embracing whole.
It exists in a process of self-actualization. As a metaphysical counter
part of the Christian God, it is the basis for the teleological develop-
ment of both the natural and social works.12
Herein lies the crux of the matter – the source of myriad of problems
for humanity, which is traceable to the Cartesian cogito, ergo sum (“I
think, therefore I am”), apparently meaning that, if he did not think
or have a thought, he did not exist. This position turned a lot of things
upside down in the life of humanity and was antithetical to the subject’s
being in modernity. This is reflected, for example, in Hegel’s analysis of
human freedom. The knotty issues and difficulty associated with moral
life, as given by Hegel in the Philosophy of Right, are resolved in Wood’s
assertion that:
The life that actualizes me, of course, may not be the same as what
actualizes you; the good of one person differs from the good of
another. But these differences are not accidental. They can be under-
stood at least partly in terms of the needs and values pertaining to
the individuals differing and historical circumstances. The good of a
particular individual is a determined form of the good of spirit and it
can be understood in terms of the good spirit.13
Freedom of the individual from Hegel’s perspective

Hegel’s system of ethical life portrayed a philosophical theory of socio-
logical and political development which would enhance the self-devel-
opment of essential human talents and powers. His ethical doctrine is
permeated with both objectivity and subjectivity. Its objective nature
lies in the state and its institutions, whose authority and force – not
merely theoretical, but also an abstract right – depends entirely on the
self-consciousness of citizens, on their subjective freedom:
... regarded subjectively it is the ethical will of the individual which

(unlike the moral will) is aware of objective duties that express one’s
inner sense of universality. The rationality of the ethical order of society
is thus constituted in the synthesis of the concept of the will both as
universal and as particular, with its embodiment in institutional life.14
Though there is an acknowledgment of the individual’s freedom in

choice of action, it is clouded by both the constraints and limitations
imposed on the individual by both universal and institutional condi-
tions. This point is clearly demonstrated in the ethical requirement that
a human action is unethical when either external or internal conditions
influence one’s action. It is clear that we cannot regard such a perform-
ance as carried out voluntarily by a free moral agent.
Thus, in the synthesis of ethical life individuals do not only act in
conformity with the ethical good, they also recognize the authority of
ethical laws. Hence Hegel teaches that: “This authority is not something
alien to individuals since they are linked to the ethical order through a
strong identification which is more like an identity than even the rela-
tion of faith or trust.”15
The evaporation of individual initiative in decision-making is easily
demonstrated in this regard, precisely because the moral agent is prima-
rily guided by the need to conform to the demands of the state, even
to the detriment of his/her free will. The case of Socrates, in which he
drank poison rather than obey a court order which would violate his
conscience, easily demonstrates that the state can cage the conscience
of the moral agent.16 This is precisely why Hegel’s conception of the
individual does not protect freedom of choice by the individual. In fact,
Hegel asserts unequivocally that: the ethical order manifests its right
and validity vis-à-vis individuals. In duty,
... the self-will of the individual vanishes together with his private
conscience which had claimed independence and opposed itself to
The Moral Agent 49
the ethical substance. For when his character is ethical, he recog-

nizes as the end what moves him to act the universal which is itself
unmoved but is disclosed in its specific determinations as rationally
actualized. He knows that his own dignity and the whole stability of
his particular ends are grounded in this same universal, and is therein
that he actually attains these.17
The family, civil society and state as moments of ethical decision

The freedom of the subject in making ethical decisions is further compli-
cated by what Hegel depicts as moments of universality, particularity and
individuality, which initially are respectively represented in the institu-
tions of the family, civil society, and the state. The family is conceived
as “the ethical mind in its natural or immediate phase” and is character-
ized by love or a feeling of unity, of which one may not be conscious, as
a member of the family unit to which one is bound. In addition, Hegel
believes that civil society also has a prominent role to play in the moral
decisions of the individual because it comprises individuals of self-
subsistent members who have common interests. The political state is
deemed to bring together the whole of universal good with the freedom
of particular individual pursuits. This portrays “the end and actuality of
both the substantial order and the public life devoted thereto.”18 We can
perceive the subjugation of individual decision-making to the state, and
this is in pursuance of the attainment of the will of the state, as more
vital to the ethical needs of the life of the individual.
The third moment of ethical life provides a synthesis between the
principles governing the family and those governing civil society. The
Hegelian basis for this moment is founded on:
The rationality of the state is located in the realization of the universal

substantial will in the self-consciousness of particular individuals
elevated to consciousness of universality. Freedom becomes explicit
and objective in this sphere. Since the state is mind objectified, it is
only as one of its members that the individual has objectivity, genuine
individuality, and an ethical life ... and the individual’s destiny is the
living of a universal life.19
World history as a manifestation of the absolute spirit

Hegel writes that: “The history of Spirit is the development through
time of its own self-consciousness through the actions of peoples, states
and world historical actors, who, while absorbed in their own interests,
are nonetheless the conscious instruments of the work of spirit.” He
goes on to explain that: “All actions, including world-historical actions

culminate with individuals as subjects giving actuality to the substan-
tial. They are the living instruments of what is in substance the deed of
the world mind and they are therefore directly at one with that deed
though it is concealed from them and is not their aim and object.”20
What has been made explicit in these Hegelian assertions is that
the individual is an instrument for the realization of the group, asso-
ciational interests which represent states culminating in the Absolute
Spirit. This confirms that the individual is a mere instrument for the
attainment of the new synthesis. Hence Hegel often stated authorita-
tively, “What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational.” the
“actual” does not only mean existence – a state that can be simply
identified empirically – but also the actualized or realized state: “one
that corresponds to its rational concept and thus in some sense must be
perfected.” It is from this point of view that Bradley begins to present
his opposing theory, to the effect that the individual is one who takes
initiatives for both human and societal developments, as opposed to
the Hegelian theory in which individuals act without the exercise of
individual freedom. Contemporary scholars have given conflicting,
biased and confusing assessments of Hegel’s views, arising from his
complex methodology and language, which time does not allow us to
discuss here.
Bradley’s moral agent and individual responsibility
Bradley was concerned with the all-round formation of the educated

person who should be wholly and comprehensively developed. His
aim was to counter dogmatism and intellectual sclerosis, thus holding
that: “The present generation is learning that to gain education, a man
must study in more than one school.”21 He was very disturbed by the
dominant philosophical doctrines of his time, which sounded untrue
concerning the actual constitution of human beings: doctrines like
determinism, indeterminism, atheism and others. He believed that if
these ideas were studied in-depth, the doubts would evaporate. This
explains why he asks the question: “Why should I be moral?” To which
he gives the answer: “The moral end for each of us is self-realization.”
Thus, like Socrates and Kierkegaard, who placed a high premium on
self-knowledge, Bradley also sought self-knowledge in accomplishing
his duties meaningfully. He thus taught that our moral ideals and obli-
gations should be geared towards becoming our ideal of the human
person, as represented in the “good self.” From the foregoing, it is clear
The Moral Agent 51
that Bradley does not simply want to enlighten people on good moral
principles but also to ensure that moral consciousness is not limited to
duty-oriented or even interpersonal considerations, but is operative in
every aspect of life.22
Bradley was emphatic on the goal of the moral agent, emphasizing
the fact that: “ ... the self has a goal that directs and fulfills it: self-reali-
zation ... The self is aware of itself as distinct from the causes and desires,
separated as by a gulf from both.”23 We can understand that moral exist-
ence signifies that our knowledge and conscience aid us in seeking self-
realization; that the self may see its role as an active agent, in addition
to being a source of evaluation of the alternative stages. “From a moral
perspective, it is not just important that certain things be achieved,
but that one is engaged in bringing them about. Whatever the world
is like, and however perfect, it is, unless the self is active, it has morally
failed.”24 This is what makes self-initiative indispensable in the search
for growth, development, communal and social harmony. An expecta-
tion of the attainment of such a lofty goal requires the moral agent
to find his or her part in the larger social organism, and this involves
carrying out the duties assigned to us according to our station. In this
process, each person performs his or her duty, conscious of the obli-
gation to fulfill their conditions in life to remain truly and positively
human. Equally, society benefits comprehensively from compliance
with harmonious rules, which improve upon the present standards of
communal and societal achievements.
It is significant that in the Victorian Studies the following observa-
tion was made: The objective social world provides the content of indi-
vidual will; when the social world is internalized, there is a meeting of
the objective and subjective. This internalization alone legitimizes the
personal goal of self-realization ... For Bradley, it is one to promote the
best of what one finds in society and quite another to abandon society
wholesale and invent for oneself a higher course. This latter course is
worthless for Bradley.25
Bradley’s concept of self-realization is most clearly seen from a meta-
physical perspective. It was considered with honor and respect by his
contemporaries and has been upheld to date, especially it’s analysis of
the structure of volitional choice. Indeed, Bradley professed a monistic
philosophy of unity which embraces, accepts and transcends all divi-
sions, combining harmoniously all disciplines, with special reference to
logic, metaphysics and ethics. The same can be said of the combination
of the doctrines of monism and absolute idealism, which caused ripples
between British empiricist and idealist philosophers.
Conclusion
Having compared here the evolutionary ethics of Hegel in contrast with

Bradley’s ethics of the responsible moral agent, we can conclude that,
while Hegel held strongly to the view that the universal and neces-
sary laws of the Absolute Spirit must be realized, Bradley reiterates the
importance of the moral agent taking a personal initiative in deciding
how to conduct his or her affairs. In Hegel’s system, the modern subject
is once again cast into structures similar to those of the pre-modern
age: freedom is subsumed under the will of the Absolute Spirit. But in
Bradley, the freedom of the self is defended; indeed, the failure to exer-
cise it is regarded by Bradley as a moral failure. If Hegel had agreed in
the first place that he as a subject was merely conceptualizing structures,
there would be no reason for this comparison – he would have been a
free moral agent building metaphysical and ethical systems. But since he
presented the structure from a realist standpoint, the comparison is justi-
fied: he is adjudged not to be staying true to the project of modernity –
the elevation of reason.
Notes
1. David A. Duquette (ND), “Hegel: Social and Political Thought,” in Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer Review Academic Resource. Accessed on March
05, 2014, http://www.iep.utm.edu/hegelsoc/
2. David A. Duquette, “Hegel: Social and Political Thought.”
3. Thomas Mautner (1996), A Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge: Blackwell
Publishers Ltd.), p. 182.
4. F. H. Bradley (1927), Ethical Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. G. W. F. Hegel (1830 trans. 1970), Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, Being Part Three
of The Encyclopaedia of The Philosophical Sciences, trans. William Wallace et al.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 18.
8. G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, pp. 18–19.
9. Ibid., p. 19.
10. Ibid., p. 9.
11. Samuel Enoch Stumpf & James Fieser (2003), Socrates to Sartre and Beyond
(Boston, McGraw Hill), p. 320.
12. Nicholas Bunnin & Jiyuan Yu (2004), The Blackwell Dictionary of Philosophy,
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.), p. 3.
13. Allen W. Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), p. 20.
15. Ibid.
The Moral Agent 53
16. We are told that: “Socrates grew up in the in a golden age ... at the age of 71,
he drank hemlock poison in compliance with death sentence issued by the
court that tried him.” (Samuel Enoch Stumpf and James Fieser (eds) (2004),
Socrates to Sartre and Beyond (Boston: McGraw Hill), p. 35).
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. F.H. Bradley (1914), Appearance and Reality (London, Oxford Clarendon
Press), p. viii.
22. F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 25.
23. Ibid., pp. 25–26.
24. Ibid., p. 26.
25. Ibid.

4
Reflections on Kierkegaad’s
Inwardness and Ethics of
Subjectivity
Blessing O. Agidigbi
Introduction
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and religious thinker,

is regarded by many historians of philosophy as the first important exis-
tentialist philosopher. This is because many of the themes of contem-
porary existentialism were first expressed in his writings, most of which
were influenced by life experiences and circumstances. The first major
influence in his life was his father. Kierkegaard professed himself to have
been, since childhood, under the sway of a prodigious melancholy and
his grim outlook was made even gloomier by the confession of his father
that he had sinned and even cursed God.1 Consequently, his father gave
him an oppressive religious upbringing in a vain attempt to spare the
boy from similar miseries. But this curse and guilt haunted both father
and son. Kierkegaard thus realized early that dread and despair were the
central problems of his life and he learned that he could escape their
grasp only through a passionate commitment of faith to God and the
infinite. In his Journal, he wrote:
The most important thing of all is that a man stands right towards
God, does not try to wrench away from something, but rather pene-
trates it until it yields its explanation. Whether or not it turns out as
he wishes; it is still the best of all.2
This means that Kierkegaard never sought invulnerability, but he accepted

his suffering, lived with it, and searched it to find some meaning in it
for him and for that “solitary individual” – his audience and the object
of his mission.
54
Kierkegaad’s Inwardness and Ethics of Subjectivity 55
When Kierkegaard was 27, he became engaged to Regine Olsen, but

his unwillingness to do what was expected from him was demonstrated
most dramatically when, despite the loud protests of both his and her
families, Kierkegaard found it necessary to break off the engagement –
apparently because God occupied the first place in his life, though his
own writing about the subject is murky. In his Journals, Kierkegaard gave
two different explanations for the break. On the one hand, he claimed
that he did not want to bring Regine into the severe melancholy that
afflicted virtually his entire family, and on the other, he said that he
did not think that he could be the religious author that he felt he was
called to be and a husband at the same time.3 After emotionally strug-
gling for more than a year, Regine became engaged and married another.
However, the agony of choosing between God and Regine, a choice
Kierkegaard felt he had to make, affected him profoundly. This is the
case because, as Barrett argues:
If Kierkegaard had not been an existential thinker, his broken engage-

ment would now be only a subject of gossip; but man and thinker
being one, in his case, the incident does in fact shed a great light on
his thought ... 4
From then on, Kierkegaard’s life was singularly devoted to writing

literary, philosophical and theological works. From the early 1840s
until his death in 1855, Kierkegaard poured forth an amazing number
of works – including, Fear and Trembling, Purify Your Hearts, Either – Or,
Philosophical Fragments, Sickness Unto Death, Training in Christianity,
Stages on Life’s Way, The Journals, The Point of View, The Concept of
Anxiety, and Concluding Unscientific Postscript amongst others – in which
he expressed a concern for the human condition and inaugurated a
vocabulary which was later assimilated by the 20th century existen-
tialist philosophers.
Apart from his personal experiences, Kierkegaard also reflected and
wrote during a tumultuous time in Danish history. The empire was
rapidly shrinking, the economy was a shambles, and the state was
involved in the peaceful but still difficult transition from a monarchy
to a democracy. At the same time, it was the golden age of art and liter-
ature in Denmark, and Kierkegaard was very much influenced by the
Danish romantic poets and novelists of his day. He was a Lutheran and
it is easy to detect the presence of Martin Luther in his religious reflec-
tions.5 Philosophers such as Protagoras, Socrates, Aristotle, St. Augustine,
Pascal, Descartes and Kant also left deep impressions on Kierkegaard’s
56 Blessing O. Agidigbi
thinking. Moreover, Kierkegaard wrestled intensely with the speculative

philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and, perhaps, this is an appropriate point
to begin working towards an understanding of Kierkegaard’s ethics of
inwardness.
Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel
Kierkegaard believed that the propositions expressed in the system-

atic philosophy of Hegel argued that there are three different ways
of approaching reality:6 (1) through art, (2) through religion, and (3)
through philosophy. Hegel asserted that, by means of art human beings
capture reality through differing material embodiments. For instance,
through the mastery of an artist, an abstract painting captures some
facets of reality, such as the horrors of war. Nonetheless, such abstract
painting does not have one-to-one correspondence with reality. It is
certainly much different from a television newsreel of a battle scene.
Thus, since art does not depict reality, Hegel deemed it insufficient.
Similarly, Hegel argued that the propositions of religion also attempt
to express the human encounter with reality. The six-day account of
creation in the Bible, for example, is a purported message of that which
is real; yet it is not a completely real account because it contains elements
of myth. Hence, according to Hegel, religion too was an inadequate way
of approaching and understanding reality.7
Hegel believed it was only through the use of philosophical concepts
that one could really understand the structure of reality. For him, the
truly real is what he called the Absolute. Hegel described the Absolute
as a dynamic process – an organism having parts but unified into a
complex system. The Absolute is therefore not some entity separate
from the world but is the world when viewed in a special way. The inner
essence of the Absolute could be reached by human reason because the
Absolute is disclosed in nature as well as in the working of the human
mind. As a maxim, reality must conform to human reason. If one is
really to understand reality, then one must step beyond the limits
of religion and discover the truths expressed in the pure concepts of
philosophy.
This accent on philosophical speculation, which led to objectivity
in understanding the real, demanded a personal detachment from the
understanding process. The subjective elements in understanding were
to be suppressed, so that the sheer contemplation demanded for objec-
tive understanding might be attained. It was this purported superiority
of philosophy over religion, coupled with the objective aspect of philo-

sophical understanding, that Kierkegaard reacted against. He says:
If Hegel had written the whole of his logic and then said ... that it was
merely an experiment in thought then he could certainly have been
the greatest thinker who ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.8
What made Hegel comic for Kierkegaard was that this great philoso-
pher had tried to capture all of reality in his system of thought, yet in
the process lost the most important element, namely existence. Hegel’s
philosophy falsified people’s understanding of reality because it shifted
attention away from the concrete individual to the concept of univer-
sals. It called upon individuals “to think” the Absolute instead of “to
be” thought: instead of being involved in decisions and commitments.
In terms of the Hegelian view, an individual is essentially a representa-
tive of his age. His personal and religious views must give expression to
his role in the total moral and religions development of humankind – a
role that is imposed upon him by his age. Hegelianism basically tried to
argue that the development of freedom and of reason is a logical one.
The problem was compounded, however, when this rational emphasis
of Hegelian philosophy was entrenched into Christian theology. Many
of the ministers of Danish Lutheranism were trained in Hegelian
philosophy and, in accordance with this training, these ministers
placed great emphasis on the importance of detached contempla-
tion and the subservience of religion to philosophy. Both Hegelian
philosophy and Christendom9 fostered what Kierkegaard called “objec-
tivity.” Kierkegaard regarded this state of affairs as a frightful illusion –
a tremendous confusion concerning the nature of reality, man and
Christianity. Thus, he sought to remedy this situation, which meant for
him neither more nor less than rejecting systematization and opposing
objectivity with subjectivity. While objectivity is impersonal, subjec-
tivity is personal and involves self-commitment by the thinker. Indeed,
Kierkegaard’s mission is correctly captured by Stumpf in the following
passage:
Kierkegaard’s whole career might well be considered a self conscious

revolt against abstract thought and an attempt on his part to live
up to Feuerbach’s admonition: Do not wish to be a philosopher in
contrast to being a man ... do not think as a thinker ... think as a living
real being ... think in existence.10
Lawhead corroborates the above point when he remarks that:
Kierkegaard’s writings were all directed to calling individuals to live

authentic, passionate and honest lives, repudiating the temptation to
find our meaning and identity in institutions or abstractions.11
These quotes imply that Kierkegaard saw philosophical inquiry neither

as the construction of systems nor as the analysis of concepts, but as an
expression of individual existence. He wishes to make the subject realize
what it means to exist and what it means to be a Christian.
The individual and the ethical task of existence
Kierkegaard, in his ethical writings, offers no system of norms, values,

or precepts. Rather, his writings offer us only a strategy, calculated, as he
puts it, “to make aware.”12 Kierkegaard reminds us over and over that
his writings have primarily an edifying intention. He is more concerned
with the ethical task of existing, understood as knowing and actual-
izing one’s being. He addresses his books and ethical utterances to the
modern subject in order to help him to come to terms with his own
existence. The term existence is derived from the Latin word “existere”
which means “stand forth.” The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary
defines existence as the state or fact of being real or living, or of being
present.13 This implies that what exists must have concrete characteris-
tics featured in space and time. Given this broad definition, it is clear
that both human beings and all other material objects – such as stones,
trees, buildings automobiles, the sun, rivers, and so on – are entities that
can be described as existing.
But there is nothing recondite about the kind of existence for which
Kierkegaard, in refuting Hegel, fought such a passionate battle. It is
indeed our ordinary human existence – concrete, personal and finite. For
Kierkegaard,14 Hegel dissolved the concreteness of individual existence
into abstractions characteristic of the realm of concepts. Any particular
conceptual scheme represents not an actuality but a possibility. Whether
a given individual realizes this possibility, and so endows it with exist-
ence, depends upon the individual and not upon the concepts. What
the individual does depends not upon what he understands but upon
what he wills. In other words, Kierkegaard argues against Hegel that
existence cannot be derived from reason.
It is important to remark here that Kant, before Hegel, had made
a statement on the subject of existence and reason that has become
decisive for modern philosophy. Kant declared, in effect, that existence

can never be conceived by reason, though the conclusions he drew
from this fact were very different from that of Kierkegaard. According to
Kant,15 “being” is evidently not a real predicate or concept of something
that can be added to the concept of a thing. That is, if I think of a thing,
and then think of that thing as existing, my second concept does not
add any determinate characteristic to the first. Kant gives the example of
a hundred dollars: If I think of a hundred dollars and a hundred possible
dollars, my concept is still of one hundred dollars, not a cent more or
less. To be sure, in the order of existence and not of concepts, there is a
world of difference between the real and the merely possible: a hundred
real dollars will make me a hundred dollars richer, while a hundred
possible dollars leaves my financial position exactly what it was. But
that is in life and not in thought. So far as thinking is concerned, there is
no definite note or characteristic by which, in a concept, I can represent
existence as such.16
According to Barrett, when Kant made the above point, he was
speaking from the more positivist and scientific side of his philosophy.
From the point of view of theoretical knowledge, existence is negligible,
because knowledge wants to know about a thing and the fact that it
exists does not tell me anything about it. Ultimately, what I want to
know about the thing is what characterizes it in the way of definite
observable qualities; and existence, far from being an observable quality
is in fact too general, remote, and tenuous a property to be represented
at all to the mind.17 Hence, all modern positivism takes its cue from
Kant’s doctrine. This accounts for why all thinking about existence or
metaphysics is discarded as pointless, because existence cannot be repre-
sented in a concept, and thus thinking about it will never lead to any
definite result in observation.
Kierkegaard, unlike the positivists, takes a road leading in the opposite
direction. He agrees that existence cannot be represented in a concept. He
says, however, that it is not because it is too general, remote and tenuous
a thing to be conceived of but rather because it is too diverse, concrete
and rich.18 I am, or I exist, is a fact so compelling and enveloping that it
cannot be reproduced thinly in any of my mental concepts.
It is evident that many philosophers before Kierkegaard, particularly
since Descartes, had speculated about the proposition “I exist,” but it
was Kierkegaard who observed the crucial fact that they had forgotten:
namely, that my own existence is not at all a matter of speculation to
me, but a reality in which I am personally and passionately involved.19
I do not find this existence reflected in the mirror of the mind, I
encounter it in life; it is my life, a current flowing invisibly around

all my mental mirrors. But if existence is not mirrored as a concept in
the mind, where then do we really come to grips with it? According to
Kierkegaard, this decisive encounter with the self lies in the either/or of
choice. When he gave up his engagement to Regine Olsen, thus forever
giving up the solaces of ordinary life for which he longed, Kierkegaard
was encountering his own existence as a reality more potent and drastic
than any concept.20 An individual encounters the self that he is, not
in the detachment of thought but in the involvement and pathos of
choice.
For Kierkegaard, therefore, the term existence is best reserved for the
individual human being. To “exist,” he said, implies being a certain
kind of individual – an individual who strives, who considers alterna-
tives, who chooses, who decides and who, above all, makes a commit-
ment. Kierkegaard made a distinction between the spectator and the
actor, arguing that only the actor is involved in existence. To be sure,
the spectator can be said to exist but the term existence does not prop-
erly belong to inert or inactive things, whether these be spectators or
stones. Kierkegaard rejected completely the Aristotelian and Hegelian
ideas that the essential attribute of humans is their capacity to reason.
For Kierkegaard, the most important attribute of man is not thought but
will. Man is a being that makes choices. Thus, only a human person,
who engages in a conscious activity of will and choice, can truly be said
to exist.
What role does the subject play in the building of ethical systems? In
Kierkegaard’s words,
What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not

what I am to know, except in so far as a certain understanding must
precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what
God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true
for me, to find an idea for which I can live and die.21
These brief words contain two of the major themes in what we may
refer to as his ethico-ontological orientation: (1) acting decisively
and finding self-understanding rather than acquiring theoretical
knowledge, are the crucial tasks each of us faces in life; and (2) all the
objective truths in the world will be useless if I do not subjectively
appropriate them, if I do not make life something that is “true for
me.”22 Thus, Kierkegaard stresses subjective truth over objective truth.
Truth, says Kierkegaard, is subjectivity.23 This is one of Kierkegaard’s
numerous utterances, the meaning of which is not enclosed within

it as its content but is projected in the effect on the reader or that
individual. It is more of an ethico-rhetorical imperative than a philo-
sophical indicative. Translated into the language of personal address,
it says: “You reader; Whatever you believe, whatever you claim to
know, remember in fear and trembling that you hold this faith and
stake this claim solely on the strength of your own freedom to do so,
with no guarantee more ultimate than your own decision, at your
own risk, and on your own responsibility.”24 This charge to the reader,
which is the real and indirect import of “Truth is subjectivity,” is as far
as it could be from the epistemological relativism which the proposi-
tion immediately suggests. What the reader is to get from “Truth is
subjectivity” is not the comforting assurance that it doesn’t matter
what you believe, but rather the existential terror – that glimpse of the
abyss which is itself a confrontation with the absolute – the terror that
ensues when “the uncertainty of all things is thought infinitely.”25
Kierkegaard does believe that it is possible for truth to be personal and
objective when it comes to mathematics and the sciences. He once said,
“All honour to the pursuit of science.”26 For example, the Pythagorean
theorem and the distance between the earth and the moon clearly are
not just “true for me.” But, when the issue is religious or moral truth,
or the meaning of life, or what Kierkegaard called “essential truth,”
then there is no neutral, objective, impersonal standpoint from which
these issues can be approached through the avenue of cool detached
reason.
Kierkegaard represents a reaction against the whole trend of modern
philosophy from Descartes to Hegel. The “Cogito ergo sum” becomes
the “Sum ergo cogito.” Abstract consciousness and abstract thought is
rejected for the concrete spiritual individual, with his inwardness and
subjectivity. The following propositions from his Concluding Unscientific
Postscript will help point the way and unpack the significance of subjec-
tivity for Kierkegaard:
1. All essential knowledge concerns existence.

2. All knowledge, which does not relate itself to existence, in the reflec-
tion of inwardness, is essentially viewed as contingent and inessential
knowledge; its degree and scope is indifferent.
3. Objective reflection and knowledge has to be distinguished from
subjective reflection and knowledge.
4. The objective way of reflection leads to objective knowledge, and
while the subject and his subjectivity becomes indifferent, the truth
also becomes indifferent, and this indifference is precisely the objec-

tive value; its objectivity is either a hypothesis or an approximation.
5. Subjective knowledge requires personal appropriation. In subjec-
tion, truth becomes appropriation, inwardness or subjectivity. In
fact, the only reality which an existing being can know, other than
through some abstract knowledge, is his own existence. Here, it is
necessary that the existing subject should plunge itself into its own
subjectivity.
6. Only ethical and religious knowledge is therefore essential knowl-
edge: they alone are essentially related to the fact that the knowing
subject exists; they alone are in contact with reality. In them alone,
truth and existence coincide.
7. The essential truth is subjective or internal: “truth is subjectivity.”27
As a direct consequence of the widespread moral and religious decline

fostered by the spirit of speculation and objectivity, Kierkegaard says
that morality, as well as religion, is not something to be talked about,
but to be lived. He argues, therefore, that a true adherent of the Christian
message must necessarily become a subjective individual. Subjectivity is
the constant awareness that I am an individual. Subjectivity is the moral
because the ethical is doing. Subjectivity is decision, choice and passion.
Subjectivity is despair, fear, and trembling.
In Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard identifies three major modes of
human existence, which he describes as aesthetic, ethical and reli-
gious.28 He emphasizes the issue of how one discovers one’s being in
these three modes of existing and says that this process of discovering
and appropriating one’s being is constitutive of individual existence.
The three existence-spheres are not distinguished abstractly – as the
immediate, the mediate and the synthesis of the two – but concretely, in
existential determinations, as pleasure, duty and faith. This means that
Kierkegaard’s analysis of the three stages represents a sharp contrast to
Hegel’s theory of the gradual development of a person’s self-conscious-
ness. Stumpf explains this point further:
Whereas Hegel expounded the dialectical movement of the mind as

it moves from one stage of intellectual awareness to another through
the process of thinking, Kierkegaard described the movement of the
self from one level of existence to another through an act of will, an
act of choice. Hegel’s dialectic moves gradually toward a knowledge
of the universal whereas Kierkegaard’s dialectic involves the progres-
sive actualization of the individual. Whereas Hegel overcomes the
antithesis by a conceptual act, Kierkegaard overcomes it by the act of

personal commitment.29
The doctrine of choice is put to work in relation to the distinction of

the three existence-spheres. The aesthetic life is dominated by impulse,
emotions and sensual pleasures and does not truly involve making
choices. The ethical sphere constitutes the sphere of duty, of uncondi-
tional demands and tasks. The ethical life does involve making choices
but those who live this life make choices on the basis of some kind of
moral code, which they in effect fall back on as a sort of crutch. At a
higher and much more difficult sphere is the religious. Here, individuals
decide all issues for themselves by a leap of faith, through non-intel-
lectual, passionate and infinite commitment. The movement from the
aesthetic to the ethical sphere ushered man into the presence of reason
inasmuch as the moral law is an expression of universal reason. But the
movement from the ethical to the religious sphere is quite different. The
leap of faith does not bring one into the presence of God, who can be
rationally or objectively described as the Absolute and knowable Truth
but into the presence of a subject. The relationship between God and
each individual is unique and subjective. Only an act of faith can assure
an existing individual of his or her personal relation to God. One of
the heroes of this transition is Abraham. In demanding from Abraham
the sacrifice of Isaac his son, God demands something that, from the
standpoint of the ethical (rational, universal moral norm) is absolutely
forbidden. Abraham must make the leap to faith and accept the absurd.
Kierkegaard refers to this as “teleological suspension of the ethical.”30
Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual, as a single indi-
vidual, is higher than the universal. He acts by virtue of the absurd, for
it is precisely the absurd that makes him – as a single individual – higher
than the universal.
Inwardness, subjectivity and self-fulfillment
The epitaph that Kierkegaard composed for himself was simply, “that
individual.” By this, he means the individual as separated from the rest,
in his aloneness and solitude, face-to-face with his destiny, with the
Eternal, with God Himself and with the awful responsibility of decision
and choice. Intercourse with God is, in the deepest sense, absolutely non-
social,31 he says. This, and several other passages in his writings, suggests
he had a keen distaste for the crowd. Whatever the nature of the crowd,
whether rich or poor or political in make-up, or even a congregation in
a church, in every case, says Kiekegaard,32 “a crowd in its very concept

is the untruth because it renders the individual completely impenitent
and irresponsible.” As clearly stated by Steeve:
Kierkegaard conceived it his function as a writer to strip men of their

disguises ... to enforce self examination, and to bring them solitary
and alone before the eternal.33
The central point is that each person possesses an essential self, which
he or she ought to actualize. This essential self is fixed by the very fact
that human beings must inescapably become related to God. The ques-
tion then is, does Kierkegaard provide us with a workable guide for self-
fulfillment?
There is no doubt that Kierkegaard is often taken to be the cham-
pion of solitary selfhood or a proponent of radical individualism. For
instance, in Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time and
Self, Taylor gives a “solitary self” interpretation of Kierkegaard’s existen-
tialist philosophy.34 He thinks that Kierkegaard’s most significant error
is his neglect for the other, or community and fellowship. Without
fellowship with others, without community with others, what makes
life worth living?
It is evident, however, that the “solitary self” reading of Kierkegaard’s
thought is not as straightforward as it may seem. Although he believes
that metaphysical or ontological questions have no bearing on ethical
matters, Kierkegaard remains a realist, not only in the sense that he
believes that things in nature exist in their own way but also that every
other human being has his own existence in just the same way that I
have mine. This is buttressed by the fact that Kierkegaard writes books
in order to communicate. The very act of communicating implies the
being of the recipient and of a world which incorporates both commu-
nicants. Unlike Descartes, the question of the existence of the other is
not a problem to Kierkegaard. In the Concept of Anxiety, he writes:
Every individual is essentially interested in the history of all other

individuals, and just as essentially as in his own. Perfection in oneself
is therefore the perfect participation in the whole.35
Given the above, it is obvious that Kierkegaard, on the one hand,

stressed the social nature of man, who he sees not only as a-being-in-
the-world but also as a-being-with-others. But on the other hand, he
emphasized man’s singularity, individuality and uniqueness. It is for this
reason that he made a distinction between authentic and inauthentic

existence. Authenticity, he says, is the preservation of an individual
identity, which is capable of being eroded by the influence and demand
of society. Therefore, Kierkegaard would say that the isolation of the
individual in his freedom is not a perverse denial of the world, but a
sine qua non of ethics. “This is profitable preliminary training for an
ethical mode of existence: to learn that the individual stands alone.”36
The key word here is freedom. I am free with respect to other realities.
They do not impinge on me directly so as to make me what I am, nor
do I so impinge on them. Because I am free, other realities become for
me possibilities: things-which-I-am-able-to-do-something-about. I can
either stand off and look at them (aesthetically-intellectually), or take
them into my existence as opportunities and demands for decision
(ethically). Realities other than mine are, and they are related to me.
But they do not touch me as realities in such a way as to determine
me. They relate to me indirectly, across the nothingness of freedom,
“the alarming possibility of being able.”37 In other words, Kierkegaard
has a relational and developmental view of the self because what one
is and becomes depends, in large part, on how one relates to oneself
and others. Kierkegaard conceives of one as having to strike a balance
between one’s capacities for self-determination on the one hand, and
one’s historical rootedness, which impinges on one’s freedom, on the
other. So, for Kierkegaard, the self has capacities for self-awareness, self-
revision, and freedom, but is not unaware of the other. In fact, it is only
by such awareness that an assessment of a subject’s authentic existence
can take place.
Now, how do these points relate to self-fulfillment? Simply put,
Kierkegaard’s task for the self is reminiscent of the Socratic dictum,
“Man, Know Thyself.” And I remember here a saying of the Ikas, people
of South Eastern Nigeria (where I come from): Onye imarin leni ewen wu
anu, “a person who is not conscious of his being or self is a beast or an
animal.” The implication of this is that it is possible to be conscious
without being self-conscious but impossible to be self-conscious without
being conscious. In this way, the Ikas and indeed many African commu-
nities differentiate man from animals. Selfhood is self-consciousness.
Being a self-conscious individual, the subject is able to raise such ques-
tions as: What is life? What is the world? What is man? Who am I?
This helps him find meaning and purpose in life. To fail in this task
or to be misrelated to oneself and others through the improper use of
one’s faculties is, in Kierkegaard’s terms, to be in despair. Consequently,
he describes the fullest realization of selfhood as the state of the self
when despair is completely rooted out and the self has achieved inner
integrity.38
In fact, that Kierkegaard’s ethics of inwardness can lead to self-fulfill-
ment can be clearly illustrated by the following fairy tale. There is a story
among the Swahili people concerning a leopard and a very cunning
little animal called mbepele, who were good friends and lived together in
fellowship and harmony. One day, however, mbepele tricked the leopard
by suggesting that they should each kill their respective old mothers,
since these have obviously outlived their usefulness. The mothers were
to be thrown into a river. Both set out to carry out their plan. Each was
expected to take his mother on his head to the river and then throw her
in. But mbepele hid his mother; instead, he wrapped a wooden mortal
in a garment that he had smeared with red pigment, so that when he
threw the mortal into the water the color resembled blood (an indica-
tion that he had actually killed his mother). The leopard was convinced
that mbepele had killed his mother and so proceeded to do the same. He
believed that they were now both orphans (unbeknown to him, mbepele
continued to live happily in fellowship with his mother, visiting her
in secret so that the leopard would notice nothing). Mbepele ate his fill
every day while the leopard went hungry. This happened until the day
came when the leopard realized that his friend had deceived him. Then
the leopard went in secret to mbepele’s mother and killed her and from
that day on the two friends were enemies.39
The message of this fairy tale undoubtedly concerns the problem
of the individual and the group, showing that the individual should
not blindly follow the group. This is what is alluded to in the opening
passage of The Sickness Unto Death, where Kierkegaard presented a kind of
phenomenological description of the self, according to which a human
being is said to be a synthesis of distinct poles, “of the infinite and the
finite, the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity.”40 Bujo
corroborates this point in his remark that “life in community demands
alertness and maintenance of one’s own individuality.”41 If the leopard
had critically posed questions about his friendship with mbepele, he
would not have murdered his mother. The fairy tale also teaches that
a community into which the individual is absorbed destroys itself. The
friendship between mbepele and the leopard was shattered precisely
because the leopard let himself be driven by the herd mentality and
dominated by his friend, to such an extent that neither was able any
longer to remain an individual.
Kierkegaard often emphasizes individuality in order to correct a crip-
pling and subtle overemphasis on conformity. Becoming an individual
represents a necessary moment in the progression toward fully realized

selfhood. The condition for the possibility of becoming related to others
and one’s community in the right way – or in a way that does not abso-
lutize one’s culture – is to pass through the moment of individuality to
a higher form of existence in which both one’s individuality and one’s
sociality is realized. So when one views Kierkegaard’s ethics of inward-
ness as a corrective in this way, then it helps one to see that he may
have something else in mind than solitariness as the ultimate goal of
selfhood. But in his emphasis on subjective truth, he underrated objec-
tive reflection. His subjectivity and inwardness can lead to introspective
confusion and pathological egocentricity. Religion on the other hand,
cannot be purely subjective. It requires objective evidence for its beliefs.
“Subjectivity is truth” is an overstatement. It can lead either to the
erroneous conclusion that an existential logic is possible or to nihilism
and irrationalism. Subjectively, something is true because the person
passionately believes in it, has appropriated it and assimilated it with
his whole existence, even if the object of his belief is a paradox or an
absurdity. As Carnell and Rempel explain, passion should be guided by
the seriousness and truth of the object and not by its rational offensive-
ness. Secondly, worthy faith should be aroused by a joint cooperation
between the nature of the object and the sufficiency of the evidence that
supports it.
Charges ranging from moral nihilism and violence to selfishness and
sloppy thinking have all been leveled against Kierkegaard’s attempt to
go beyond, or “teleologically suspend,” ethics in the name of a “higher,”
specifically religious, obligation. The question is, how does this break
with the ethical differ, if at all, from that implied by Dostoevski’s state-
ment that, if God is dead, then all things are permitted, and from that
advocated by Nietzsche, who said the superior individual, the Superman,
is justified in breaking any moral rule he wishes in order to advance
his own power? The difference is that Kierkegaard does not deny the
validity of the ethical: the individual who is called upon to break with
the ethical must have subordinated himself to the ethical universal; and
the break, when he is called upon to make it, is made in fear and trem-
bling and not in the callous arrogance of power. The validity of this
break lies with the uniqueness of the individual, the singleness of the
single one, and with the calling of the religious man, who has to break
with the ordinary moral code that his fellow citizens approve. The “tele-
ological suspension” of the ethical is not due to the conflict between
the ethical and the religious, or between a nonreligious duty and duty
to God, but instead reflects a tension that is internal to the life of faith
itself. Such is the concreteness of existence that a situation may come

under several rules at once, forcing us to choose outside any rule, and
from inside ourselves.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have attempted to present Kierkegaard’s contribution to

the ethics of the self as one that places emphasis on the subject’s appre-
ciation of his inwardness for self-fulfillment. It is important to note
that Kierkegaard’s existentialist philosophy is a concern for a realistic
human existence, aimed at improving the condition and quality of the
subject. The central point is that each person possesses an essential self,
which he or she ought to actualize by looking inward, not outside of the
self. This essential self is fixed by the very fact that human beings must
inescapably become related to God. To be sure, we can exist at any of
the three stages along life’s way. But the experience of despair and guilt
creates in us an awareness of qualitative differences in various modes
of existence, that some modes of human existence are more authentic
than others. However, arriving at authentic existence is not a matter
of the intellect. It is a matter of faith and commitment, a continuous
process of choice by the existing individual in face of alternatives. In
fact, the authentic subject is one who has nothing to do with universal
moral codes. He is only moral to the extent that he discovers the truth
by himself. Man attains self-fulfillment by realizing his capacities in a
way that brings one into right relations with others and causes one to
achieve inner integrity.
Notes
1. B. N. Moore & K. Bruder (1999), Philosophy: The Power of Ideas (California:
Mayfield Publishing Company), p. 140.
2. G. Rempel, Soren Kierkegaard and Existentialism. www.sorenkuregaard.nl/
artikelen/E 24/07/2013
3. G. Marino (2004), Basic Writings of Existentialism (New York: Modern Library),
p. 3.
4. W. Barrett (1962), Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (New York:
Anchor Books), p. 153.
5. G. Marino, Basic Writings of Existentialism, p. 4.
6. A. J. Lisska (1977), Philosophy Matters (Ohio: Charles E. Merrrill Publishing
Company), p. 477.
7. A. J. Lisska, Philosophy Matters, p. 477.
8. S. E. Stumpf (1999), Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy (New York:
McGraw Hill), p. 450.
9. By Christendom, Kierkegaard meant the 19th century Danish state religion.

This was a form of Lutheranism practiced by the citizens of Denmark. An
established church, which is granted a certain status and privilege by the
political institutions of a country, has many drawbacks. The one Kierkegaard
noticed most is that being a Christian, i.e. being a member of the state
church, had become a matter-of-fact, routine event in the life of every Danish
citizen. Being a Christian was as automatic as being a citizen of Denmark.
The effect of Christendom on Christianity was to deny the difficult dimen-
sion demanded by a commitment to the Christian way of life. See A. J. Lisska,
Philosophy Matters, p. 478.
10. S. E. Stumpf, Socrates to Sartre, p. 450.
11. W. F. Lawhead (1984), The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach
(California: Mayfield Publishing Company), p. 185.
12. S. Kierkegaard (1950), The Point of View (London,), pp. 138, 155.
13. A. S. Hornby (1984), Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English
14. D. M. Borchert (2006) (ed.) Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition, Volume 1
(New York: Thomson Gale), p. 62.
15. W. Barrett, Irrational Man, p. 161.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. S. Kierkegaard (1946), “The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard,” trans. Alexander
Dru, in A Kierkegaard Anthology (ed.), Robert Bretall (New York: Random
House), pp. 4–5.
22. W. F. Lawhead, The Philosophical Journey, p. 450.
23. S. Kierkegaard (1944), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Princeton), p. 179.
24. L. Mackey (1962), “The Loss of the World in Kierkegaard’s Ethics,” The Review
of Metaphysics 15(4), pp. 602–620.
25. S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 80.
26. S. Kierkegaard (1941), Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. D. F. Swenson
& W. Lowrie (Princeton N. J.: Princeton University Press), p. 135.
27. S. Kierkegaard (2013), “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” cited in G.
Rempel, Soren Kierkegaard and Existentialism, www.sorenkuregaard.nl/artikelen/E,
June 24.
28. S. Kierkegaard (1967), Stages on Life’s Way, trans. Walter Lowrie (New York:
Schocken Books) p. 430.
30. S. Kierkegaard (1983), Fear and Trembling and Repetition. Danish original 1843.
Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N.
J.: Princeton University Press), pp. 55, 69 and 82.
31. S. Kierkegaard (1962), Christian Discourses, trans. Walter Lowrie (New York:
Oxford University Press), p. 334.
33. S. Kierkegaard, “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing,” cited in A. O. Echekwube
(1999), Contemporary Ethics: History, Theories and Issues (Lagos: Speco Books
Ltd.), p. 130.
34. M. C. Taylor (1975), Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship: A Study of Time

and Self (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 343–372.
35. S. Kierkegaard (1980), The Concept of Anxiety, trans. Reidar Thomte (Princeton:
Princeton University Press), p. 29.
36. S. Kierkegaard (1975), The Concept of Dread (Princeton: Princeton University
Press), p. 287.
37. S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread, p. 40.
38. S. Kierkegaard (1980), The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Howard V. Hong & Edna
H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 29–30.
39. B. Bujo (2003), Foundations of African Ethics (Nairobi: Paulines Publications),
p. 118.
40. B. Bujo, Foundations of African Ethics, p. 118.
41. Ibid., p. 118.

5
Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual
and the Ethics of Subjectivity
Sharli Anne Paphitis
Introduction
Oh, wretched ephemeral race,

children of chance and misery.
– Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
Nietzsche is perhaps one of the most controversial figures in Western

philosophical history. This is in no small part owed to his attacks on
Christianity and conventional morality, as well as his skepticism about
human freedom. Nietzsche’s skeptical views of human freedom and the
self might initially make him seem an unlikely candidate for providing us
with a robust account of subjectivity, and his attacks on morality might
similarly make him a seemingly unlikely proponent of an account of
human flourishing. However, in this chapter I explore Nietzsche’s under-
standing of the ethics of subjectivity, showing that Nietzsche provides
us with an attractive positive account of human agency, personhood,
and flourishing.
Nietzsche asserts, in part through his characterization of the Sovereign
Individual, that some form of self-control is required for the project of
exercising agency.1 This self-control view of human agency is similarly
central to recent analytic accounts proposed by Harry Frankfurt, Gary
Watson and Alfred Mele.2 While the self-control view of agency is plau-
sible, we should question whether, and in what ways, exercising self-
control contributes to our understanding of ourselves as persons and to
our flourishing – as Nietzsche himself does.
In her paper Pity and Mercy: Nietzsche’s Stoicism, Martha Nussbaum
argues that Nietzsche’s philosophical project can be seen as an attempt
71
72 Sharli Anne Paphitis
to “bring about a revival of Stoic values of self-command and self-

formation.”3 She argues that, to his detriment, Nietzsche’s Sovereign
Individual epitomizes a kind of Stoic ideal of inner strength and self-suf-
ficiency which goes “beyond Stoicism” in its valorization of radical self-
emancipation from the contingencies of life and from our own human
vulnerability. Nussbaum thus urges us to question whether the picture
of strength through self-control in Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual is
really a picture of human strength at which we would be willing, or at
which we ought, to aim.
In this chapter I take up Nussbaum’s challenge within the framework
of my own thoughts on the role of both agency and vulnerability in
our conception of personhood. While I agree with Nussbaum that the
self-emancipation characterization of the Sovereign Individual provides
us with, in many important ways, an ultimately unattractive ideal of
human strength at which to aim, such a characterization of Nietzsche’s
Sovereign Individual remains problematic. It is my contention here that
the Sovereign Individual, like the Stoic, is to be characterized in terms
of his deep recognition of the necessity of his own vulnerability, but
that, importantly, it is the Sovereign Individual’s reaction to this recogni-
tion that distinguishes the ideal of strength which we find in him from
the problematic Stoic ideal. While the Stoics overemphasize the ideal
subject’s capacity for control, suggesting that he will do so in an attempt
to transcend his necessary human vulnerability through an escaping and
rejecting of it, Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual is antithetical to the Stoic
in precisely this respect: the Sovereign Individual lives through and with
his vulnerability by actively affirming it. The Sovereign Individual is thus
more properly to be understood as embodying and affirming precisely
the very fragility and vulnerability which the Stoic person seeks to tran-
scend through rejection and denial.4 Given Nussbaum and Nietzsche’s
criticisms of the Stoic position, I argue that Nietzsche and Nussbaum
may have more in common than Nussbaum suggests.
Finally, in this chapter I aim to show that by proposing the Doctrine
of the Eternal Recurrence as the ultimate test for the highest affirma-
tion of life which the Sovereign Individual must pass, Nietzsche also
provides part of what he takes to be the solution to the threat of both
the impending nihilism and the inhibiting current morality of his age.
Agency and the Sovereign individual
Control, I think, is central to our understanding of human agency.

In following the suggestions made about the nature of agency by
Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual 73
philosophers working in the analytic tradition of philosophy, I main-

tain that agency must be understood in terms of self-control. Self-
control is central because our ability to act, rather than simply being
blown through the world like leaves in the wind, requires the exercise
of various psychological activities, such as self-observation and critical
reflection, in order to achieve mastery over the self. A number of robust
and plausible philosophical accounts of agency have been proposed
along these lines, most notably by Harry Frankfurt, Gary Watson and
Alfred Mele. Philosophical accounts such as these outline the necessary
structural features of the mind which must be in place in order for us
to control our initial responses to the world, and thereby, allow us to
perform actions which are calculated and controlled rather than being
largely out of our control.
Following these self-control accounts, I think that a major part of
what makes a human agent’s mental life so complex is the fact that, as
humans, we not only have primary, or brute, responses to the world,
in the form of beliefs and desires, but we are able to assess those basic
responses through critical reflection, form opinions or make assess-
ments of them, and, in some instances, we are able to change them.
Following such accounts, it seems that for the idea of human agency
to get off the ground requires that our critical reflection be an active,
rather than passive capacity: that is, to be an agent is to be involved
actively in the task of critical reflection. This critical reflection for the
agent, then, involves a deliberative or evaluative element. When criti-
cally reflecting on our basic responses to the world, we evaluate whether
or not to act on those responses by assessing them in light of our values,
commitments, projects, aims and goals – what we might be inclined to
call our “better judgment.” In so far as we have the capacity for critical
reflection, we have control over whether or not we act on our most basic
responses to the world. And in doing so, we control ourselves from the
inside. When we speak about exercising our agency, then what we mean
is that we should have self-control in this sense.
Alfred Mele, I think rightly, suggests that the idea of self-control, or
“the ability to master motivation that is contrary to one’s better judg-
ment [and] ... the ability to prevent such motivation from resulting in
behavior that is contrary to one’s decisive better judgment”5 is funda-
mental to our agency in three ways.
Firstly, he claims, we may, and often do, have conflicts between our
better judgment and our brute desires. These accounts plausibly suggest
that self-control is needed in such cases in order for a person to maintain
her agency, in the face of quite often compelling desires to act in ways
which she would rather not act on the basis of her own better judgment.
As Mele explains, “In short, a self-controlled person is someone who is
appropriately motivated to conduct himself as he judges best and has
the ability to master motivation to the contrary.”6
Secondly, “one’s evaluations themselves can be warped in various
ways by one’s wants”7 – our critical reflection and better judgment itself
can be seduced by our basic or brute responses to the world. In such
cases, the self-controlled person must be able to master this internal
psychological threat to his control, and hence his agency. Thus, “a self-
controlled person must ... be disposed to promote and maintain a collec-
tion of evaluations that is not unduly influenced by his motivations.”8
And finally, while to have self-control is to be in control of oneself,
there is more to being in control of oneself than having and exhibiting
the power to master motivation that is contrary to one’s better judg-
ment. A person whose better judgments rest on values generated and
maintained by brainwashing or under the influence of certain ideologies
or even simply by society at large, may be self-controlled in the first two
senses; but he seems not to be in control of himself in the broader sense.
He is ruled, ultimately, not by his “self,” but rather by his brainwasher or
the ideology to which he subscribes, or society at large.9
Agency then, it seems to me, is largely to be understood in psycho-
logical terms, as something which is to be explained from the inside: it is
a story about our own control over the internal workings of our psyche.
Exercising self-control in the way I have just described allows us to make
our own choices and decisions about the actions we take and the lives
we come to live as a result, and is thus I think what we most basically
refer to as human agency.
It has recently and convincingly been argued by a number of philoso-
phers10 that there is a sense of freedom, or an idea of agency, suggested
by Nietzsche which he discusses in his conception of the Sovereign
Individual,11 or under the label of self-overcoming. Nietzsche asserts
that some form of self-control is required for the project of becoming
an agent. Most interestingly, I think, the person, for Nietzsche, exhibits
precisely the kind of self-control which I take to be central to the idea
of agency, and which is central to the analytic accounts briefly outlined
above.
Nietzsche emphasizes self-governance or self-control in both the
motivational and evaluative senses described by Mele – this is “particu-
larly prominent in later works like Twilight of the Idols.”12 Much like the
agent I sketched in the section above, on Nietzsche’s account sovereign
individuals are to be thought of as actively asserting control over or
governing themselves from the inside, mastering conflicting inclinations

and motivations. For Nietzsche, as agents we form values on the basis of
our brute desires. But these values are not simply formed as mere copies
of all of these desires. This process involves, for the agent, selecting and
affirming or endorsing some desires over others which may conflict with
them, and resembles the picture of agency given in analytic accounts
sketched above in which we use our “better judgment”13 to guide us
in deliberations about which desires to endorse and act on. In “How
to Harden Your Heart,” Amelie Rorty elegantly highlights the intuitive
plausibility of this picture, saying:
Sanity and decency consist in achieving a reflectively critical balance

among all these deep-seated and contrary tendencies. Any normal
person is in principle notionally capable of monitoring and adjusting
them.14
For Nietzsche, in mastering or controlling our conflicting motivations in

the service of the values we endorse is a fundamental part of achieving
agency. Nietzsche explains:
Indeed, where the plant “man” shows himself strongest one finds
instincts that conflict powerfully ... but are controlled.15
It is our ability to master and control conflicting desires that, for Nietzsche,
most fundamentally represents our ability to overcome ourselves: in
order to follow through on our intentions, we must overcome those
conflicting desires and inclinations that would otherwise motivate us
to act against our intentions, which, importantly, are also our own (self-
overcoming). In Nietzsche’s view, if we are not able to control our inner
conflicts (at least some of the time), we are not capable of exercising our
agency or becoming Sovereign Individuals. In agreement with Gemes’
recent discussion of Nietzsche on agency, I argue that, if we are not able
to exercise our agency it is a most dangerous threat to our sovereignty
because it undermines our right to make promises, something which
is perhaps the defining characteristic of the Sovereign Individual qua
agent.16 In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche says:
We discover that the ripest fruit is the sovereign individual, like only
to himself ... autonomous and supramoral ... in short, the man who
has his own independent, protracted will and the right to make
promises – and in him a proud consciousness ... of his own power and
freedom, a sensation of mankind come to completion. This emanci-

pated individual, with the actual right to make promises, this master
of free will, this sovereign man.17
It seems clear to me that the Sovereign Individual has the right to make
promises, for Nietzsche, precisely because he is able to exercise the kind
of self-control or self-overcoming involved in the analytic picture of
agency briefly discussed above. As Gemes explains, you cannot have
agency in any genuine sense for Nietzsche if you are “merely tossed
about willy-nilly by a jumble of competing desires18:” for Nietzsche,
unless you are able to exercise control over yourself, “you cannot stand
surety for what you promise,19” because if you are unable to master your
conflicting motivations, you cannot be sure that you will honor your
promise when the time comes to act on it, since you may well act on
a conflicting or contrary inclination at any time (being able to choose
a course of action and know that you will be able to stick with it, now
and in the future, in the face of competing desires and inclinations, is
what Nietzsche here refers to as a “protracted will”). If you cannot stand
surety for your promises, Nietzsche thinks that you have not earned the
right to make promises at all. And unless you have the right to make
promises, you cannot be an agent or, in Nietzsche’s terms, a Sovereign
Individual.
Second, Nietzsche emphasizes that self-control, in an evaluative
sense, is an important aspect of human agency. According to Pippin,
on Nietzsche’s account: “If herd morality, conformism and sheep-like
timidity are to be held in contempt, then some contrary notion seems
suggested, some ideal of social independence and a kind of self-rule or
self-reliance.20” Emerson, in his famous piece “Self-Reliance,” makes the
following rather dramatic claim:
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every

one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the
members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each share-
holder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in
most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion […]. Absolve
yourself to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.21
Like Emerson, Nietzsche’s idea of agency is intricately linked to the idea

of challenging blind conformity to the values and ideals of society at
large. Nietzsche suggests that by blindly conforming to society’s values
and ideals, we deny our capacity to derive our values for ourselves, which
is fundamental to our agency. As much is evident when Nietzsche claims

the following in Schopenhauer as Educator:
The man who would not belong to the mass needs only to cease
being comfortable with himself; he should follow his conscience
which shouts at him: “Be yourself; you are not really all that which
you do, think, and desire now.”22
For Nietzsche, subscribing to – or even endorsing – the values and ideals

advocated by society, or any other source of authority for that matter,
poses a danger to the possibility of our becoming agents or Sovereign
Individuals. The biggest danger, however, is that we may find ourselves
having slipped into an unreflective acceptance of these values and
ideals.23 Nietzsche’s claim that we should be self-creating agents or
Sovereign Individuals can thus, first and foremost, be seen as a call to
reflect not only on our social existence, but the values and ideals which
lie at the core of this existence. Moreover, according to him, by unre-
flectively accepting transmitted values and ideals, we might be led to
make equally unreflective assessments and evaluations about aspects of
ourselves. Thus, we may find ourselves slipping into comfortable unre-
flective understandings of our selves. Here, the internal psychological
threat to our agency is clear: we may be influenced by our basic responses
to the world and brute motivations when forming our values and ideals
from which we make our better judgments. For Nietzsche, this is a most
dangerous threat to our sovereignty.
Agency, Stoicism, vulnerability
Something which undeniably marks us out as persons is our ability to

make our lives less subject to the contingencies of living in a world which
is largely out of our control. As persons, there is a gap for us between the
necessities and contingencies of the physical world, in which everything
exists, and the way we actually experience living our lives. There is a gap
for us between our vulnerability to the chance and necessity of the situ-
ations in which we find ourselves and the possibilities of how we may
try to realize our lives. And it is precisely because of this gap that we can
talk about human agency at all.
Human agency, which I have explained as our unique ability to
guide our selves and lives in a physical world which is indifferent to
our desires and efforts, relies on our ability to increase our control over
our internal situation. That is, in a world in which we cannot control
external circumstances, we are, perhaps uniquely, situated by our ability

to control our internal psychological conditions and hopefully the
actions and behaviors which flow from them.24 On such an account,
then, as alluded to above, what is most fundamental is self-control, or
control over our internal psychological situation. This picture is clearly
illustrated by Frankfurt when he explains:
For to deprive someone of his freedom of action is not necessarily

to undermine the freedom of his will. When an agent is aware that
there are certain things he is not free to do, this doubtless affects his
desires and limits the range of choices he can make. But suppose that
someone ... has in fact lost or been deprived of his freedom of action.
Even though he is no longer free to do what he wants to do, his will
may remain as free as it was before. Despite the fact that he is not
free to translate his desires into actions or to act according to the
determinations of his will, he may still form those desires and make
those determinations as freely as if his freedom of action had not
been impaired.25
For Frankfurt, whether or not our actions are in fact limited by our
situation, or indeed when our freedom of action has been entirely
constrained, the freedom which is available to all human agents, in all
circumstances, cannot be undermined in this way because, as Frankfurt
puts it, “he may still form those desires and make those determinations
as freely as if his freedom of action had not been impaired” – though we
may not all actually exercise this freedom at any given time, or ever.
The most persuasive cases for the centrality of specifically self-con-
trol as central to our understanding of agency are made by appealing
to our intuitions about what happens to agents in situations of extreme
constraint, as Frankfurt says cases in which someone “has in fact lost
or been deprived of ... freedom of action.” Consider here perhaps the
most obvious cases we could think of in which a person’s agency would
seemingly be fundamentally undermined – those of enslavement or
imprisonment, in which the human subject is treated as object. Viktor
Frankl’s famous work, Man’s Search for Meaning, is an exploration of the
psychological condition of prisoners in concentration camps during the
Holocaust. Being imprisoned in a concentration camp certainly seems
to constitute one of the most extreme situations in which a person’s
agency could be seen as fundamentally undermined. But Frankl’s view,
like Frankfurt’s, is that human agency has most fundamentally to do
with a kind of inner freedom or self-control which remains available
to us in even the most restrictive and oppressive circumstances such

as a concentration camp. At the very last, he claims, we have control
over our internal mental and psychological states, and this is the kind
of control which external circumstances cannot have an effect on. He
writes:
Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a

decision which determined whether you would or would not submit
to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your
inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become
the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to
become moulded into the form of the typical inmate. Seen from this
point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentra-
tion camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain
physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such
as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may
suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the
final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner
became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp
influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under
such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and
spiritually.26
On such a view, when I am faced with a world in which the ends and
goals I have conceived of are made unattainable, I need not necessarily
feel my agency restricted or diminished because my agency is constituted
by my self-control – as Frankfurt would put it, we still have freedom of
the will. Nothing and no-one outside of me can truly affect my agency,
because my agency is purely about the kind of control I am able to
achieve for myself regardless of what is happening to or around me.27
Recall here Nietzsche’s talk of the Sovereign Individual’s right to
make promises. The right to make promises is afforded to the Sovereign
Individual because he is able to master his own inclinations and thus,
he is able to stand surety for his promises because of this motivational
steadfastness. But there is something else Nietzsche says about the
Sovereign Individual, he claims in the Genealogy that:
To ordain the future in advance in this way, man must first have
learned to distinguish necessary events from chance ones, to think
causally, to see and anticipate distant eventualities as if they belonged
to the present, to decide with certainty what is the goal and what is
the means to it, and in general be able to calculate and compute. Man
himself must first of all have become calculable, regular, necessary,
even in his own image of himself, he is to be able to stand security for
his own future, which is what one who promises does!28
Nietzsche here claims that the Sovereign Individual has recognized the
extent to which the external circumstances can undermine his ability to
be certain that he will be able to reach the goal he has set for himself,
or to fulfill the promise that he has made. Unless, Nietzsche seems here
to suggest, he can remove those necessities and contingencies given
by external circumstances, he is vulnerable to failure in his attempt to
fulfill the promises he has made or to attain the goals he has set for
himself. The Sovereign Individual looks, then, as if he might need to,
like the Frankfurtian person, also only care about the kind of control
he is able to achieve for himself regardless of what is happening to or
around him – that is, it looks as if the Sovereign Individual might, like
the agent on Frankfurt’s picture need to be self-sufficient: immune to the
kinds of external influences which threaten to supplant her authority, at
least over himself.
On the face of it, then, both Frankfurt and Nietzsche’s pictures of
agency are quite remarkably close to one another. On the Frankfurtian-
type picture, our capacity to exercise a kind of inner freedom through
self-control is definitive of our agency. For Nietzsche, this is also true.
And there is, of course, something quite significant about our capacity to
exercise this kind of control over ourselves, to exercise the kind of inner
freedom we take to be definitive of our agency. It is not surprising, then,
that we spend a great deal of time reflecting on this capacity, thinking
of ways to improve it, which will hopefully lead us to living lives which
are more under our own control and less subject to the contingencies
and necessities of the physical world in which we find ourselves. This
line of reasoning, however, may further be suggestive of the idea that
by gaining more control we will be able to live better, more flourishing,
lives precisely because our lives will be “up to us,” rather than determined
by forces which are external to us and which are indifferent to our well-
being. This line of reasoning has been suggested perhaps most fervently
by the Stoics, and by various forms of asceticism, but I think it is also
subtly suggested by Frankfurtian29-type pictures, as discussed above.
While Nussbaum suggests that this is true of Nietzsche’s picture, and we
might be inclined to agree with her based on the above statements, in
what follows I will argue that it would be a mistake to read Nietzsche in
this way. Further, I will argue that this view about the role of self-control
in our flourishing conflates the notions of agency and personhood in a

problematic way.
Nussbaum has argued that the line of reasoning outlined above is
central in Ancient Greek philosophy to some extent, where Socrates,
the Stoics and Aristotle all agree that we should “above all value our
inner resources.”30 Central to this line of reasoning is that, since the
capacity for self-control definitive of agency is to be cultivated in order
to make our lives go better, this is all that must be cultivated in order
to truly live well. In the Stoic tradition the “good person” is “a self-
commanding person – one who, rather than being the slave of fortune,
is truly free just because she doesn’t care for the things that fortune
controls. Commanding herself, she commands all that is important for
living well; she is thus a person of real power and command in a world”31
where human vulnerability is to be overcome. Through exercising the
capacity for self-control, the Stoic gains power, and takes himself to
have, thus, escaped his human vulnerability.
Nussbaum takes this Stoic line of reasoning, that having power over
ourselves allows us power over “the vicissitudes of fortune,32” to be
central to Nietzsche’s account of the Sovereign Individual. She charac-
terizes the Sovereign Individual as one who is hostile to “human vulner-
ability and fragility in general,” seeing it as a kind of “impotence.” She
quotes Nietzsche’s Aphorism 251 of Daybreak, called “Stoical,” in which
Nietzsche says:
There is a cheerfulness peculiar to the Stoic: he experiences it whenever

he feels hemmed in by the formalities he himself has prescribed for
his conduct; he then enjoys the sensation of himself as dominator.33
The suggestion is that by allowing ourselves to focus only on our agency –

which is under our control – we are able to remove all the chanciness
and necessity that comes along with living in the physical world by
making all the happenings and contingencies of that world no longer
important for our well-being. What happens inside of us is all that is
important, for here we have control in spite of what is or could be going
on around us.
Nussbaum argues that since Nietzsche’s approach is Stoic, his valor-
ization of self-command and self-overcoming can be criticized on
precisely the same grounds that the Stoic’s can, because of their failure
to recognize that the vulnerability which is being escaped is in part
necessary for living a flourishing life. For Nussbaum, Nietzsche and
the Stoics are “committed to denying that the physical goods of life
are necessary conditions for eudaimonia. And thus ... are committed to
holding that people who are severely deprived, and even imprisoned
and tortured, can still retain eudaimonia, so long as they are virtuous and
self commanding….”34
She explains, I think quite convincingly, that the removal of the
external conditions which make us vulnerable might be problematic
because:
…one would need to decide how much worth persons and things and
events outside ourselves actually have in the planning and conduct
of our lives; what needs we actually have from the world and to what
extent those needs can be removed by a new attitude of self command
toward and within oneself.35
However, she goes on to argue that the Nietzschean picture of ideal

strength in the character of the Sovereign Individual is not an attractive
picture of strength for precisely this reason, saying:
What should we think about the human being who insists on caring
deeply for nothing that he himself does not control; who refuses to
love others in ways that opens him to serious risks of pain and loss;
who cultivates the hardness of self-command as a bulwark against all
the reversals that life can bring? We could say, with Nietzsche, that
this is a strong person. But there clearly is another way to see things.
For there is a strength of a specifically human sort in the willingness
to acknowledge some truths about one’s situation: one’s mortality,
one’s finitude, the limits and vulnerabilities of one’s body, one’s need
for food and drink and shelter and friendship. There is a strength in
the willingness to form attachments that can go wrong and cause
deep pain, in the willingness to invest oneself in the world in a way
that opens one’s whole life up to the changes of the world, for good
and for bad. There is, in short, a strength in the willingness to be
porous rather than totally hard, in the willingness to be a mortal
animal living in the world. The Stoic [and the Sovereign Individual]36
by contrast, looks like a fearful person, a person who is determined to
seal himself off from risk, even at the cost of love and value.37
In her criticism of Nietzsche, she goes on to say:
Nietzsche knows, or should know, this. For a central theme in his

work is that Christianity has taught us bad habits of self-insulation
and self-protection, alienating us from our love of the world and all of
its chanciness, all of its becoming. On this account we have become
small in virtue, and will remain small, unless we learn once again
to value our own actions as ends, and our worldly existence as their
natural home. I think that in the end Nietzsche fails to go far enough
with this critique. He fails, that is, to see what the Stoicism he endorses
has in common with the Christianity he criticizes, what “hardness”
has in common with otherworldliness: both are forms of self-protec-
tion, both express a fear of this world and its contingencies…38
I agree with Nussbaum that, were her characterization of the Sovereign

Individual correct, the Sovereign Individual would not provide us with an
attractive ideal at which to aim, because he would be living, as Nussbaum
thinks, a radically impoverished human life by removing39 himself from
the activities which, while on the one hand make us vulnerable, on
the other actually add significant meaning and value to our lives. But
Nussbaum does not go far enough with her claim that Nietzsche knows,
or ought to know, that this aspect of Stoicism is problematic.
Vulnerability and the Sovereign Individual
For the Stoics, cultivating the capacity for self-control is an attempt to

escape the contingency and vulnerability of a life lived in the physical
world, which must be done through a kind of transcendence. This tran-
scendence involves, for the Stoic, a rejection or a denial of the impor-
tance those aspects of our lives which are deeply vulnerable to the kinds
of “contingencies and reversals’40 Nussbaum suggests actively engaging
with the world around us might bring. Isaiah Berlin has provided us
with a canonical passage of what this line of reasoning amounts to, in
which he describes a “retreat to the inner citadel” in which we might
take precisely this approach to transcendence in an attempt to gain
control. He says:
I must liberate myself from desires that I know I cannot realize. I

wish to be master of my kingdom, but my frontiers are long and
vulnerable, therefore I contract them ... to ... eliminate the vulner-
able area ... The tyrant threatens me with imprisonment ... But if I
no longer feel attached to property, no longer care whether or not
I am in prison ... then he cannot bend me to his will ... It is as if I
had performed a strategic retreat into the inner citadel ... I have with-
drawn into myself; there and there alone, I am secure ... I illuminate
obstacles in my path by abandoning the path: I retreat to my own sect,

my own planned economy, my own deliberately insulated territory,
where ... no external forces can have effect.41
Berlin is hostile to this approach. In his discussion of freedom or

autonomy, he rejects this line of reasoning – gaining control through
the kind of transcendence suggested by the Stoics. As Berlin argues, I
think rightly, Stoic transcendence only appears to offer us freedom, only
appears to offer us a path to follow in order to escape our vulnerability.
But this path is deeply problematic. Berlin is particularly worried about
how such a misconstrued picture of human freedom could be abused in
political life. I think that Berlin’s concerns highlight why, even though
Frankl’s picture of the concentration camp inmate as still able to exer-
cise agency is plausible it somehow riles against our intuition that the
inmate has been dehumanized – they have had an important aspect of
their personhood undermined. Furthermore, as Berlin seems to suggest,
Frankl’s picture riles against our intuition that the camp inmate has been
robbed of their ability to live a flourishing, or good, life. He says:
If I find that I am able to do little or nothing of what I wish, I need

only contract or extinguish my wishes, and I am made free. If the
tyrant ... manages to condition his subjects ... into losing their original
wishes and embracing ... the form of life he has invented for them, he
will, on this definition, have succeeded in liberating them. He will,
no doubt, have made them feel free – as Epictetus feels freer than his
master (and the proverbial good man is said to feel happy on the
rack). But what he has created is the very antithesis…
If I save myself from an adversary by retreating indoors and locking
every entrance and exit, I may remain freer than if I had been captured
by him, but am I freer than if I had defeated or captured him? If I go
too far, contract myself into too small a space, I shall suffocate and
die. The logical culmination of the process of destroying everything
through which I can possibly be wounded is suicide.42
Nussbaum, similarly in her own context, rejects this kind of transcend-

ence and valorization of control, suggesting – as pointed out above – that
we cannot live a flourishing or good life by removing ourselves entirely
from our entanglements and engagements with the world. I agree with
Berlin and Nussbaum in their criticism of this Stoic transcendence.
Increasing our self-control in the way Frankfurt and Nietzsche
suggest, as discussed earlier in this chapter, is important and vital for
our understanding of ourselves as human agents. However, while our

agency is undoubtedly important for our understanding of personhood,
maintaining a view in which control or agency takes center stage in our
understanding of personhood, as Frankfurt would have us do, is prob-
lematic. When control is central we lose sight of an important aspect of
our personhood, which I believe to be of the utmost importance for us
actually living flourishing lives – the necessity and centrality of human
vulnerability, which Nussbaum points out most explicitly in her work
(not only the paper discussed here, but throughout her book The Fragility
of Goodness as well). There is an aspect of our personhood which seems
to contrast most explicitly with the capacity for agency understood in
terms of self-control: that is, our reliance as persons on external goods
and those things over which we do not have complete control. While
it seems clear that agency is necessary to our understanding of what it
means to be a person, to be a person also requires a recognition on the
part of the person themselves of their own limits and vulnerability –
the ability to recognize the extent to which circumstances, events and
other persons play a role “in the planning and conduct of our lives”43
and contribute to our flourishing. If our understanding of what is most
central to our conceptualization of what we as human persons are is
somehow at odds with what is central for achieving or maintaining
flourishing or desirable lives, then I think we have done a great injustice
to the notion of personhood, and we face a great danger because of this.
We face this danger because a misconstrued picture of what is central to
personhood will lead us to develop an ideal – a picture of personhood
towards which we ought to strive – and if our ideal is out of sync with
what we actually take to be important for living a flourishing life, then
we will have great difficulty achieving a flourishing life by aiming at
such an ideal. Contra Nussbaum, I think that Nietzsche recognizes this,
and addresses this issue when discussing his ideal of personhood, made
manifest in the Sovereign Individual.
So why does Nussbaum think of the Sovereign Individual as offering
us a Stoic ideal at which to aim? Well, Nietzsche does say that:
Honesty, supposing that this is our virtue from which we cannot get
away, we free spirits – well, let us work on it with all our malice and
love and not weary of “perfecting” ourselves in our virtue, the only
one left us ... And if our honesty should nevertheless grow weary one
day and sigh and stretch its limbs and find us too hard, and would
like to have things better, easier, tenderer, like an agreeable vice – let
us remain hard, we last Stoics!44
And here it would be easy to misinterpret what Nietzsche says because

of his explicit reference here to Stoicism. In fact, Nietzsche often says
things which we may interpret as supporting the Stoic doctrine of asceti-
cism, especially when he says:
To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish

suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities – I wish that
they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the
torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have
no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove
today whether one is worth anything or not – that one endures.45
And citing this passage, Nussbaum argues that Nietzsche “does not grasp
the simple fact that if our abilities are physical abilities they have phys-
ical necessary conditions,” he does not grasp what she calls a “basic
vulnerability,” and that this leads Nietzsche to his conclusion “that
even a beggar can be a Stoic hero.”46 And so Nussbaum interprets this
passage of Nietzsche as aligning him with the Stoic ideal of transcend-
ence. In this final section I will argue against this characterization of the
Sovereign Individual.
When Nietzsche talks about the Sovereign Individual’s right to make
promises he emphasizes that the right to make promises is an act of
self-overcoming (as explained above). For Nietzsche, this overcoming
cannot be seen, as the Stoic would have us believe, as a “retreat to the
inner citadel” by which we deny the important role those aspects of our
lives that are not under control play in our own flourishing. In order to
have the right to make promises, we must also recognize the important
role our own vulnerability plays in the actual planning and conduct of
our lives; as we have seen this is necessary for the Sovereign Individual
to have the right to make promises. That we are deeply vulnerable is
not just something that the Sovereign Individual can ignore. He cannot
forget it, but must keep it in mind, regardless of how difficult and
potentially frightening this prospect may be. In fact it is the difficulty of
accepting this that will help to keep it in memory. Nietzsche says:
If something is to stay in memory it must be burned in: only that

which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory…47
When we recognize our essential vulnerability, we fear it quite deeply (as

the Stoic or Frankfurtian does – for it is a threat to our control and thus,
presumably, our flourishing), but through our fear we are made aware of
its vital importance in living a life which is truly worth living, the kind
of life he takes to be epitomized by the Sovereign Individual.
For Nietzsche, then, it would seem that, unless we can be honest with
ourselves about the role of things which are beyond our control (that
is, if we attempt to transcend our vulnerability), we would be guilty of
ressentiment.48 It is precisely this honesty with ourselves about our own
“all too human” condition, that Nietzsche thinks we should cultivate
and remain steadfast in, in order to prevent ourselves from falling prey
to ressentiment. So there is here a kind of strength seen by Nietzsche
in the noble man, which he refers to as “strength of soul.” This noble
bravery is reflected in the Sovereign Individual, who requires this kind
of honesty with himself. Nietzsche says that:
While the noble man lives in trust and openness with himself…,
the man of ressentiment is neither upright nor naive nor honest and
straightforward with himself. His soul squints.49
In part, at least, this honesty is for Nietzsche also a reflection of a true

agent’s bravery. This bravery is exhibited by the agent, not only because
he realizes that the things which are beyond his control are out there in
the world, but because they are also present within himself. Unlike the
agent, the “man of ressentiment” fails to understand that the genuine
endorsement of a value requires acknowledgment that, in fulfilling that
value, he has other desires which must now remain unsatisfied; but these
desires are no less his own desires. By denying that these desires are his
own, he deceives himself about himself. The “man of ressentiment” fails
to acknowledge that certain of his own desires cannot be fulfilled, and
in so doing fails to understand the implications the endorsement of a
value has for his life; and thus fails, for Nietzsche, to genuinely endorse
the value at all. Reginster explains:
There is no genuine endorsement of a value, therefore, without the

acknowledgment of those of our desires which conflict with its realiza-
tion. To acknowledge the presence of conflicting desires and to accept
the fact that they have to be left unsatisfied demands unflinching
honesty with ourselves. But the required honesty is precisely what
the “man of ressentiment” lacks.50
Unlike the man of ressentiment then, the Sovereign Individual is brave

when she owns up to the realization that what is beyond her control is
vital for living because she understands that by acting on her endorsed
values she is herself both the one who commands herself and the one who
obeys.51 What is beyond our control is vital precisely because it forms an
important part of who we actually are – unlike the man of ressentiment,
in owning up to this realization the Sovereign Individual has a more
holistic and integrated understanding of herself which includes, not
only those aspects of herself which “command” (are under her control)
but also those which “obey” (which are beyond her control). What this
shows us is that, for Nietzsche, as Elveton puts it, “[t]he fundamental
Stoic opposition between what is mine (my will and what falls under its
direct control) and not mine reduces the self in a one-dimensional and
artificial way.”52
But perhaps even more importantly for my argument against
Nussbaum’s characterization of the Sovereign Individual, Elveton claims
that Nietzsche rejects the fundamental Stoic picture in which it “is my atti-
tude, my inner composure, that is reflective of my individual power….
[and so] my actions in the world elude me and are not a significant part of
me ... what I am is not so much what I do, but my rational attitude toward
what I do, and my rational attitude toward what is done to and what
happens to me.”53 I agree with Elveton that Nietzsche is against this, and I
think that this explains Nietzsche’s claim that we cannot separate the doer
from the deed for precisely this reason.54 Moreover, I think, that Nietzsche
cannot be seen to valorize self-control in the Stoic mode of transcendence
precisely because, above all, Nietzsche wants us to affirm life, ourselves
and the world of chance and necessity in which we live. This is the world
we live in: we cannot seek to escape it, but must rather seek to thrive in it,
which requires that we recognize our vulnerable place in it.
Above all, in his Doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence where, according
to Nietzsche, “nothing that has happened to us is contingent,”55 and
affirming any given aspect of our lives or selves entails our affirming
all aspects of our selves, our pasts, and indeed the whole history of
the physical world in its entirety. Recall Nietzsche’s description of the
Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence in The Gay Science:
What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest
loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived
it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and
there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every
thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your
life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence ... The
eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you
with it speck of dust!’56
Nietzsche’s Doctrine suggests that if we deny even the smallest part of

who we are or what has actually happened in the world, we cannot
affirm our present selves, for our present self is necessarily constituted
by our own past and all effects of the world on it – we cannot separate
who we are from our lives, nor can we separate our lives from the world
in which they have been lived. Nietzsche suggests that in light of this
there can only be two possible reactions to the demon’s proposition:
that we reject it as the most detestable malison or we welcome it with
the greatest joy. Nietzsche writes:
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse
the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremen-
dous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god,
and never have I heard anything more divine.”57
What Nietzsche wants us to realize is that if we can at any point in

our lives affirm who we are, even for a “moment,” we must necessarily
affirm all aspects of ourselves, our past actions, attitudes and opinions.
“Have you ever said Yes to a single joy? O my friends, then you have said
Yes to all woe,”58 proclaims Zarathustra. And considering this carefully,
we understand that in order to answer positively in light of the demon’s
question, to affirm the demon who presents us with the doctrine, we
must will all that has gone before, even the very worst of the worst: and
in realizing this, Nietzsche’s ultimate man, Zarathustra, “finally becomes
able to want to undergo again all that is cheap and detestable about the
world for the sake of what is not.”59 Through the doctrine of eternal
recurrence, Nietzsche “asks us whether we merely want to drift with the
tide of things or whether we would be creators”60 – whether we would
float along unthinkingly or whether we would engage our capacity
to actively affirm all that is past, all that is present – and, indeed, all
that is necessary. “Prior to [this, Nietzsche asks in the thought of the
eternal return] whether we desire the conditions by which we might again
become creators,”61 and these conditions center in large part on our
human vulnerability.
Self-creation, as I am suggesting here, is one of the defining features
of the Sovereign Individual, and the conditions suggested by Nietzsche
which are required for self-creation to flourish are the conditions in
which we “affirm life.” The individual who answers – like Zarathustra –
yes to the demon, more than simply exemplifying “the noble type” of
man who experiences himself as determining values, is, for Nietzsche,
“affirming life to the highest degree.” Nietzsche’s great love of
fate – “Amor Fati’ – is what he calls his “formula for greatness in a human
being,” and is thus at the heart of understanding what he means by
wanting us to actively affirm the doctrine of eternal recurrence: “that
one wants nothing to be different, not forward, or backward, not in all
eternity.”62 For Nietzsche, then, the conditions under which we flourish
as self-creators at first might appear to almost undermine the very idea of
self-creation – for the conditions for affirming life are those conditions
in which we come to love our fate. It would seem then that if “every-
thing recurs all decision and every effort and will to make things better
is a matter of indifference ... [And] if everything turns in a circle nothing
is worth the trouble.”63 Self-creation, however, makes little sense if we
understand Nietzsche’s love of fate as mere “fatalism”64 – as accepting
that our future has already been lived and that we are simply treading an
identical path over again. For Nietzsche, an acceptance of mere fatalism
would amount to nothing more than to adopt a will to nihilism – or a
will to nothingness – in which, rather than being self-creators involved
in the practice of active evaluation, we would cease all evaluation, and
indeed creation, for everything has already been done for us. Of course,
this is precisely the kind of will that Nietzsche was at pains to reject
throughout his works.
In order to reconcile what seems at first to be a possible contradic-
tion between the idea of self-creating individuals and the Amor Fati
which Nietzsche suggests is the condition for the flourishing of self-
creators, what is called for is the understanding of the doctrine, not
as fatalistic, in the sense that it preaches that we have in fact already
lived this whole life before and innumerable times before; rather, we
should see his love of fate as self-affirmation grounded in a firm belief
that we are solely constituted by our past in its entirety, and as for our
future – what we do will stem directly, and necessarily, from who we
are. Importantly, Nietzsche would not explain his Amor Fati as being
embodied by someone who passively accepted and was overwhelmed by
his fate, but rather his Amor Fati is embodied in one who understands
that he “belongs to his fate insofar as he is a creator, that is, one who
is ever resolute in it.”65 For the man who creates his own values, what
this should mean is the acceptance of our fate in light of the fact that
what is done in the past is done and what will be done in the future will
flow inevitably from our characters. The “creative man” would thus take
control of the moment without showing “doubt and paralysis in the
face of”66 what has come and what now is, rather he would see all that
is necessary as the very starting block of self-creation and active evalua-
tion. It is this that leads Nietzsche to think that self-creation is really our
“greatest burden,” a burden which the Stoics seek to transcend rather

than rejoice in, claiming in The Gay Science that the thought of eternal
recurrence will either weigh us down, making us world-denying men of
ressentiment, or show our strength as self-creating sovereign individuals.
According to Nietzsche:
If [the thought of the Eternal Recurrence of the same] ... gained power
over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you;
the question in each and every thing, “Do you want this again and
innumerable times again?’ would lie on your actions as the heaviest
weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to your-
self and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate
eternal confirmation and seal?67
What Nietzsche seems to be proposing via the Doctrine of Eternal

Recurrence, understood as a psychological test,68 is thus that “the
relative significance of our experiences and actions is not determined
once and for all; it is rather a characteristic over which we have serious
control”69 and it is this control that is important for our flourishing.
To answer yes to the demon, we must be able to affirm our life in its
entirety; in so doing, we affirm every good and bad aspect whatsoever,
and thus we must also affirm every aspect of ourselves that goes along
with this. By facing the prospect of our life’s eternal recurrence with joy,
we determine the significance of our past, and this is our first act of self-
valuation from which we gain an “active will to self-empowerment.”70 It
is this active valuation of the self, and indeed self-creation, which char-
acterizes Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual, who opposes the nihilistic
“will to nothingness” and instead gains a “commanding will,” through
which he gains a sense of autonomy and mastery over himself and what
his future will hold.71
So, for Nietzsche, although “Stoic thought is suggestive of spiritual
strength” to some extent, he also sees it as “superficial, with fateful
consequences.”72 He says most tellingly:
I believe that we do not understand Stoicism for what it really is.

Its essential feature as an attitude of the soul ... [a] ... comportment
toward pain and representations of the unpleasant: [it is] an intensi-
fication of a certain heaviness and weariness to the utmost degree in
order to weaken the experience of pain. Its basic motifs are paralysis
and coldness; hence a form of anaesthesia…. In summa: turning oneself
into stone as a weapon against suffering and in the future conferring
all worthy names of divine-like virtues upon a statue ... I am very

antipathetic to this line of thought. It undervalues the value of pain
(it is as useful and necessary as pleasure), the value of stimulation
and suffering. It is finally compelled to say: everything that happens
is acceptable to me; nothing is to be different. There are no needs over
which it triumphs because it has killed the passion for needs.73
Stoicism is a doctrine in which we acquire self-salvation by transcending

or escaping the world in which we live, and this is precisely the kind
of anti-naturalism which Nietzsche is at pains throughout his works to
rally us against.74 For Nietzsche, “Stoic morality testifies to a very high
level reached by man’s moral consciousness, but in the last resort it is
a decadent and pessimistic morality of despair, which sees no meaning
in life; it is inspired by the fear of suffering. One must lose sensitive-
ness to suffering and become indifferent – that is the only way out.”75
For Nietzsche, this is unacceptable, and for this reason he character-
izes his hero, the Sovereign Individual, against this Stoic ideal as having
“the strength to suffer pain and to add to it.”76 Unlike the Stoic, then,
the Sovereign Individual does not seek to escape the misery and pain
which comes along with being vulnerable to all the chance and neces-
sity which the world holds in store for us, but seeks to actively affirm
it, live through and with it. The Stoics cannot affirm life to the highest
degree precisely because they seek to transcend their vulnerability and
the suffering of this world, and for Nietzsche, this is symptomatic of
the “will to nothingnessÚ – a form of nihilism seen in “Platonism-
late Judaism, Christianity and ‘slave morality’77.” As May elegantly
explains:
They will “nothing” because they are driven by an all-consuming

will to escape a world of suffering, a will that, because it repudiates
what is constitutive of living – the loss or elusiveness of what we
most desire, such as loved ones, health, achievements, predictability,
joy, and ultimately life itself – wills what is not human life, not the
world of transience, chance, fate, and time in which we are actually
situated. In refusing to affirm that life is structured by the possibility
of loss they imagine an ideal order out of which this possibility has
been conceptually airbrushed, an order that is clearly not the one
into which humans are born.78
Thus, it is only by affirming his own vulnerability that the Sovereign

Individual is able to engage in “affirming life to the highest degree.”
Suffering and laughter: the Sovereign Individual,

nihilism and morality
Nietzsche claims in The Gay Science that, with the advent of “the death of
God,” what may be experienced is the collapse of all moral values, since
they were “built on this faith [theism], leaned on it, had grown into it –
for example, our entire European morality.”79 Nietzsche’s greatest fear is
that after “the death of God” what we will see in modern society is the
rise of nihilism. Although he realized that society’s reliance on theism
had been extremely detrimental to our positive valuation of ourselves,
he was acutely aware of the danger involved in pulling the rug of theism
out from under us. Such a move, Nietzsche feared could easily result
in the “complete loss of all significance”80 for all values. If the founda-
tion (theism) of our values is removes, he thought, we may think that
we have no reason for maintain any values at all. Though Nietzsche
feared that, with the advent of God’s death, nihilism would gain a foot-
hold in modern society, he feared in equal part that the exact opposite
and equally dangerous reaction may result: namely, that atheism would
see no changes being made to the current oppressive moral system.
Nietzsche proposes then, that in order to avoid simply maintaining a
set of values which he exposes to be “by our own standard, poison-
ously immoral,”81 as well as the threat of nihilism, we must begin the
project of revaluation of our values – a project which Nietzsche embarks
on himself in On the Genealogy of Morals. In his project of revaluation,
Nietzsche asks us to consider the Ascetic Ideal, and he proposes that
the Sovereign Individual must reject the Ascetic Ideal in favor of the
Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence.
Here we can compare the role Nietzsche sees Ascetic Ideals and the
Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence playing in interpreting suffering in my
life. Ascetic ideals would justify the suffering I experience in my life by
looking for a transcendental justification of the suffering: I appeal to the
notion that this world and all it has to offer is lesser than the pleasures I
will find in some other world which I will only reach by denying myself
the “worthless” pleasures of this world – I am essentially the “author” of
my own suffering. What Nietzsche finds objectionable about this kind
of “justification” of the suffering faced in this life, is the fact that it
not only denies the pleasures of this world and life (which Nietzsche
thinks is all that we can know and all that should affect us), but that it
looks forward to a time of eventual release from this life; and it is this
very objection which the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence seeks to point
out. What Nietzsche points to in the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence is
that we are denying life its fullest beauty and joy if we continually look
forward to our escape from it. The doctrine asks us to look for a new
way to justify our sufferings – given that we will have to live through
them ad infinitum. And it is only when we have found a way to justify
our sufferings (local – with respect to achieving a goal, and global – with
respect to suffering at all) as meaningful in this life – that we in fact
will our suffering – that we will be affirming life to its fullest. Unlike
the man of ressentiment then, the Sovereign Individual, in accepting
the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence and accepting that it will entail the
eternal recurrence of the pain experienced in this life, rejects the notion
of the “Buddhist’s Nirvána”82 in which what is sought is a life without
pain – and, indeed, what Nietzsche sees as central to modern European
Buddhism, which seeks to devalue pain and suffering. Perhaps, then,
we can see the doctrine of eternal recurrence as Nietzsche’s attempt to
provide the alternative to the Ascetic Ideal as a way to give meaning to
our suffering in a world in which we no longer have the transcendental
to appeal to for other-worldly hope, or in which we can cling to the
current moral code which equally seeks to avoid suffering. Nietzsche’s
cry behind the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence then resounds as follows:
“Remain true to the earth and do not believe those who speak to you
of otherworldly hopes ... they are despisers of life, atrophying and self-
poisoned men, of whom the earth is weary.”83 With the advent of the
death of God, we cannot passively await our emancipation from this life
any longer, but rather see this life as the eternal life. And in so doing, we
must affirm all things which have gone, all things that we thus are, and
move into the future as Sovereign Individuals capable of self-creation,
valuation and expressing the highest affirmation of life:
... he who rejoices in this prospect is the man who has health and self-
discipline to overcome both the hankering after other-worldly values
and the nausea of the nihilism that threatens when that hankering is
shown to be vain.84
Further, we can understand Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual as embod-

ying the new ethic of the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence in light of
Nietzsche’s broader attempt to promote what he calls “the gay science.”
For Nietzsche the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, feeds into his notion
of “the gay science” because when we have become the kind of person
who is able to affirm what the demon asks, answering yes to his ques-
tion, a certain kind of “cheerfulness” washes over us – a sense of joy of
spirit. The thought of eternal recurrence gives meaning not only to all
suffering, but to all pleasure as well for Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual

(unlike the man of ressentiment) because for the Sovereign Individual
“pain may even be an ingredient of pleasure”85 itself. We thus emerge
from the pit of despair into which nihilism, post the death of God, cast
us not merely as one who survives a trauma but one who has an alto-
gether new lease on life, practicing the “gay science” with a Dionysian
kind of laughter. It is this thought which sheds light on what Nietzsche
means when he claims:
I should actually risk an order of rank among philosophers depending

on the rank of their laughter – all the way up to those capable of a
golden laughter. And supposing that the gods, too, philosophize ... I
should not doubt that they also know how to laugh the while in a
superhuman and new way.86
Schopenhauer points out the difference “between the Greeks and the
Hindoos ... the former has for its object to facilitate the leading of a
happy life ... the latter, on the contrary, the liberation and emancipa-
tion from life altogether.”87 Nietzsche, however, points to the difference
between the Christian (current and slavish) morality which the Genealogy
is focused on bringing into question, and the Dionysian life-affirming
faith which lies at the root of his Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence. The
former is in Nietzsche’s opinion stifling and essentially anti-life, while
the later with its love of fate and fostering of the Sovereign Individual
as the truly life-affirming human is what he sees as the only cure to the
nihilism or moral stagnation of the age.
Concluding remarks
In his seminal paper “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,”
Harry Frankfurt outlines what he takes to be most distinctive of our
personhood. Personhood, for Frankfurt, is a term which has been misap-
propriated by P.F Strawson precisely because of the lack of agency talk in
his discussions of personhood. Against the Strawsonian view in which
the person is defined exclusively as something which has a mind and
a body, Frankfurt outlines what he takes to be most distinctive of our
personhood, those characteristics and abilities which he claims are
“essential to persons,” or which are “uniquely human,” as primarily
defined by our agency. Recall that on Frankfurt’s account, and simi-
larly on other formal analytic accounts which follow Frankfurt’s general
framework, it is our ability to govern and control our own actions and
behavior that is the distinguishing mark of our humanity, since it is this

ability that is taken to make us the authors of ourselves and our lives.
And agency is taken to be what constitutes our personhood because
agency gives us the kind of control over ourselves that is thought to
distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
In this chapter, I have argued against the Frankfurtian picture of the
role of agency in personhood, although I do, nevertheless, think that
agency is an important constitutive element of our personhood. There
is, of course, something quite remarkable (and arguably unique) about
our capacity to exercise this kind of control over ourselves. And here, I
do think that Frankfurt points out precisely what is, in part, wrong with
the Strawsonian view of personhood. However, I have also argued that
to characterize agency as of primary importance in our understanding of
personhood is not only to misunderstand the nature of our personhood,
it is also a dangerous misunderstanding which impoverishes our idea of
both personhood and human flourishing, or living the “good life” (in
broadly speaking ethical terms). My life, I think, would not be recogniz-
ably human and it would be radically impoverished, if not wholly unde-
sirable, if I did not care very deeply about the things over which I have no
control – specifically, we could mention concerns such as how my projects
actually fare in the external world and my interpersonal relationships
with other people. Nussbaum is right, I have argued, to point out that
our human vulnerability and our reaction to this vulnerability are neces-
sary for understanding what personhood entails. Where I have disagreed
with Nussbaum is in her reading of Nietzsche. Nietzsche, I have argued,
similarly to Nussbaum, disagrees with Frankfurt about the role of agency
and vulnerability in personhood. And this is precisely where Nietzsche’s
account of personhood, like Nussbaum’s, gains its strength.88
Notes
1. Much of the work in this chapter is drawn from my S. Paphitis (2013),
“Vulnerability and the Sovereign Individual: Nussbaum and Nietzsche on the
Role of Agency and Vulnerability in Personhood,” The South African Journal
of Philosophy 32 (2), pp. 123–136.It is important to note before delving into
Nietzsche’s account that reference to the Sovereign Individual is only explic-
itly made by Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals Section II (all refer-
ences to Geneology of Morals is from: F. Nietzsche (2000), The Basic Writings
of Nietzsche, trans. Kaufmann, New York, Toronto: Random House, Inc.), and
might thus not represent the only picture of agency which could be drawn
from Nietzsche’s writings. In this chapter I drawn on his conception of the
Sovereign Individual in the Genealogy, but also put forward a picture of
the Sovereign Individual which draws on ideas and claims from other parts
of Nietzsche’s work for supplementation and explanation. Further, while I

realize that it would take a great deal of interpretive argument (for which
there is not much room here) to claim that there is a definitive and explicit
notion of agency or personhood in Nietzsche’s work, this project is in part
an attempt to tease out at least one plausible reading of Nietzsche’s thoughts
about these concepts.
2. See, for example, H. Frankfurt (1971), “Freedom of the Will and the Concept
of a Person,” The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1), 5(20); H. Frankfurt (1988), The
Importance of what we Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press);
H. Frankfurt (1999), Necessity, Volition and Love (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press); and H. Frankfurt (2006), Taking Ourselves Seriously & Getting
It Right (California: Stanford University Press). See also G. Watson (2004),
Agency and Answerability: Selected Essays (New York: Oxford University Press);
A. Mele (1987), Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-deception and Self-control
(Oxford: Oxford University Press). A. Mele (1995), Autonomous Agents: From
Self-Control to Autonomy (New York: Oxford University Press).
3. M. Nussbaum (1994), “Pity and Mercy Nietzsche’s Stoicism,” in R. Schacht
(ed.), Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche’s “Genealogy of Morals”
(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press), p. 140.
4. In putting forward my own reading of the Nietzschean notion of the Sovereign
Individual I do not necessarily take the notion to be either straightforward
or uncontroversial. I recognize that there has been much debate amongst
Nietzsche scholars about how we should interpret Nietzsche’s notion. While
I do not contrast my own reading of the notion of the Sovereign Individual
with competing views in this literature explicitly in this chapter, I do recog-
nize that there may be room for contention and debate on this.
5. A. Mele, Irrationality. p. 54.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. See for example the collection in K. Gemes & S. May (eds) (2009), Nietzsche
on Freedom and Autonomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
11. It is important to note here that reference to the Sovereign Individual is
only explicitly made in Nietzsche’s Geneology of Morals II, and might thus not
represent the only picture of agency or personhood which could be drawn
from Nietzsche’s writings. In this chapter I have drawn on his conception
of the Sovereign Individual, but have tried to put forward a picture of the
Sovereign Individual which draws on ideas and claims from other parts of
Nietzsche’s work. Further, while I realize that it would take a great deal of
interpretive argument (for which there is not much room here) to claim that
there is a definitive and explicit notion of either agency or personhood in
Nietzsche’s work, this project is in part an attempt to tease out at least one
plausible reading of Nietzsche’s thoughts about these notions.
12. R. Pippin (2009), “How to Overcome Oneself: Nietzsche on Freedom,” in K.
Gemes & S. May (eds), Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), p. 76.
13. The question of what “our better judgment” actually amounts to on
Nietzsche’s picture is certainly an interesting one, and one which merits
further discussion. Unlike for Frankfurt, for Nietzsche “our better judg-
ment” does not merely amount to the judgments made by some privileged
“true/real” self (for a further discussion of this idea see S. Paphitis (2010),
“Questions of the Self in the Personal Autonomy Debate: Some Critical
Remarks on Frankfurt and Watson,” The South African Journal of Philosophy
29 (2), pp. 57–71. For Nietzsche “our better judgment” is more like a process;
it is the process of making a judgment by choosing (and perhaps ranking)
between certain of my competing desires and values. This process will require
a certain strength of will, and for Nietzsche the actual strength of our will is
tested by the number of competing desires and motivations we are able to sort
through and in some sense manage. Nietzsche says: “the highest man would
have the greatest multiplicity of drives, in the relatively greatest strength that
can be endured” (F. Nietzsche (1967), Will to Power, trans. Kaufmann (New
York: Vantage Books), p. 966). In this case, it seems there is no inner “true/
real” self to which we could, as it were, defer to when making judgments,
rather it is the process which we undergo in making better judgments which
directly informs what our better judgment is.
14. A. O. Rorty (2005), “How to Harden your Heart: Six Easy Ways to Become
Corrupt,” in A. O. Rorty (ed.), The Many Faces of Evil: Historical Perspectives
(London & New York: Routledge), p. 287.
15. F. Nietzsche, Will to Power, p. 966.
16. K. Gemes (2009) “Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy and the Sovereign
Individual,” in K. Gemes & S. May (eds), Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
17. F. Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, II 2.
18. K. Gemes, “Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy and the Sovereign Individual,”
p. 37.
19. Ibid.
20. R. Pippin, “How to Overcome Oneself,” p. 76.
21. R. Emerson (1983), Essays and Lectures (New York: Library of America), p. 261.
[sic].
22. F. Nietzsche (1989), Schopenhauer as Educator, trans. Hollingdale, R. J., Friedrich
Nietzsche: Untimely Meditations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),
p. 127.
23. See D. Cooper (1991), Authenticity and Learning: Nietzsche’s Educational
Philosophy (Great Britain: Routledge and Kegan Paul), p. 4.
24. See a nice discussion of this in J. Kekes (2010), The Human Condition (Oxford:
Oxford University Press), p. 34.
25. H. Frankfurt, Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person, pp. 14–15.
26. V. Frankl (2006), Man’s Search for Meaning. Ilse Lasche (trans. Part 1). (Boston,
MA: Beacon Press), p. 74.
27. This view might seem like an extreme, but what it is doing is providing us
with an ideal picture – of course it is true that agency comes in degrees, and
we may not be able to exercise this kind of freedom at all times. Torture and
illness often break people, and the circumstances in which we find ourselves
can certainly diminish our capacity (and strength of will) to exercise this
kind of self-control. What Frankfurt, like Sartre, endorses is that this is the
kind of freedom which is always available to us as human agents, though we
may not always exercise it.
28. F. Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, II, 2.

29. Perhaps my reading of Frankfurt on this account could be challenged. Given
that the picture I attribute to Frankfurt has parallels with other positions,
such as that outlined by Frankl here, or the picture which Berlin is at pains
to reject in “Two Concepts of Liberty,” it does no damage to my arguments
in general if it could be shown that I have in fact misread Frankfurt.
30. M. Nussbaum, “Pity and Mercy Nietzsche’s Stoicism,” pp. 157–158.
31. Ibid., p. 146.
32. Ibid., p. 151.
33. D 132. As quoted by M. Nussbaum in “Pity and Mercy Nietzsche’s Stoicism”
in favor of this point.
35. Ibid., p. 156.
36. By extension because she takes him to be stoic, or even beyond stoic.
37. M. Nussbaum, “Pity and Mercy Nietzsche’s Stoicism,” p. 160.
38. Ibid.
39. The question here of removing oneself may be a question about values: by
removing ourselves what we mean is that we no longer care about or value
those things over which we have no control – for such a person these things
are deemed of little value or worth.
40. Here I am borrowing Martha Nussbaum’s terms, this issue is important for
her in the context of living a flourishing life particularly. I am drawn to
her conception of the flourishing life when assessing what the concept of a
person is.
41. I. Berlin (1969) Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press),
p. 129.
42. I. Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, p. 164.
43. M. Nussbaum, “Pity and Mercy Nietzsche’s Stoicism,” p. 156.
44. F. Nietzsche (2002), Beyond Good and Evil ~ Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future,
trans. J. Norman (New York: Cambridge University Press), p. 227.
45. F. Nietzsche, Will to Power, p. 910.
47. F. Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, II, 3. This idea from Geneology of Morals, II
is most typically discussed and explored by Nietzsche scholars with regards
to Nietzsche’s description of a long process of civilization on moralization by
which Nietzsche claims man became “calculable” and “predictable.” Giving
a psychological reading of this part of Geneology of Morals, II, however, I think
lends weight to my ability to use this idea from Geneology of Morals to talk
about learning to remember in order not to forget our basic “vulnerability” –
this is something which we cannot leave out of our practical deliberations if
we are to truly become agents.
48. For Nietzsche, ressentiment is, at least in part, a psychological condition which
results in a fractured and damaged individual, lacking in integrity.
49. F. Nietzsche, Geneology of Morals, I, 10.
50. B. Reginster (1997), “Nietzsche on Ressentiment and Valuation,” Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research LVII (2), p. 300.
51. As Nietzsche explains: What is called “freedom of the will” is essentially the
affect of superiority with respect to something which must obey “I am free
‘it’ must obey” – this consciousness lies in every will, along with a certain
straining of attention, a straight look that fixes on one thing and one thing
only, an unconditional evaluation “now this is necessary and nothing else,”
an inner certainty that it will be obeyed, and whatever else comes with the
position of the commander. A person who wills –, commands something
inside himself that obeys, or that he believes to obey. But now we notice the
strangest thing about the will – about this multifarious thing that people have
only one word for. On the one hand, we are, under the circumstances, both
the one who commands and the one who obeys, and as the obedient one we
are familiar with the feelings of compulsion, force, pressure, resistance, and
motion that generally start right after the act of willing (F. Nietzsche, Between
Good and Evil, p. 19).
52. R. O. Elveton (2004) “Nietzsche’s Stoicism: The Depths are Inside,” in
P. Bishop (ed.), Nietzsche and Antiquity (Rochester: Camden House), p. 195.
53. R. O. Elveton, “Nietzsche’s Stoicism,” p. 195.
54. Think here of the seemingly strange account of agency in the 13th section of
the Genealogy where Nietzsche admonishes a separation between the “doer”
and the “deed.” This passage suggests that Nietzsche is reluctant to view
agency as something which could be separated from our actual actions in the
world of riskiness and chance. Nietzsche claims that there is an inextricable
link between agents and their actual experiences, saying also: “if I remove all
the relationships, all the properties, “all the activities” of a thing, the thing
does not remain over.”
55. See A. Nehamas (2001), “The Eternal Recurrence,” in J. Richardson & B. Leiter
(eds), Nietzsche (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 123.
56. F. Nietzsche (2001), The Gay Science, trans. J. Nauckhoff (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), p. 341.
57. F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, p. 341.
58. F. Nietzsche (1977), “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” in R. J. Hollingdale (ed.), A
Nietzsche Reader. (London: Penguin), IV, 19.
59. A. Nehamas, “The Eternal Recurrence,” p. 124.
60. M. Heidegger (1984), Nietzsche: Volume 2 The Eternal Recurrence of the Same.
Farell Krell (trans.) (New York: Harper & Row Publishers), p. 174.
61. M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, p. 174.
62. F. Nietzsche, Between Good and Evil, p. 1.
64. Heidegger describes this as “that turning of need which unveils itself in the
awestruck moment as an eternity, an eternity pregnant with Becoming of
being as a whole: circulus vitriosusdeus” Nietzsche, p. 65.
66. Ibid., p. 126.
68. The doctrine in its entirety has largely been interpreted in either one of two
ways: namely as a “cosmological hypothesis” or as a “psychological test” – in
drawing this distinction, however, it must be pointed out that the two inter-
pretations need not rule each other out and that it would be entirely possible
to view the doctrine as both simultaneously. If we accept the cosmological
hypothesis interpretation of the doctrine, we agree that Nietzsche was making
a claim about the nature of the universe when he put the doctrine forward.
Although this view has gained support amongst a few Nietzsche scholars, it
is also widely disputed (especially in light of Nietzsche’s “Naturalism” and

views on truth). The focus of this chapter, however, is on the psychological
test assessment of the doctrine, which requires neither the truth nor the
coherence of the cosmological hypothesis. The central concern of this assess-
ment is to ask rather how we would react to the application of the doctrine of
eternal recurrence to our own lives – in other words what the psychological
implications of the idea that “If my life were to recur, it would recur in an
exactly identical fashion” (A. Nehamas, “The Eternal Recurrence,” p. 127)
are.
69. A. Nehamas, “The Eternal Recurrence,” p. 131.
70. R. White, (1998) “The Return of the Master: An Interpretation of Nietzsche’s
‘Genealogy of Morals,’” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LVIII (4),
pp. 693–694.
71. R. White, “The Return of the Master.”
73. G. Colli & M. Mazzino, (1988) Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Berlin and New York:
Walter de Gruyter), 9 15 [55].
74. Although the Stoics purport to be naturalists, Nietzsche thinks that they
offer a new brand of anti-naturalism by falsely transposing their ideals on
nature. Nietzsche says in Beyond Good and Evil: “According to Nature you”
want to live? O you noble Stoics, what deceptive words these are! Imagine
a being like nature, wasteful beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure,
without purposes and consideration ... – how could you live according to this
indifference? ... In truth, the matter is altogether different: while you pretend
rapturously to read the cannon of your law in nature, you want something
opposite ... Your pride wants to impose your morality, your ideal, on nature”
(BGE 9). What a more accurate version of naturalism, according to Nietzsche,
teaches us is precisely that vulnerability, contingency and risk are part of this
world and so also our lives in it. In seeking to transcend this aspect of the
world and our lives we strive towards what he refers to as “other-worldy”
hopes, and cannot properly affirm this life, this world, as it is, and this will
impoverish our experience of it.
76. Ibid., p. 200.
77. See S. May (2009) “Nihilism and the Free Self,” in K. Gemes & S. May (eds),
Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 89.
78. S. May “Nihilism and the Free Self,” p. 89.
80. W. Kaufmann (1974), Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (New
Jersey: Princeton University Press), p. 101.
81. W. Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, p. 113.
82. J. Llewelyn (1988) “Value, Authenticity and the Death of God,” in G. H.
R. Parkinson (ed.), An Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London and New York:
Routledge), p. 645.
83. N. Rodgers & M. Thompson (2005) Philosophers Behaving Badly (London and
Chester Springs: Peter Owen Publishers), p. 82.
84. J. Llewelyn, “Value, Authenticity and the Death of God,” p. 646.
85. Ibid.
86. F. Nietzsche, Between Good and Evil, p. 294, emphasis added.
87. A. Schopenhauer (1914), “On Ethics, and, Contribution to the Doctrine of

the Affirmation and Negation of the Will-to-Live,” in E. Belfort Bax (ed.),
Selected Essays of Schopenhauer (London: G. Bell and Sons LTD), p. 263.
88. Taking the notion of vulnerability as a fundamental idea in Nietzsche’s ethics
may, at first blush, seem somewhat controversial, and it has certainly not
been a widely discussed aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy in general. As I have
argued in this chapter, I take the notion of vulnerability to be something
addressed by Nietzsche in subtle, yet nuanced ways. I think that this aspect
of Nietzsche’s philosophy thus requires further investigation.

6
A Case for Foucault’s Reversal of
Opinion on the Autonomy of the
Subject
Bob Robinson
Introduction
A defining characteristic of Foucault’s thought prior to the 1980s is its

hostility toward the Enlightenment conception of autonomous subjec-
tivity, or the idea that human beings provide, from within themselves,
the conditions required for conduct independent of either overt or
covert mechanisms of coercion. “Nothing is more foreign to me than
the question of a constraining sovereign and unique form,” he says in
1968.1 Four years later he describes his “radical critique of the subject
by history” as undermining the 200-year-old “postulate” that there
are universal features of the subject from which it could supply itself
with the conditions of its freedom.2 Surprise is therefore licensed when
Foucault declares his membership in the Kantian tradition of critical
philosophy and describes the purpose of his labors as identifying that
which “is no longer indispensable for the constitution of ourselves as
autonomous subjects [sujets autonomes].”3 How could Foucault’s critical
philosophy possibly uphold the value of autonomy if, as he seems to
have once maintained, the subject is not capable of conducting itself
independently of mechanisms of coercion because the subject does
not provide itself with the required conditions of such independence?4
Now, in the 80s Foucault is quite happy to admit that the subject is
self-constituting. But if his considered philosophy of the subject cannot
support an account of autonomy, then the stated goal of his critical
efforts – liberating the subject from the contingent and unnecessary
constraints upon its conduct – is either double-speak or self-delusion.
This paper defends a third, controversial option. Prior to the 1980s
Foucault did reject the possibility of autonomous subjectivity but
103
104 Bob Robinson
changed his position to accommodate the Kantian idea that autonomy

consists in the free use of reason. In defending this third option I provide
what I believe is sufficient evidence that Foucault reversed his position
on autonomy by 1978. The first section of this paper outlines Foucault’s
radical critique of the subject, which, at its peak, purports to eradicate
autonomy by showing that the subject is constituted by socio-historical
mechanisms that render it incapable of conducting itself independently
of external forces. The second section provides evidence that Foucault
underwent a change of position in the late 1970s, ultimately admit-
ting that the subject guides itself according to ahistorical principles of
reason. In the third section I describe how Foucault came to reorient his
philosophy around the Kantian thesis that autonomy consists in the
free exercise of reason. In line with this change of direction, he finally
arrives at a philosophy of subjectivity that is capable of supporting an
account of autonomy. On this account, autonomy is the free exercise of
reason in pursuit of discovering principles of self-conduct that possess
genuine authority in addition to exposing the lack of authority of those
principles widely accepted as authoritative.
Foucault’s radical critique of the subject
The subject
Prior to describing Foucault’s “radical critique of the subject,” it is worth
getting a grip on the object of his critique. The meaning of the term
“subject” in Foucault’s philosophical vocabulary is something of a term
of art, as he uses it to refer alternatively to “man” or human nature or
human essence,5 transcendental subjectivity as it appears in transcen-
dental philosophy and phenomenology, or “anthropological univer-
sals” or universally occurring human features.6 It is not always clear in
his writings prior to the 1980s that he had a unified sense of the term.
Nevertheless, as Foucault’s thought matured he seemed to pin down a
meaning satisfactory to him and which is helpful in understanding his
earlier work. “There are two meanings of the world ‘subject’,” he says in
a late writing, “subject to someone else by control and dependence, and
tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge.”7 The first
meaning is straightforward, referring to one’s being placed under the
authority or rule of another agent. The second sense of subjectivity is
more complicated and requires unpacking.
As Foucault suggests, there are two elements necessary to the constitu-
tion of subject: identity and a conscience or self-knowledge. The relation
between these two elements is also of significance, as one’s conscience or
Foucault’s Reversal 105
self-knowledge binds that person, whether consciously or unconsciously,

to their identity. By “identity” Foucault means the qualities which one
recognizes as being constitutive of who one is – a self – such that to
know oneself is to have singled out those qualities that are constitutive
of one’s self. But in using the term “self-knowledge” Foucault implies
that one’s conscience serves as the agent that binds one to those quali-
ties constitutive of the self, and it does this by informing the subject of
the self that it ought to be. Hence, a subject is defined by its possession
of a self-knowledge not only who it is but of who it ought to be, and
it is the latter – the normativity of conscience – which, according to
Foucault, produces identity by imposing upon an individual the self as
a goal that ought to be realized.
While these two definitions of subjectivity appear distinct, Foucault
does ultimately draw them together. As we will see below in the analysis
of his radical critique of the subject, the self with which any individual
identifies is imposed upon it by a source independent of it, and, conse-
quently, any self that an individual treats as his or her goal is not a self-
determined goal. Such a self would be a subject only because it would be
subject to another. For Foucault, however, this external source of self-
hood is not another agent, but rather, as is explained below, the covert
relations of knowledge and power, and hence a mechanism of coercion.
Hence, the second definition of subjectivity would fall under the first
definition, if it is in fact the case that the human being is incapable of
providing from itself its own conception of selfhood.
Assuming that that subject does provide this conception from itself,
what would it mean for the subject to be autonomous or self-deter-
mining? Foucault never does provide anywhere a straightforward defi-
nition of autonomy. But when he does speak of it, he tends to describe
it in broadly Kantian terms. For Kant, the subject possesses autonomy of
the will because, as a rational agent, it must think that requirement of all
subjective principles of action (maxims) flows directly from its own will.
Because this requirement is legislated by reason itself, the subject, as a
rational being, must honor that requirement or violate the authority of
its own reason. Consequently, the subject provides from itself the very
self that it ought to be – namely, a rationally consistent self – and a self is
autonomous, for Kant, only when it honors the authority of its reason;
otherwise, the self is allowing itself to be conducted by sensible impulses
and heteronymous. According to Foucault, there are various attempts
in modernity to alter the Kantian conception of selfhood, such that the
rational nature of the subject is not the source of autonomy but rather
some other feature. So, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre denies the Kantian
106 Bob Robinson
understanding of selfhood is correct, claiming that as a result of the nihi-

lating structure of consciousness, the self is nothing but the product of
how one appropriates the facticity of one’s existence (that is, the person
as it is given to itself as a product of its circumstances). Generally, then,
when Foucault speaks of autonomy he means some essential property of
the self (for example, self-legislation, nihilating structure of conscious-
ness) that supplies the condition of its independence from mechanisms
of coercion.
The strategy that Foucault adopts in his radical critique of the subject
is forthright. By showing that there is no essential property of the self
that would supply the condition of its independence from mechanisms
of coercion, there is no human autonomy. How does he aim to estab-
lish this claim? Here is a characteristic quote: “One has to dispense
with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself, that’s to
say, to arrive at an analysis which can account for the constitution of
the subject within a historical framework.”8 The general thesis is that
how the subject regards itself (its identity) and the normative rules that
bind the subject to its identity (its conscience) are not supplied by the
subject itself but rather given to the subject antecedently in historically
indexed social practices. Foucault articulated and supported this thesis
differently as he incorporated new descriptive concepts into his meth-
odology. The first articulation consists of Foucault’s unique analysis
of modern philosophical anthropology, which holds that the modern
attempt to identify an essential feature of the self that could ground
autonomy assumes a dogmatic metaphysics of subjectivity. The second,
or archaeological, phase consists of his claim that the self is a creation of
the “positive unconscious,” or the anonymous rules of acceptability for
claims of knowledge. The third phase is differentiated by the introduc-
tion of the concept of power relations, and is summarized by the claim
that the subject becomes tied to a conception of self by the deployment
of that conception in the values of social practices. A brief discussion
of each phase provides sufficient defense for the claim that Foucault’s
radical critique of the subject seeks the eradication of the broadly
Kantian conception of autonomy described above.
The first phase: philosophical anthropology

The first phase of the critique of the subject is Foucault’s attack on
modern philosophical anthropology in The Order of Things. Kant’s
notable division in the human being between a transcendental subject
constitutive of experience and the empirical self that is determined in
accordance causal laws is, Foucault thinks, decisive for modernity. Kant
asserts that a unity of the subject of experience is a condition of all
possible experience, where that unity is effected by the Pure Categories

of the Understanding. The Categories allow the subject to experience
an object to the extent that the Categories create a mental form for the
experiential contents to be received by the subject, and that form is that
all objects are given as causally ordered substances. Although the tran-
scendental subject legislates this mental form for its own experience,
the empirical self – the self and all of its characteristics available to the
individual within his or her experience – is, as any other object given
with experience, determined as a causally ordered substance. According
to Foucault, Kant’s division generates a tension between the legisla-
tive authority of the subject and the submission of the empirical self
to the causally ordered world is fundamental to modernity. The project
of modernity becomes re-establishing the connection of the transcen-
dental subject and the empirical self through the notion of finitude,
or the notion that the human being provides for itself the conditions
for its causal determination. Foucault is critical of this conception of
the human being’s essential features, calling it a confused “universal
reflection on man”9 and “dogmatism.”10 The latter charge is instruc-
tive because Foucault holds that the only means of avoiding a lapse
into the pre-critical metaphysics that characterizes modern philosoph-
ical anthropology is to relinquish the putative requirement of a unified
subject of experience.11 It is, in other words, the idea that there is a
unified subject that produces the alleged incoherence of the modern
notion of the self. Once the unified subject is abandoned, Foucault says,
man – the universal self of human beings – might soon be forgotten.12
When questioned about this claim, Foucault says:
The death of man is nothing to get particularly excited about. It’s one
of the visible forms of a more general disease, if you like. I don’t mean
by it the death of god but the death of the subject, of the Subject in
capital letters, of the subject as origin and foundation of Knowledge,
of Freedom, of Language and History.
One can say all of Western civilization has been subjugated, and
philosophers have only certified the fact by referring all thought and
all truth to consciousness, to the Self, to the Subject. In the rumbling
that shakes us today, perhaps we have to recognize the birth of a world
where the subject is not one but split, not sovereign but dependent,
not an absolute origin but a function ceaselessly modified.13
The death of the subject means that the subject does not supply the
foundations of its freedom; as he says toward the end of the passage,
the subject is “not sovereign but dependent.” To deny the sovereignty
108 Bob Robinson
of the subject is to deny it ultimate authority over itself, which strongly

suggests that any apparent self-determined conduct is in fact not imput-
able to the self because there is no singular self to authorize its own
conduct. Hence, a subject cannot be self-determining because it cannot
be self-authorizing. By seeking to undermine modern philosophical
anthropology and the notion of the self-constituting subject, Foucault
seeks to destroy the possibility of human autonomy.
The second phase: archaeology

The second phase of the radical critique of the subject is marked by
Foucault’s archaeological method, which attempts to articulate, in
part, how it is the case that there seems to be a unified subject. “I am
convinced,” Foucault says, “that there exist, if not exactly structures,
then at least rules for the functioning of knowledge which have arisen
in the course of history and within which can be located the various
subjects.”14 By isolating these historical rules, Foucault believes that he
can “free the history of thought from its subjection to transcendence,”
justify a historical method in “which no transcendental constitution
would impose the form of the subject,” and “cleanse [historiography] of
all transcendental narcissism.”15 In other words, Foucault seeks to force
the abandonment of a history bound to subjective and yet necessary
conditions of experience. More specifically, he aims to show that the
subject is an effect of the rules that govern the formation of knowledge
and does not constitute itself antecedently to them but as a result of
them. The rules comprise what Foucault refers to as a “positive uncon-
scious” that is pre-conceptually constitutive of the discourses that are
the sources of knowledge for a historical society.16 These are “rules put
into operation through a discursive practice at a given moment that
explain why a certain thing is seen (or omitted); why it is envisaged
under such an aspect and analyzed at such a level; why such a word is
employed with such a meaning and in such a sentence.”17 For some-
thing to be a possible object of experience and knowledge, then, the
discourse about the object must conform to the authority of the posi-
tive unconscious. To capture these levels he uses two different French
words for knowledge. He says, “By connaissance I mean the relation of
the subject to the object and the formal rules that govern it. Savoir refers
to the conditions that are necessary in a particular period for this or that
type of object to be given to connaissance and for this or that enunciation
to be formulated.”18 Savoir refers to “a body of anonymous, historical
rules, always determined in the time and space that have defined a given
period, and for a given social, economic, geographical, or linguistic area,”
whereas connaissance refers to those standards of justification to which

one must appeal to in order show that a statement is true.19 Foucault
then deploys this method of archaeological description to defend the
claim that knowledge of the self depends on the anonymous, self-organ-
izing20 rules of discourse that make it possible for the modern concep-
tion of the self-constituting subject to emerge as an object of experience
and knowledge. Because these rules are authoritative for the subject, the
subject can be “ceaselessly modified” or eventually fail to exist, or die,
as an object of experience and knowledge altogether. Thus, archaeology
purports to show that the notion of autonomous subjectivity is itself a
historical phenomenon produced by the autonomy of discourse.
The third phase: power relations

The third articulation of Foucault’s critique of the subject only deepens
the effort of his previous articulation. He expands on the new direction
of his project:
Two or three centuries ago, Western philosophy postulated, explic-

itly or implicitly, the subject as the foundation, as the central core of
all knowledge, as that in which and on the basis of which freedom
revealed itself and truth could blossom […] It would be interesting to
try and see how a subject came to be constituted that is not defini-
tively given, that is not the thing on the basis of which truth happens
to history – rather, a subject that constitutes itself within history and
is constantly established and reestablished by history. It is toward
that radical critique of the subject by history that we should direct
our efforts. […] In my view, what we should do is show the historical
construction of a subject through discourse understood as consisting
of a set of strategies which are part of social practices.21
He intensifies his critique of the subject by introducing the concept of

power – by which he means the strategies inherent in social practices
for deploying knowledge to arrive at distinct goals – to fully account for
the subject’s socio-historical constitution. Similarly to his archaeological
representation of savoir as a set of anonymous rules that organize knowl-
edge behind the backs of knowing subjects, Foucault understands that
the goals of the strategies of social practices are not consciously adopted
by subjects and yet subjects unconsciously pursue those goals. In moder-
nity, the goal of power is regularity and conformity in human conduct,
and it achieves this goal through the deployment of knowledge of the
self and its qualities. Relations of power create and sustain a “system
110 Bob Robinson
of acceptability” for conduct by organizing what counts as legitimate

discourse about human beings and legislating norms of behavior that
derive from those discourses.22 The system of acceptability is responsible
not only for the emergence of the self as a possible object of knowl-
edge, but it also determines how a subject legitimately authorizes its
conduct by legislating norms of behavior. Those norms include prescrip-
tions about acquiring knowledge of oneself according to the acceptable
discourses of the self. So, when the subject identifies its self, as it is given
through acceptable discourse, and acts in accordance with that concep-
tion of self, it believes it is realizing its autonomy.
According to Foucault, however, the demand for and preoccupation
with acquiring knowledge of ourselves and realizing the self we ought to
be is a form of coercion. It seems like autonomy, but the modern concep-
tion of autonomy is the very vehicle for producing a docile and harmless
population. Hence, Foucault says, “The man [i.e., the self-constituting
subject] described for us, who we are invited to free, is already in himself
the effect of a subjection much more profound than himself.”23 He is clear
that he does not take knowledge of self, or access to it, to be distorted by
ideological mechanisms; rather, the very notion of a self is a mechanism
of the system of acceptability for conduct, and the ideal of autonomy
is the means for delivering socially acceptable conduct. Consequently,
he understands that our demand for self-knowledge is actually a form
of self-subjugation: such “self-subjugation” is not intended in the posi-
tive sense of “mastering oneself,” as it might be construed in his later
philosophy, but rather in the sense that subjects are produced by being
subjected to rules of discursive and social practices that function outside
of the individual’s control and authorization. For this reason, Foucault
says that subjects are sites or vehicles of power but not in possession of
power; they are subjected to power without wielding it.24
This final phase of Foucault’s radical critique of the subject effec-
tively establishes his rejection of autonomous subjectivity. Rather than
attacking a conception of the autonomous subject as both false and
pernicious, and then offering an alternative to it, Foucault denies the
very possibility of self-determination and then claims that the interest
in self-determination only tightens the grip of relations of power. While
it is possible that Foucault could be correct that there is no essential char-
acteristic of self that would ground autonomy, the move to describing
autonomy as a vehicle of power relations suggests an “ethical impulse”
that operates in the background of his thinking about power.25 It would
seem that Foucault cares about power relations precisely because they
constrain our autonomy, and yet the autonomous subject is nothing
more than a modern invention for creating docile human beings. It

is worth objecting, however, that there is no reason to care about the
coercion of power relations if there is, in the end, nothing about the
subject that could count for it as authoritative and through which it
could determine itself. It is this incompatibility that threatens Foucault’s
critical philosophy. If he denies everything required for autonomous
subjectivity, how could he possibly count himself as carrying on the
tradition of Kantian critique and its interest in autonomy without
engaging in the worst kind of double-speak, offering with one hand
what he takes away with the other? Or, does Foucault simply misunder-
stand the requirements of his own commitments? If he does not allow
for the possibility of a conception of self that is authoritative for the
subject, then Foucault cannot reasonably talk about a critical philos-
ophy oriented by the value of self-determination. It is clear that each
of three articulations of Foucault’s radical critique of the subject aim to
undermine the possibility of an authoritative conception of selfhood. Is
his critical philosophy therefore doomed? It turns out, I will now argue,
that Foucault reversed his position.
Foucault’s reversal
By analyzing several comments Foucault makes in the last six years of

his life, and comparing them to the ideas of his radical critique of the
subject, it will become clear that he changed his mind about the self-
constituting subject. These comments evince his admission, previously
inconceivable given the character of his thought, that the requirements
needed for autonomous subjectivity could exist. Additionally, there is a
clear sense that he has rethought the nature of his project. It no longer
appears intent to show that the subject is merely an effect of history.
He suggests, rather, that his project is now to proceed, not by rejecting
subjectivity but by methodologically suspending it – which is to say that
he doesn’t adopt a theoretical attitude toward the subject.
Foucault’s final interview opens with a question about the perceived
change in his style between his earlier writings and his then two most
recent (and final) published books, the second and third volumes of
The History of Sexuality. He explains that he had recently returned to his
manuscripts for the intended first volume in The History of Sexuality series,
Confessions of the Flesh, a text dealing with Christian sexual morality
that he ultimately set aside. In those manuscripts he notices that in his
earlier writings he “adhered completely” to a style of playful philosophy
committed to a particular vocabulary and conception of experience.
112 Bob Robinson
“Very abruptly, in 1975–76, I completely gave up this style,” he says,

“you can be sure that now I’m trying to disengage myself from that form
of philosophy.”26 His reason for abandoning this style of philosophy is
that it was not conducive to providing “a history of the subject,” for
such a history must not treat the subject as “an event that would be
produced one day” or as a thing that has a “genesis.”27 A history of the
subject obviously requires that there is a subject, and in the sense that
Foucault is using the term, namely, self-constituting subjectivity. But, if
the self-constituting subject is a modern invention, then performing a
history of the subject would be restricted to an analysis of the concept as
it suddenly appears in modernity. The history of subjectivity, however,
extends to ancient times, which is where The History of Sexuality series
begins.
What exactly is he admitting, then? “What hampered me in the
preceding books,” Foucault explains, is that he focused too intently on
problems of knowledge and power “without taking into account indi-
vidual conduct [la conduite individuelle].”28 Taking “individual conduct”
into account gave him “a guiding thread which didn’t need to be justi-
fied by resorting to rhetorical methods.”29 What was this form of philos-
ophy that resorted to rhetorical methods? Foucault answers, at least in
part with regard to the third articulation of the radical critique of the
subject, “Perhaps I’ve insisted too much on the technology of domina-
tion and power.”30 It seems that Foucault is suggesting that his attack
on the subject was largely rhetorical and not philosophically justified,
and his hostility toward the subject caused him to ignore “individual
conduct” entirely. By “individual conduct” Foucault means the manner
in which one reflectively relates to oneself in terms of their conduct.
This is what he also refers to as “ethics,” and it is, as he says in a late
interview, “the considered form that freedom takes,” for it implies a
sense of self-mastery through reflection.31 Clearly stunned by Foucault’s
talk of freely self-constituting subjects, the interviewer questions him
about whether he has “always ‘forbidden’ people to talk to [him] about
the subject in general?” Foucault suggests that he has not “adequately”
explained himself, and offers that what he “refused [refusé]” is “the idea
of starting out with a theory of the subject.”32
These passages show that Foucault admits, first, that he over-
reached in his radical critique of the subject and, second, that he never
intended to reject simpliciter a theory of the subject. Given the prepon-
derance of evidence provided in the first section, I think the latter
suggestion must be regarded as disingenuous. Nevertheless, the latter
suggestion, combined with the admission of overreaching, provides
an interesting way of interpreting his oeuvre: because Foucault over-

reached in his critique of the subject, the materials produced in the
service of that critique should be interpreted not as a rejection of an
essential feature of selfhood that would anchor subjectivity, but rather
as a methodological suspension of the theory of subjectivity. That is,
Foucault neither rejects nor accepts any theory of the self. This inter-
pretation conforms perfectly with Foucault’s descriptions of his project
at the end of his life:
Taking the question of relations between the subject and truth as

the guiding thread for all these analyses implies certain choices of
method. And, first, a systematic skepticism toward all anthropolog-
ical universals – which does not mean rejecting them all from the start,
outright and once and for all, but that nothing of that order must be
accepted that is not strictly indispensable. In regard to human nature
or the categories that may be applied to the subject, everything in our
knowledge which is suggested to us as being universally valid must be
tested and analyzed.33
The crucial point here is that Foucault does understand himself as

rejecting the theory of the subject, or the possibility of essential features
of selfhood (that is, “anthropological universals”) that could ground
autonomy. Rather, he claims instead that these universals must be tested
for their universality and necessity.
Further support for Foucault’s change of heart toward the theory of
subjectivity can be found in statements that allow (and may even appear
to demand) the ascription of universal features to the subject. Consider
the following passage from the Preface to the second volume of The
History of Sexuality:
Posing the question [of a history of thought] in this way brings into
play certain altogether general principles. Singular forms of experi-
ence may perfectly well harbour universal structures; they may well
not be independent of the concrete determinations of social exist-
ence. However, neither those determinations nor those structures can
allow for experiences (that is, for understandings of a certain type, for
rules of a certain form, for certain modes of consciousness of oneself
and of others) except through thought. […] That [thought] should
have this historicity does not mean it is deprived of all universal
form, but, rather, that the putting into play of these universal forms
is itself historical.34
114 Bob Robinson
The references to “universal structures” and “universal form,” which

correlate with the concept of “anthropological universals” noted above,
should be startling given the character of his earlier work. Elsewhere, he
clarifies what he means by appeal to these structures and forms when he
asserts that “we are thinking beings,” meaning that “we do […] things
not only on the ground of universal rules of conduct [règles de conduite
universelles] but also on the specific ground of a historical rationality.”35
Notice how this distinction between universal and historical ration-
ality mirrors the similar distinction between universal and historical
structures and forms of experience. Both distinctions are isomorphic
in their admission of the fact that subjects are capable of coming into
contact with features of experience and rationality that are universal
to human beings. And this is precisely the kind of view Foucault had
previously attempted to undermine. Here, however, his views have
obviously changed in the direction I am suggesting. While his descrip-
tive terminology of the rules of acceptability has changed, it is the case
that Foucault is departing from the view that those rules are thoroughly
historical.
There is additional evidence that relates to Foucault’s admission of
universal structures and forms of experience and rules of rationality.
The project of seeking to discover those structures, forms, and rules that
are subjectively universal is what Foucault refers to, following Kant,
as a formal ontology of truth or an analytics of truth.36 Consider the
following passage from a public lecture, where Foucault asserts the value
of that project of discovery:
The general framework of what I call the “technologies of the self” is a

question that appeared at the end of the eighteenth century. It was to
become one of the poles of modern philosophy. This question is very
different from what we call the traditional philosophical questions:
What is the world? What is man? What is truth? What is knowledge?
How can we know something? And so on. The question that arises
at the end of the eighteenth century, I think, is: What are we in our
actuality? You will find the formulation of this question in a text
written by Kant. I don’t pretend that the previous questions about
truth, knowledge, and so on have to be put aside; on the contrary,
they constitute a very strong and consistent field of analysis, what I
would like to call the formal ontology of truth.37
This passage should be compared to the closing remarks of the first

lecture of Foucault’s 1983 course at the Collège de France. Where in
the former passage he asserts the value of the formal ontology of truth,
he frames the matter as choosing between two possible projects – an
ontology of ourselves (his project) and an analytics of truth: a different
title for what he calls the formal ontology of truth. He says:
Kant seems to me to have founded the two great critical traditions

between which modern philosophy is divided. Let us say that in his
great critical work Kant laid the foundations for that tradition of
philosophy that poses the question of the conditions in which true
knowledge is possible and, on that basis, it may be said that a whole
stretch of modern philosophy from the nineteenth century has been
presented, developed as the analytics of truth.
But there is also in modern and contemporary philosophy another
type of question, another kind of critical interrogation: it is the one
we see emerging precisely in the question of the Aufklärung or in the
text on the Revolution. That other critical tradition poses the ques-
tion: What is our present? What is the present field of possible expe-
riences? This is not an analytics of truth; it will concern what might
be called an ontology of the present, an ontology of ourselves, and
it seems to me that the philosophical choice confronting us today
is this: one may opt for a critical philosophy that will present itself
as an analytic philosophy of truth in general, or one may opt for a
critical thought that will take the form of an ontology of ourselves,
an ontology of the present […].38
Notice that in these passages Foucault describes the analytics of truth as

being that side of modern philosophy concerned with answering tradi-
tional philosophical questions. This side constitutes “a very strong and
consistent field of analysis” although it begins philosophizing by trying
to ground, rather than upset, truth. Clearly, Foucault is not asserting, as
he once did, that this side of modern philosophy, which includes the
Kantian account of objectivity grounded in subjectivity, is worthy of
rejection.39 He is asserting, rather, that his choice is not to pursue that
project, which is obviously not to claim that an analytics of truth is
misguided or without value.
If the preceding is correct, then Foucault now believes that a theory
of the subject is possible. And, since Foucault rejected the possibility of
autonomous subjectivity because he rejected the self that is required for
self-determination, he is now admitting a theory of selfhood that could
ground autonomy. But since Foucault himself does not seem to offer a
theory of subjectivity that could ground autonomy, he lacks the license
116 Bob Robinson
to appeal to autonomy as the critical goal of his philosophy. Unless, of

course, he does possess such a theory.
Autonomy and subjectivity in Foucault’s critical philosophy
It is clear from the previous section that Foucault does not deny the
value of the modern rationalist project of discovering the principles of
autonomous subjectivity (among other things). By analyzing Foucault’s
contrasts of his project with this modern rationalist attitude, there is an
excellent case to be made that he understands reason as the source of
autonomous subjectivity and that his critical philosophy contributes to
modernity’s desire for autonomy by promoting the unconstrained exer-
cise of reason. Through the application of his historical methodology,
Foucault identifies the assumptions and principles of modern ration-
ality that are potentially coercive in the following sense: subjects think
and act in accordance with them but without having brought those
assumptions and principles before reason for critical scrutiny. Because
it is ostensibly the case that one is not thinking or acting for oneself by
thinking and acting according to assumptions and principles that one
has not authorized, Foucault promotes autonomy by making it possible
to critically scrutinize those assumptions and principles. My purpose
here is to clarify Foucault’s commitment to the autonomy of human
reason, and therefore I shall limit the scope of my critical discussion
to two of Foucault’s most important later essays, “What is Critique?”
and “What is Enlightenment?” While Foucault resists engaging in an
analytics of truth, he cannot help but do so to the extent that he identi-
fies reason as the source of autonomy – a contentious thesis for some
Foucault scholars, and yet it is a defensible thesis. I will elicit and explain
this claim by engaging with criticisms of Foucault’s critical philosophy
and explaining Foucault’s concept of an art of life as a rational art.
It is roughly a two-year period between the time that Foucault claims
to have undergone a rhetorical and substantive shift in his thinking
about the subject and his first prolonged engagement with Kantian
critique in the 1978 address, “What is Critique?” His purpose here is to
explain how autonomy can be undermined by the use of reason itself.
Social practices often become entrenched by the rational justifications
for them, and those forms of rational justification themselves include
concepts and values that have not been subjected to critical analysis.
This creates the possibility that those social practices are coercive, in the
sense that those practices diminish our capacities to think for ourselves.
Before describing the dangers of seemingly authoritative forms of
rationality, Foucault motivates the danger by aligning himself with the

Kantian tradition of autonomy.
Foucault explains that in the 15th century there was a multiplication
of the arts and techniques of governing – what he calls “governmen-
tality” – which he defines elsewhere as “the way in which the conduct
of individuals or of groups might be directed” or a way of “conducting”
the actions of others by leading them.40 More specifically, governmen-
tality is the governance of one agent by another by means of leading the
first to the decisions desired by the latter, but in a manner that is not
overtly coercive. It is in conjunction with the rise of governmentality
that critique enters into moral and political discussion as a principled
means of expressing an attitude regarding governance and its appropriate
forms.41 Kant is not the first critic of ecclesiastical and state powers, but
he is the first, Foucault thinks, to demand of these authorities that they
are responsible to their citizens and must justify their governing princi-
ples to them.
In the famous essay “An Answer to the Question: What is
Enlightenment?” Kant maintains that those governing principles are
legitimate only if it is possible that the citizenry could freely impose
those principles on themselves: “The touchstone of whatever can be
decided upon as law for a people lies in the question: whether a people
could impose such a law upon itself.”42 Kant’s demand that the authori-
ties justify their principles of governance to their citizenry is also a
demand on the citizens to justify their own principles of actions to
themselves, which requires making use of their own reason. “To make
use of one’s own reason,” Kant says, “means no more than to ask oneself,
whenever one is supposed to assume something, whether one could
find it feasible to make the ground or the rule on which one assumes it
into a universal principle for the use of reason.”43 The rule of justified
governance is therefore consistent with, because it is ultimately derived
from, the requirements for the correct use of reason. Consequently, the
state acquires legitimacy for its principles of rule from the very citizens
governed by those principles, and the state is self-governing only insofar
as its citizens are self-governing. Now, Foucault holds that essence of
governmentality is where at least one agent is not choosing for itself but
led to by another to decisions thought to be its own; the governed agent
believes it is choosing for itself, when in fact the choice was, to some
significant extent, antecedently determined. Put differently, govern-
mentality is a constraint of an agent’s possible choices by another. So,
Foucault says that Kantian critique is a “counter-art” to governmentality
because it has its end of “desubjugation of the subject,”44 meaning that
118 Bob Robinson
Kantian critique always takes the independence and self-possession of

the subject as its primary aim.
Foucault worries, however, that the critic can unknowingly employ
concepts and values that function to ensure subordination rather than
deliver him or her from it. If the state’s principles of governing can
appear to possess the authority of reason, then there is greater justi-
fication for those governed to willingly subject themselves to those
principles, despite the fact that those principles are illegitimate. But for
Foucault, governmentality is largely anonymous, meaning that there is
no central agency that imposes those principles; instead, the principles
are found in discourse and imposed upon individuals by themselves
through their participation in social practices. Echoing Kant’s statement
in the latter’s “Enlightenment” essay that it is the “mechanization” of
reason in simplistic formulas and principles that is “the ball and chain
of an everlasting minority,” or the immature state of not being respon-
sible for oneself,45 Foucault says his project is to discover the connec-
tions between those previously unrecognized “mechanisms of coercion
and elements of knowledge” – again, these are “forms of rationality that
organize ways of doing things”46 – so as to ascertain how a mechanism
of coercion becomes justified by elements of knowledge.47 He under-
stands reason to mask its own effects in social practices because if a prin-
ciple enjoys rational justification, then the social practices that operate
according to those principles also enjoy justification.48 But if those prin-
ciples enjoy rational justification without being critically analyzed, then
Foucault believes that there is the hidden and pernicious possibility that
individuals might willingly hand over their self-governance to those
principles because of a lack of critical awareness.
A suspicion then arises: “[F]or what excesses of power, for what govern-
mentalization,” Foucault asks, “all the more impossible to evade as it
is reasonably justified, is reason not itself historically responsible?”49
Since the time of Kant, Foucault remarks elsewhere, “critical thought”
expresses itself in the form of the question that “has always been, still
is, and will, I hope, remain the question: What is this Reason that we
use?” But perhaps what Kant did not see is that reason has “historical
effects,” “limits,” and “dangers.” So this question now becomes, “How
can we exist as rational beings, fortunately committed to practicing a
rationality that is unfortunately crisscrossed by intrinsic dangers?”50 The
kind of being that we possess, Foucault strongly suggests, is rational, and
“What is Critique?” makes it plain that our reason is at once a source of
autonomy and yet also, insofar as it is employed dogmatically, a possible
source of heteronomy.51
Although Foucault gave the address “What is Critique?” six years prior
to writing “What is Enlightenment?” the tone and character are deeply
similar. In the latter essay Foucault explains that it is Kant’s reflections
upon “Enlightenment” that characterize its concern with the compat-
ibility of “man’s relation to the present, man’s historical mode of being,
and the constitution of the self as an autonomous subject.”52 Foucault
is clear that he is not interested in pursuing critique as determining the
principles of autonomous subjectivity, as Kant is, but rather a critique
of “what is not or is no longer indispensable for the constitution of
ourselves as autonomous subjects,”53 a critique that “separate[s] out,
from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility
of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think.”54
Evidently, Foucault believes that the very activity of critique assumes the
autonomy of the subject. Yet he reassures his audience that this project
captures the critical spirit of the Enlightenment without committing
him to any of its arguably contentious “doctrinal elements.”55 He says,
for example:
[I]f the Kantian question was that of knowing what limits knowledge
must renounce exceeding, it seems to me that the critical question
today must be turned back into a positive one: In what is given to us
as universal, necessary, obligatory, what place is occupied by whatever
is singular, contingent, and the product of arbitrary constraints?56
Kant announced the limits of reason through “the search for formal
structures with universal value,” and Foucault is adamant that by veering
away from this analytics of truth he is “not talking about a gesture of
rejection.”57 As Foucault says elsewhere, the reflection upon our self-im-
posed limits “consists in seeing on what type of assumptions, of familiar
notions, of established, unexamined ways of thinking the accepted prac-
tices are based” and “showing that things are not as obvious as people
believe, making it so that what is taken for granted is no longer taken for
granted.”58 His historical inquiries uncover the “accidents, the minute
deviations […] the errors, the false appraisals, and the faulty calculations
that gave birth to those things which continue to exist and have value
for us” and it “disturbs what was previously considered immobile.”59
Importantly, Foucault focuses his efforts on disturbing how we think of
ourselves, which he does by showing the contingency and mutability
in what we believe to be necessary and immutable about ourselves.60
Foucaultian critique, in short, makes us aware of what we assume and
take for granted, and by becoming aware of these elements guiding our
120 Bob Robinson
thought and conduct, we become capable of evaluating them. Such a

critique allows us to “grasp the points where change is possible and desir-
able, and to determine the precise form this change should take,”61 and
it provides opportunities for the subject to engage in “a permanent crea-
tion of ourselves in our autonomy [création permanente de nous-mêmes
dans notre autonomie].”62
One might attack Foucault regarding his subtle shift from critique
as a form of (a) disclosing the hidden assumptions and principles that
contribute to our self-coercion to (b) evaluating those assumptions and
principles. Richard Bernstein aptly characterizes the sentiment of critics
when he says that “references to desirable and new possibilities and
changes are in danger of becoming empty and vacuous unless we have
some sense of which possibilities and changes are desirable and why.”63
There are two complaints here. First, it is said that Foucault cannot
consistently engage in the evaluation of the assumptions and princi-
ples that function as coercive mechanisms, for that would imply that
he has an undefended standard for doing so. Of course, such an unde-
fended standard would be embarrassing given that his critical project is
designed around the identification of assumptions and principles that
have not been scrutinized. Second, it is often said that Foucault’s ideal
of “creating ourselves in our autonomy” is a bankrupt notion because
he fails to provide an account of how we should create ourselves. What is
the point of creating oneself if there is no positive set of principles that
one should adopt for creating oneself?
It seems Foucault is mistaken in his claim that he does not engage to
some extent in the analytics of truth, for he suggests in multiple places
that reason itself is coerced by its unanalyzed assumptions and princi-
ples. Recall the question around which he organizes his project: “How
can we exist as rational beings, fortunately committed to practicing a
rationality that is unfortunately crisscrossed by intrinsic dangers?”64
Why would Foucault be concerned about potentially coercive forms of
rationality if it is not the human being’s existence as a rational being that
is the source of thinking and acting for oneself? Additionally, Foucault
articulates his project by comparing it to the Kantian search for limits:
whereas the latter aims to discover the limits we must not exceed, the
former seeks to identify those limits that can be exceeded. For Kant,
the limits that cannot be exceeded are established by reason; so, unless
Foucault is equivocating in his use of the term “limits,” we should under-
stand by that term the unnecessary constraints upon the free exercise of
reason. Now, what makes a constraint unnecessary is whether it lacks
the authority it is purported to possess. For example, if some assumption
or principle is held to be authoritative and yet upon historical analysis

it is disclosed that the assumption or principle acquired its authority
by chance and not rational justification, then it is unnecessary. If this
is true, then the exercise of autonomy that Foucault attributes to his
critical philosophy – again, what he describes as “a permanent creation
of ourselves in our autonomy” – is the continuous search by reason
for unnecessary, yet allegedly necessary, constraints upon thought and
conduct. For, if those constraints are unnecessary, then one can freely
choose to either abide by those constraints or resist them.
There is, however, an objection to making rationality the source of
autonomy that comes from within Foucault scholarship. Critics assert
that when Foucault refers to the permanent creation of ourselves in our
autonomy, he is referencing his concept of an “aesthetics of existence”
or making oneself into a work of art. It is not reason that is the ground of
autonomy, some might say, but creativity. Both Timothy O’Leary65 and
Todd May,66 for example, construe Foucault’s concept of an aesthetics
of existence in creative terms – as a reimagining of, and experimenting
with, who we are and who we might become by testing our bounda-
ries. My contention is not that O’Leary and May are incorrect, but that
the creativity involved is essentially rational. The art of life, Foucault
believes, is a rational art and one for bringing coherence between one’s
discourse and actions.
In his 1982 lectures on parrhesia or truth-telling Foucault discusses the
“art of life” as exemplifying techniques for how to live. Socrates is an
essential example, as he challenges his fellow Greeks to “demonstrate”
a consistent relationship between their “rational discourse,” or their
logos, and the ways in which they live, their bou.67 The relationship is
defined as one of harmony, where the beauty of one’s life is drawn from
the harmony that exists between one’s bou and the logos exemplified
in their speech. According to Foucault, Socrates acquires his ability to
so effectively disturb the discourse of his fellow Greeks because he is in
perfect harmony with himself, possessing truth; that is, “there is not the
slightest discrepancy between what he says and what he does.”68 Life,
Foucault says, is the object of art, but, as he stresses in The Hermeneutics
of the Subject, the tekhnē, the art, is to be understood as “a reasonable
and rational art.”69 The beauty of a life, Foucault thinks, is derived from
the truths one adopts and how one fashions one’s life in accordance
with those truths; as such, the standard of beauty is the consistency or
harmony between those truths and the life fashioned by them. There is
certainly individual creativity involved in this activity, as the activities
one undertakes in order to fashion one’s life might differ from person
122 Bob Robinson
to person, but it is plainly mistaken to assert that Foucault’s concept of

an aesthetics of existence does not include the role of reason in shaping
a life. A beautiful life, for Foucault, is a rational life, and a rational life
is a life in which one’s conduct exemplifies one’s commitment to the
rational justification of their conduct and avoidance of dogmatism.
However, the response to this objection might only deepen the skep-
ticism of Foucault’s critics. The critic might respond by saying that
Foucault lacks an account of those positive rational principles that one
should adopt to fashion oneself. The critic can admit that respect for
the rational nature of human beings substantively informs Foucault’s
understanding of autonomous subjectivity, but without an account
of what it means to think and act rationally, he cannot determinately
avoid the charge that any work upon the self through rational reflec-
tion might be tightening the grip of a mechanism of coercion. That
is to say, one might become aware of some assumption or principle
guiding one’s thought and conduct, determine that it lacks necessity,
and choose to fashion oneself otherwise. But if there is no standard of
choice here, then it is possible that one is trading one mechanism of
coercion for another, as this new form of self-fashioning proceeds on
the authority of some assumption or principle that lacks appropriate
critical scrutiny.
I think Foucault is acutely aware of this worry. In “What is
Enlightenment?” Foucault says that we must relinquish the hope that
we could attain a perspective on ourselves that would definitively allow
us to avoid succumbing to the dangers inherent in reason. Even if there
are standards of rationality that produce autonomous conduct, those
standards are always historically deployed, and therefore, are capable
of a merely contingent historical use. It might be, for example, a
universal law of reason to never use a rational being as a mere means.
It is possible, however, that we do not determinately know the extent
of which members of nature are or could be rational, and we could be
treating rational beings as mere means. For reasons of this sort, Foucault
says that our ability to assess the constraints upon our reason “is always
limited and determined; thus, we are always in the position of begin-
ning again.”70 We must always run the risk that we are in the grips of
some anonymous mechanism of coercion that guides our thought and
conduct for us, or some principle that appears authoritative and yet is
not. The most we can do, Foucault thinks, is (1) attempt to find universal
standards of reason, (2) turn reason against itself to find what is unnec-
essary in it, and (3) live in accordance with those demands of reason
that we believe are authoritative.
Conclusion
The above brief examination of a few of Foucault’s last works show that
his attitude toward autonomy, and specifically reason as the source
of autonomy, is positive. My analysis in the first section of this paper
showed that not only was his attitude toward autonomy once nega-
tive, he was intent to undermine autonomy altogether. But beginning
with “What is Critique?” in 1978, one sees a change in his attitude and
philosophical position toward autonomy – a change that he confessed
to openly at the end of his life. Where Foucault once sought to destroy
autonomy, by showing that the subject is not self-constituting, he subse-
quently made self-constitution central to his critical philosophy. If the
argument of this paper is correct, then the task of the Foucaultian is to,
first, revisit his earlier work from the perspective that Foucault changed
his mind about autonomous subjectivity, and, second, salvage that
which can be rendered consistent with his final position on the matter.
Notes
1. Foucault (1996), p. 35; Foucault (1994), No 58, p. 677. All references to
Foucault’s works point, first, to an English translation and, second, an orig-
inal French edition as contained in the selected bibliography. Translation
modifications are announced.
2. Foucault (1997), pp. 3–4; Foucault (1994), No 139, p. 540.
3. Foucault (1997), p. 313; Foucault (1994), No 339, p. 572.
4. Consequently, James Schmidt and Thomas E. Wartenberg incredulously
wonder, “Foucault…a Kantian? […] Who, one might reasonably ask, is
kidding whom?” (Kelly (ed.) [1994], p. 284).
6. See Foucault (1998), pp. 459–463; Foucault (1994), No 335.
9. Foucault (1970), p. xxiii; Foucault (1966), p. 15.
10. Foucault (1970), p. 340; Foucault (1966), pp. 351–352.
11. Ibid.
12. See Foucault (1970), pp. 386–387; Foucault (1966), p. 398.
13. Foucault (1996), p. 67; Foucault (1994), No 68, pp. 788–789.
15. Foucault (1972), p. 203; Foucault (1969), pp. 264–265.
16. Foucault (1972), p. 62–63; Foucault (1969), pp. 82–83.
18. Foucault (1972), p. 15, n. 2.
19. Foucault (1972), p. 117; Foucault (1969), p. 153.
20. For Foucault, the rules that comprise savoir are changed and modified below
the level of connaissance, and therefore subjects are not aware of those
changes and modifications.
124 Bob Robinson

22. Foucault (2007), p. 61; Foucault (1970), pp. 36–37; Foucault (1971), p. 224.
23. Foucault (1977), p. 30; Foucault (1975), p. 34.
25. Leiter (2008), p. 1.
27. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
32. Foucault (1997), p. 290; Foucault (1994), No 356, p. 718; translation
modified.
33. Foucault (1998), p. 461; Foucault (1994), No 345, p. 634; italics added.
35. Foucault (2000), p. 405; Foucault (1994), No 364, p. 816; translation modi-
fied. In his late work “The Subject and Power,” for example, he says, “Perhaps
the equivocal nature of the term ‘conduct’ [conduite] is one of the best aids for
coming to terms with the specificity of power relations. To ‘conduct’ [conduit]
is at the same time to ‘lead’ [mener] others […] and a way of behaving within
a more or less open field of possibilities” (Foucault [1997], p. 341; Foucault
[1994], No 306, p. 237). Foucault goes on to define the “exercise of power”
as a “‘conduct of conducts’ and a management of possibilities” (Ibid.). The
importance of Foucault saying that there are universal rules of conduct
certainly implies that subjects conduct themselves according to rules that
hold with universality.
36. In the “Transcendental Analytic” of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant famously
argues for the universal validity of the categories, “without which no object
can be thought at all,” and which is described as “a logic of truth” (Kant
[1997], A62/B87). In the first book of Critique of Practical Reason Kant under-
takes an “analytic of pure practical reason,” where he articulates a “rule of
truth” for practical judgments (Kant [1996], 5:16). An analytic in general
seeks to discern the grounds of particular kinds of judgments and in doing so
establish the criteria for their evaluation.
39. Foucault goes as far as to suggest that denying an analytics or formal
ontology of truth is to fall prey to the “blackmail” of the Enlightenment:
“you either accept the Enlightenment and remain within the tradition of its
rationalism (this is considered a positive term by some and used by others,
on the contrary, as a reproach); or else you criticize the Enlightenment and
then try to escape from its principles of rationality (which may be seen once
again as good or bad)” (Foucault [1997], p. 313; Foucault [1994], No 339,
pp. 571–572).
41. Foucault (2007), pp. 44 & 48.
42. Kant (1996a), 8:37.
43. Kant (1996b), 8:146n. Cf. Kant (1996a), “An Answer to the Question: What
is Enlightenment?” 8:39.
44. Foucault (2007), p. 47.

45. Kant (1996a), 8:36.
47. Foucault (2007), p. 59.
48. He specifically notes the historical combination of scientific rationality and
principles of governing derived from that scientific rationality (Foucault
[2007], p. 50). If a claim is validated by science, then it might be wielded to
justify some specific set of principles for governing. Through the develop-
ment and refinement of science, Foucault holds that the state has acquired
more precise techniques for intervening in the conduct of individuals, and
in a way that individuals openly assent to.
49. Foucault (2007), p. 51.
51. It is clearly visible that by the time of this address Foucault had begun to
articulate a conception of his project that is at fundamental odds with his
critique of the subject. Several of Foucault’s comments in the essay do not
make sense against the backdrop of a philosophy that seeks to “dispense with
the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself, that’s to say, to arrive
at an analysis which can account for the constitution of the subject within
a historical framework” (Foucault [1980], p. 117; Foucault [1994], No 192,
p. 147). This is not to say, of course, that Foucault denies that the subject is
outside of history altogether. Rather, it is to admit that the subject is capable
of taking ownership of itself through an exercise of rational reflection upon
the mechanisms of coercion that forms of rational justification authorize.
57. Ibid.
60. In this regard, Foucault offers a conception of genealogical critique broadly
consistent with the conception offered by Bernard Williams, Truth and
Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
2002), pp. 20–21.
63. Kelly (ed.) (1994), p. 231.
65. T. O’Leary (2002), Foucault and the Art of Ethics (New York: Continuum).
66. T. May (2006), The Philosophy of Foucault (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press).
67. Foucault (2001), p. 97.
68. Ibid., p. 100.
69. Foucault (2005a), p. 487; Foucault (2005b), p. 466.

7
The Ethics and Politics of Self-
Creation in Foucault
AB (Benda) Hofmeyr
Introduction: self-creation as the way out
Towards the end of his life, Foucault made a decisive ethical turn – a
turn towards the self and seemingly away from his previous preoccupa-
tions which were considered more politically engaged. It appeared as if
Foucault had trapped himself in power1 and now chose to withdraw into
the self.2 Foucault even insisted that it was not power but the subject that
formed the general theme of his research.3 And yet, his peculiar concep-
tion of power not only paved the way for but also appeared to necessitate
a (re)turn to the self in his later works. A reconceptualized self appeared
on the scene: exit self, the product; enter self, the creator. The self is now
no longer considered as the passive product of an external system of
constraint and prescriptions, but as the active agent of its own formation.
Foucault unlocks the self’s potential for liberty by returning to ancient
Greek and Greco-Roman culture where the hermeneutics of the self was
constituted by the practice of “care of the self.” There he discovers an
aesthetics of existence that is also ethical to the extent to which it main-
tains the freedom of the subject.4 In short, the later Foucault appears to
be saying that we can be freer by creating ourselves anew.
Accordingly, “care of the self” is presented as a “struggle against the
forms of subjection – against the submission of subjectivity.”5 More
precisely, proper care of the self takes the form of a “refusal” of the self,6
because what we are is the result of the political “double bind” of modern
power structures.7 This form of power “individualizes” the subject, but
it also simultaneously “totalizes” the subject; it does not empower the
subject without also overpowering it. The question then is: “How can
the growth of capabilities be disconnected from the intensification of
power relations?”8
126
The Ethics and Politics of Self-Creation in Foucault 127
The self – in Greek guise, that is, as individual agency characterized

by autarky and auto-affection – seems to provide the answer to this
dilemma. It is set in opposition to the material, historical, economic,
discursive and linguistic structures, practices and drives that constitute
subjectivity and of which the subject is an effect.9 In short, it is opposed
to the subject as subject. For as Greenblatt argues, the freedom of the arts
of the self does not consist in self-creation itself, but in the experience of
self-formation in the face of all the other forces that fashion us.10
Foucault defines ethics as the “the practice of liberty, the deliberate
practice of liberty.”11 If we take this to mean that the essence of Foucault’s
ethical project is constituted by the struggle for and the practice of
freedom, his later works also immediately assume political significance.
In other words, if “ethics is the deliberate form assumed by liberty,” his
later works are essentially dedicated to the political task of reinvesting
the individual with the capacity for action – to change itself and the
world in which it lives. And this ability to change oneself, and by exten-
sion the society in which one lives, is rooted in the ability “to know how
and to what extent it might be possible to think differently.”12
Foucault’s genealogies of the subject show how the individual has
always been constituted in ways that correlate with social norms, which
are in turn engineered by the powers that be. This implies that attempts
to resist existing ways of subjectification [assujettissement] – which corre-
spond to certain forms of subjection – entail opposition to networks of
power and governmental rationalities. In other words, the later Foucault
shifted emphasis from the problematics of subjectivizing subjection
[assujetissement] to that of subjectivization [subjectivation].13 He now
conceives of subjectivity not as a product of power, but as a result of
the techniques of subjectivization that may indeed have connections
with techniques of power but are essentially distinct from them.14 And
since the promotion of new subjectivities or subjectivization provides
the means to counter subjection, it is not only a matter of ethics, but
also at once social, philosophical, and most importantly, political.
Foucault proposes three axes of subjectification:15 (1) the self’s relation
to knowledge/truth; (2) the self’s relation to power; and (3) the self’s
relation to itself (ethics).16 In light of this triad, freedom would mean the
freedom of the subject to relate to itself without that relationship being
pre-/overdetermined by power and knowledge. In other words, ethics or
“the deliberate practices of liberty” would depend upon the possibility
of loosening the connections between the three axes.17 This, in fact, is
precisely what Foucault proposes: the possibility of an ethical relation
to the self that has recourse neither to power nor to knowledge.18 This
128 AB (Benda) Hofmeyr
brings us to the main question at issue in this paper: to what extent

is it possible to conceive of the self independently of knowledge and
power? It will consider the way in which the success or failure of this
“loosening” affects the political status of Foucault’s ethics. If we do not
succeed in securing our freedom, does this mean that Foucault’s ethics is
politically inconsequential? Foucault’s conception of power will provide
us with the key to answering these questions.
Power: the twin root of good and evil
For Foucault, power is not a theoretical question. Every aspect of our

experience is insidiously steeped in and consequently determined by
power.19 Because power is deeply rooted in the social nexus,20 it is capable
of instituting relations between individuals (or between groups).21 “[T]o
live in society,” writes Foucault, “is to live in such a way that action upon
other actions is possible – and in fact going on. A society without power
relations can only be an abstraction.” However, Foucault stresses that
although there cannot be a society without power relations, it does not
mean that all established power relations are necessary. That is why the
critical analysis of existing power relations – their historical formation,
the source of their strength or fragility, the conditions that are necessary
to transform some or to abolish others – is a political necessity.22
We should nevertheless not deduce from this that Foucault considers
power to be the bane of our existence. To be sure, power can assume
terminal forms. It can crystallize in institutions and mechanisms that
ensure subservience, or in the form of a law that subjugates, or simply
in a general system of domination exerted by one group over another.
However, when Foucault refers to power he is not talking about the
sovereignty of the state, the form of the law or the unity of a domi-
nation. These forms of power are not given at the outset as if they
constitute power as such, but merely represent the ends or extremities
of power.23
Power should rather be understood as a “multiplicity of force rela-
tions immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which consti-
tute their own organization.”24 Power relations do not operate separate
and apart form other types of relationships, such as economic processes
or knowledge relationships. Nor does it assume a superstructural posi-
tion, with merely a role of prohibition or accompaniment.25 Power rela-
tions exist or operate within other relationships and constitute both the
immediate effects and internal conditions of differentiations occurring
within them.
The Foucaultian conception of power implies a process – a process that,

through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens
or reverses force relations. These force relations can either mutually
support each other like links in a chain, or be isolated from one another
due to disjunctions and contradictions. In other words, power – which
is “permanent, repetitious, inert, and self-producing” – takes effect in
strategies.26 These strategies might be embodied in the state apparatus, in
the formulation of the law, and in the various social hegemonies, but are
not reducible to them. In other words, these strategies do no emanate
from a central point, like an institution or sovereign. They are diffuse,
local and unstable. They operate from the bottom up instead of the top
down, form one moment to the next, at every point. Power is every-
where because it comes from everywhere. It is not a certain strength
we are endowed with, but quite simply a complex strategical situation in
a particular society – the result of the interplay of nonegalitarian and
mobile relations that are exercised from innumerable points.27
Most importantly, power relations have a directly productive role.
It does not merely suppress and subjugate, but is enabling and facili-
tates change. It is always exercised with a series of aims and objectives.
However, although it is always purposeful or intentional, it is never
subjective. The interplay of power cannot be reduced to a decision made
by an individual subject.28
Also understood in terms of “government” – in the broadest sense of
the term – power aims to direct the conduct of individuals/groups while
they retain the possibility to direct their own behavior. As such, power
presupposes freedom. “Power is exercised only over free subjects, and
only insofar as they are free.”29 For if we did not have the freedom to act
and to react, the interplay between relations of force would congeal into
domination. Slavery, for example, is not a power relation but a physical
relation of constraint. Freedom is therefore both the precondition for
the exercise of power and also its permanent support, since without the
ability or the freedom to resist relations of power, the interplay of mobile
relations would congeal into a physical determination.30 If power rela-
tions have a strictly relational character, as Foucault maintains,31 then
one has to accept the fact that where there is power, there is resistance
(counter-power).
One can only resist power from within. We are in fact always “inside”
power. There is no “escaping” it, for there is no absolute outside where
power is concerned. It is what radically defines us. “Between techniques
of knowledge and strategies of power,” writes Foucault, “there is no
exteriority.”32 The truth about the self is generated by the self, deciphered
and validated by experts, and consequently manufactured in what

Foucault calls “‘local centers’ of power/knowledge.” Different forms of
discourse – self-examination, questionings, interpretations, interviews –
act as the vehicle for a kind of incessant back-and-forth movement of
forms of subjugation and schemas of knowledge. These relations of
power/knowledge are not static but continually being molded and trans-
formed. Discourse can therefore both be an instrument of power and an
effect of power; but it can also be a point of resistance, the starting point
of an opposing strategy.33
Although power is not domination, the latter remains a permanent
threat inherent in the very exercise of power. It occurs when either the
active or the reactive force is reduced to total impotence34 and the free
play of antagonistic reactions is rendered fixed and immobile.35 This is
why Foucault insists that power relations are not inherently negative or
evil, but dangerous.36 In cases of domination, power relations give way
to violence: The exercise of power allows for the possibility of counter-
action, whereas violence consists in the direct application of coercion
on the body of the other which simultaneously minimizes the possi-
bility of independent conduct. Violence entails the general subjection
of freedom to power, whereas the condition of possibility of power is
potential refusal or resistance.37
Accordingly, in a state of domination, the practice of liberty does not
exist, exists only unilaterally or is extremely limited. Liberation then
becomes necessary. However, according to Foucault, the “liberation of
liberty” inevitably opens up new relations of power, which in turn bear
the inherent danger of domination. Liberation has to be maintained:
that is, the reinstated mobility of power relations has to be controlled
by practices of liberty.38
The moral of Foucault’s story is that our immersion in – and the all-
pervasiveness of – power do not give cause for fatalism.39 Because power
relations are unstable, they are subject to change; and because there is
power everywhere, there is also freedom and the possibility of resistance
everywhere. To be sure, power is dangerous and that is why “the perma-
nent political task inherent in all social existence” is the analysis, elabo-
ration and questioning of power relations and the struggle (“agonism”)
between power relations and non-negotiable freedom.40
Caught in an infinite regress
We have seen that this political task, this struggle for freedom, culmi-
nates in the ethical subject’s “practices of liberty.” The later Foucault
imagines “politics as an ethics.”41 However, the political efficacy of an

aesthetics of existence is threatened by a dilemma that Balibar frames
in the following terms: “ ... the conditions of existence which are to be
transformed are woven from the same cloth as the practice of trans-
formation itself; ... they are [both] of the order of an ‘action upon an
action’.”42 The power relation is indeed constituent, whereas the more or
less stabilized social norms, the norms of behavior, are constituted.
The implication is that liberty might just be within our reach, but
never quite attainable.43 Power in Foucault is the twin root of both good
and evil. The self can resist power because it is enmeshed in power, in
the very thing that makes resistance necessary. Every act of resistance
instates new relationships of power that have to be resisted in turn.44 As
a result, the self faces the danger of being caught in an infinite regress,45
or return of liberation and domination, of self-invention and self-refusal.
The trajectory leading from resistance to liberation, from liberation to
domination, and back again (via resistance) has come to be inscribed
in the very texture of the individual. Moreover, the constant necessity
to resist power complicates the self’s relationship to itself. It becomes
difficult, if not impossible, for the self to convert to itself,46 if the self’s
relation to itself is entirely defined by its outwardly directed struggles
against power relations.
So where does power leave the subject? In light of the fact that “power
is ‘always already there’, that one is never ‘outside’ it,”47 it seems highly
improbable that the subject will succeed in loosening the three axes
of subjectification – power, truth and ethics. If the self’s relationship
to itself cannot be free from power and knowledge, the very notion of
self-creation itself becomes rather incoherent. Let us reassess the terms
of our dilemma.
Self-creation reassessed
Foucault did indeed stress the fact that the subject’s practices of self-
constitution are “not something that the individual invents by himself.
They are patterns ... which are proposed, suggested and imposed on him by
his culture, his society and his social group.”48 Seen from this perspective,
self-constitution appears as less of an autonomous process, in which the
subject is independent from external determinants, than a reactionary
and thus heteronomous project.49 If the subject merely reacts to imposed
identities, s/he inevitably remains tied to the latter. And although the
individual is then supposedly free to choose his or her own norms, these
norms are not of his or her own making.
Foucault nevertheless insists that the self’s creative practices are ways
in which we can maintain our freedom against coercive powers. Yet, to
be able to indulge in these practices we already have to be free. “Liberty,”
writes Foucault, “is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the
deliberate form assumed by liberty.”50 In cases of domination then, liber-
ation forms the political or historical condition for practices of liberty.
However, liberation in turn instals new relations of power, which have
to be controlled by practices of liberty.51 The practices of liberty then
appear as a necessity emerging after liberation – to maintain freedom.
From this it is clear that the ethicality of an “aesthetics of existence”
consists in its ability to maintain freedom. The assumption seems to be
that our immersion in power and knowledge undermines our freedom
and that we can detach or at least distance ourselves from it in part to
create ourselves anew. Three interrelated difficulties arise:
a. To what extent is it possible to separate the self from power and knowl-
edge: that is, to liberate the subject so that it can practice liberty?
b. If this is feasible, the liberated subject has to maintain his or her
liberty by constructing a new subject identity. How is this possible
without the aid of power and knowledge? In wanting to separate the
three axes of subjectification, does Foucault not risk throwing out the
baby with the bathwater?
c. And, thirdly, if every liberation instigates new power relations, do
we dare hope for a better future, for better socio-political conditions?
And if not, does this not make the self’s ethical practices politically
inconsequential?
The possibility of liberation from power and knowledge

Let us first consider the possibility of liberation from power and knowl-
edge. Deleuze argues that the Greeks have cleared the way for a “double
unhooking or ‘differentiation’ [décrochage]: when the ‘exercises that
enable one to govern oneself’ become detached both from power as a rela-
tion between forces, and from knowledge as a stratified form, or ‘code’
of virtue.” Deleuze continues that the relation to oneself assumes an
independent status as a result of this differentiation. The paradox is that
this independence does not signal a detachment from power and knowl-
edge in general, but from knowledge as imposed codes of prescriptive
rules and power as a relation between forces.52 Let us start with the self’s
relation to knowledge.
According to Foucault, “[f]rom Antiquity to Christianity one passes
from a morality that was essentially a search for a personal ethics, to
a morality as obedience to a system of rules.”53 And since the latter

is “now disappearing, has already disappeared,” the self has to create
itself by once again choosing its own criteria for ethical conduct.
However, despite its supposed freedom from imposed rules, the self
remains dependent upon culturally derived norms. Foucault further-
more stresses that the assimilation of knowledge of the self – that is
the Socratic-Platonic aspect – is a necessary condition of care of the
self.54 However, to know oneself is not an autonomous process. It is
the result of knowledge about the self produced by society, gener-
ated by experts and internalized by the self. For Foucault, knowledge
and truth do not set us free, as is often assumed, but are accessory to
normalizing power that categorizes individuals and marks them by
their own individuality.55 In short, the self is inextricably bound to
knowledge.
As for the self’s relation to power, Foucault’s text reads as follows:
“there was to be a differentiation between the exercises that enabled
one to govern oneself and the learning of what was necessary to govern
others.”56 Accordingly, Deleuze’s interpretation of the self’s detach-
ment from power amounts to a conflation. He conflates “power as a
relation between forces” and the government of others. Power relations
are constituent. In other words, the self is a product of power, but it also
derives its agency from it. Power is a diffuse network and not reduc-
ible to the government of others.57 To be sure, power does “bring into
play relations between individuals (or between groups),” but it “is not
simply a relationship between partners ... it is a way in which certain
actions modify others.”58 The term “conduct” [conduire] explains the
two-sidedness of power best: to “lead” others [se conduire] and to behave
or conduct oneself [la conduire].59
To “govern” others thus makes up one side of the power coin. The
other side of power consists in exercising power over oneself. It also
belongs to the order of “an action upon other actions.” Should we
then consider power exerted over oneself as “subjective” – contrary to
Foucault’s own definition of power?60 Or is it also only one force acting
and reacting to other forces in a network of relations that dissolves the
autonomy of the subject instead of deriving from it? If power acts as
the self’s driving force, it would be impossible for the self to be truly
independent of power. It could be that Foucault imagined us being inde-
pendent of that specific form of power that prohibits and subjugates
while leaving intact the “affirmative power” that infuses the “practices
of liberty.” The question is whether we can clearly separate the two. The
power that subjects us is the very power that “subjectivizes” us. This was,
after all, Foucault’s very point of departure and also that which traps
him in power in the end.
The possibility of self-creation

We are consequently left with a dimension of subjectivity derived from
power and knowledge that cannot relinquish its dependence upon
them.61 The upside of remaining tied to power and knowledge is that
the self retains the resources needed for “self-creation,” although the
latter can no longer be considered an autonomous process. Unless power
amounts to domination, it furnishes the self with the ability and the
freedom it needs for resistance. But if every act of resistance unleashes
new power relations, no alternative subject identity can signal a final
liberation. It amounts to “an ethic for which freedom lies ... in a constant
attempt at self-disengagement and self-invention.”62
Besides freedom, resistance also implies that one knows what to resist.
Foucault, the septic, would say we have to resist everything, that every-
thing is dangerous. At other times, he seems to distinguish the empow-
ering forms of power from those forms that disempower us. He even
believes that we can tell them apart, despite our immersion in power.
After the events of May 1968, for example, Foucault believed that the
masses no longer needed the intellectual to gain insight, that “they know
perfectly well, without illusion ... and are certainly capable of expressing
themselves.” However, he continues, “there exists a system of power
which blocks, ... and invalidates ... this knowledge, a power not only
found in the manifest authority of censorship, but one that profoundly
and subtly penetrates an entire societal network.”63 So, even if we can tell
the good power from the bad power, this insight is ultimately undercut
by power itself.
Foucault’s point is that the “bad” form of power is insidious, invisible
and extremely dangerous. It is dangerous because it is totalizing, and
because it is totalizing, reform is useless. Reform is imposed from the
outside in an effort to rectify a situation already entirely enmeshed in
totalizing power.64 Revolutionary action, on the other hand, is initiated
by those concerned. It occurs when individuals engage “in a struggle that
concerns their own interests, whose objectives they clearly understand
and whose methods only they can undermine.” When we denounce a
particular source of power, we also question the totality of power and the
hierarchy that maintains it. It is always a “specific struggle against the
particularized power” exerted over individuals.65 But the system cannot
be defeated through isolated actions. It is a long struggle; it is repetitive
and seemingly incoherent. “But the system it opposes, as well as the
power exercised through the system, supplies its unity.”66 And as for
what replaces the system, Foucault is quite clear: “to imagine another
system is to extend our participation in the present system.”67
The possibility of politically engaged practices of the self

We are thus left with the individual, and with what appears to be his
or her singular and repeated acts of resistance with no prospect of ever
seeing the promised land. But if we just fight against something instead
of fighting for something, does that not make Foucault’s ethics politi-
cally inconsequential?
Foucault would never sacrifice the process for the purpose. Politics, in
its teleological guise, leaves a series of victims in its wake: (1) the present
is devaluated and ultimately sacrificed in the name of a better future: by
being subordinated to some ideal moment in the future, it no longer exists
as an autonomous entity; (2) Individual human actions face a similar fate:
they are condoned only in as far as they contribute towards realizing the
political telos. The present political struggles that Foucault advocates, on
the other hand, turn on the question, “What are we today?”68 “They are
a refusal of these abstractions, of economic and ideological state violence
that ignores who we are individually, and also a refusal of a scientific or
administrative inquisition which determines who one is.” If one side of
this resistance is to “refuse what we are,” the other side is to invent, not
discover, who we are by promoting “new forms of subjectivity.”69 He uses
genealogy as diagnostic tool, a tool self-consciously situated in the present
amidst the very web of power it analyzes. It therefore cannot provide an
outside point of view and is not interested in sacrificing the present to
some future ideal.70 No promise of a better future can do away with the
necessity for resistance in the present. Besides, Foucault considers his ethics
as “anti-strategic,” as irreducible to the question of political success.71 It is
well known, for example, that Foucault supported the Iranian Revolution
of 1978–1979. Even though the revolution resulted in renewed political
repression, Foucault refused to dismiss the moral achievement of those
responsible for the revolution.72
So yes, in the end, Foucault did get trapped in power, but he refused
to become an instrument of power73 by offering normative criteria for
distinguishing acceptable from unacceptable forms of power.74 He got
trapped because he, like all of us, has always been trapped. The point is
this is not a bad thing. The pervasiveness of power might dispel the myth
of autonomous self-creation but it does facilitate heteronomous prac-
tices of freedom – a difficult freedom which is not freedom from power,
but freedom through power, despite power and because of power.
The crux: substituting ethics for politics?
What can then be said about the relation between ethics and politics?
It would seem that despite numerous qualifications the later Foucault’s
turn to ethics nevertheless amounts to a substitution of ethics for poli-
tics75 – it would appear to leave no room for the possibility of political
subjectivity. This is meant in two senses: the possibility for a subject to
effectively act politically, but also, and more importantly, the possibility
of a notion of subjectivity which thinks the subject politically: that is,
where politics is not “added on” to the subject as an adjunct.
Many critics consider Foucault’s aestheticized ethics as individual-
istic. According to Hiley, for example, self-creation is a feat of individual
heroism that Foucault fails to reconcile with a notion of community
or polity.76 And to add insult to injury, Best and Kellner claim that he
construes the individual as a peculiarly inefficacious entity, reducing
subjectivity from a multi-dimensional form of agency and practice “…
to a decentred desiring existence.”77 Moreover, his extremely pessi-
mistic realism allows Foucault to excuse himself from the obligation to
work macro-politically.78 His turn to ethics then substitutes what can
only be an individualized task of ethics for the political task of collec-
tive social transformation – which he apparently sees little scope for.
But what prevents the individual as ethical subject from engaging in
collective practices of mobilization for reasons other than self-realiza-
tion? According to White, Foucault does not promote arts of the self
that fashion “juridical” subjects who would be capable of cooperating
politically in a polity or social movement.79 These would be juridical
subjects because they would accept the validity of consensually and
rationally chosen rules and norms.80 Foucault’s insistence on individual
acts of resistance would appear to be nothing more than an empty claim
that ethics still somehow has political implications whilst having in fact
effectively given up on politics. For Foucault explicitly defines liberation
as an ethical task – a task for the individual rather than the collective.
And if it is an expressly ethical task, its supposed political consequences
are thrown in doubt. Whatever political purport or potential individual
action might have, would have to be “added on” as an afterthought
instead of being an intrinsic feature.
To be sure, the subject of Foucault’s ethics is the individual, but this
individual is no longer exclusively the subject (in the sense of subordina-
tion) of subjectification [assujetissement], or what Judith Butler calls “the
body,” which emerged in Discipline and Punish “as a way of taking over
the theory of agency previously ascribed to the subject ... understood in
terms of appropriation and possession.”81 The individual now appears

as a node in a network of power/knowledge. Being constituted in and
through power, this “individual” is something other or something more
than a distinct singularity. Not that Foucault is herewith personifying
power and depersonifying or dehumanizing persons by making them
into effects of power. The individual is still vulnerable to subordinating
forces but also invested with the possibility of resistance through subjec-
tivization [subjectivation].82 For, as we have seen, the subject’s entrapment
in power renders it far from inefficacious and the all-pervasiveness of
power does not give cause for fatalism. “Individual” action, understood
as an acting or reacting relation of force, cannot simply remain localized
(or be conceived as individualistic) for it has the potential to cause a chain
reaction or ripple effect through the social fabric.83 Foucault’s insistence
that power is never subjective – that is, that it cannot be reduced to an
individual subject’s decision or action – can also be understood in this
light. Moreover, since it is neither localized nor isolated, the individual
ethical subject’s “practices of liberty” would then also have the poten-
tial of effecting larger-scale political changes from the bottom up, and
liberation would not only be an ethical but also a political task.84 In
fact, if we are to accept Foucault’s claim that power is all-pervasive, the
individual’s practices of liberty become a necessary condition for polit-
ical action. In the later Foucault then, politics only becomes possible if
ethics succeeds.
This reading is furthermore supported by Foucault’s preface to the
English edition of Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia. Therein Foucault describes what he calls an “Introduction
to the Non-Fascist Life,” or an ethics based on inherently “de-in-
dividualizing” principles: “The individual is the product of power.
What is needed is to ‘de-individualize’ by means of multiplication
and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the
organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator
of de-individualization.”85 The centrality of the ethical perspective in
Foucault’s later work therefore does not signal an abdication of political
engagement, but precisely a call for political struggle understood, first
and foremost, as a “politics of ourselves.”86
Notes
1. Although he does not agree, this question was posed by Deleuze. See G.
Deleuze (1988), Foucault, trans. Sean Hand (London: Athlone Press, 1988),
p. 94.
2. D. R. Hiley (1984), “Foucault and the Analysis of Power: Political

Engagement without Liberal Hope or Comfort,” Praxis International 4 (2),
pp. 192–207.
3. M. Foucault (1986) “The Subject and Power,” in H. L. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow
(eds), Michel Foucault. Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (London: The
Harvester Press), pp. 208–226.
4. M. Foucault (1984) “The Ethic of Care for the Self as a Practice of Freedom. An
Interview with Michel Foucault on January, 20, 1984,” trans, J. D. Gauthier
in J. W. Bernauer and D. M. Rasmussen (eds) (1988) The Final Foucault
(Cambridge, MA : MIT Press), pp. 1–20.
5. Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” p. 213.
6. The self obviously cannot “refuse” itself completely without negating itself.
What the self has to refuse – in the name of freedom – are those aspects of
its identity which are coupled to established codes of identity (and moral
codes), imposed from the outside and which diminish the subject’s freedom.
In other words, the limits that define us as agents and which supposedly
safeguard our freedom (Kant), also constrain us and limit our capacity for
possible action. We shall return to this later. In this regard, also see W. E.
Connolly (1998), “Beyond Good and Evil. The Ethical Sensibility of Michel
Foucault,” in J. Moss (ed.), The Later Foucault (London: Sage Publications),
pp. 108–128.
8. M. Foucault (1984) “What is Enlightenment?” in P. Rabinow (ed.), The
Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books), pp. 32–50.
9. These brief introductory remarks should not cause the reader to misunder-
stand Foucault. He is not proposing that the subject can ever entirely be
“outside” of power, but rather that this fact “does not entail the necessity
of accepting an inescapable form of domination” (my emphasis). This will
become clear in the course of this paper. See M. Foucault (1980), “Power
and Strategies,” in C. Gordon (ed.), Michel Foucault. Power/Knowledge.
Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, trans. Colin Gordon, Leo
Marshall, John Mepham & Kate Soper (Great Britain: The Harvester Press),
p. 141.
10. Foucault cites Greenblatt as one of the few studies of aesthetics of exist-
ence done since Burckhardt. See M. Foucault (1992), The History of Sexuality.
Volume II: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (London: Penguin), p. 11;
S. Greenblatt (1980), Renaissance Self-fashioning: From More to Shakespeare
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press); J. Burckhardt (1935), The Civilization
of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S. G. C. Middlemore (USA: Albert and Charles
Boni).
11. Foucault, “The Ethic of Care for the Self,” p. 4.
12. Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume II, p. 9.
13. What is relevant to Foucaultian aesthetics of the self is then not any partic-
ular beautiful subject but the process of subjectivization as an art.
14. Cf. R. Visker (1995), Michel Foucault. Genealogy as Critique, trans. Chris Turner
(London: Verso), p. 88.
15. Subjectification or assujetissement means both subjection (in the sense of
subordination) and becoming a subject.
16. Cf. M. Foucault (1984), “Preface (original version) to The History of Sexuality,
Volume II,” trans. William Smock in P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader
(New York: Pantheon Books), pp. 333–339.
18. Cf. M. Foucault (1984), “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work
in Progress,” in P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon
Books), pp. 340–372; Deleuze, Foucault, p. 100; J. Simons (1995), Foucault and
the Political (London: Routledge), p. 72.
20. Ibid., p. 222.
21. Ibid., p. 217.
22. Ibid., pp. 222–223, my emphasis.
23. M. Foucault (1990) The History of Sexuality. Volume I: Introduction, trans. Robert
Hurley (London: Penguin), p. 92.
24. Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume I, p. 92, my emphasis.
25. Ibid., p. 94.
26. Ibid., pp. 92–93.
27. Ibid., pp. 93–94.
28. Ibid., p. 95.
30. Ibid.
31. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume I, p. 95.
32. Ibid., p. 98, my emphasis.
33. Ibid., pp. 98–101.
36. M. Foucault (1984), “Politics and Ethics: An Interview,” trans. C. Porter in P.
Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books), pp. 373–380.
Cf. p. 343: “My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is
dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad.”
37. M. Foucault (1988), “Politics and Reason,” in L. Kritzman (ed.), Politics,
Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings 1977–1984, trans. A. Sheridan
(New York: Routledge), pp. 57–85.
38. Foucault, “The Ethic of Care for the Self,” pp. 3–4.
39. Foucault maintains that although power is “‘always already there’, that one
is never ‘outside’ it ... does not entail the necessity of accepting an inescap-
able form of domination.” In other words, it “does not mean that one is
trapped and condemned to defeat no matter what” (Foucault, “Power and
Strategies,” pp. 141–142).
40. Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” p. 223. Also see p. 225: “For, if it is true
that at the heart of power relations and as a permanent condition of their
existence there is an insubordination and a certain essential obstinacy on
the part of the principles of freedom, then there is no relationship of power
without the means of escape or possible flight. Every power relationship
implies, at least in potentia, a strategy of struggle, in which the two forces are
not superimposed, do not lose their specific nature, or do not finally become
confused. Each constitutes for the other a kind of permanent limit, a point
of possible reversal.”
41. Foucault, “Politics and Ethics,” p. 375.

42. E. Balibar (2002), Politics and the Other Scene, trans. Christine Jones, James
Swenson and Chris Turner (London: Verso), p. 15.
43. Cf. T. Eagleton (1990), The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).
According to Eagleton, Foucault is exemplary of what he calls “libertarian
pessimism.” The oxymoron, Eagleton maintains, is instructive: Foucault’s
position is libertarian therein that it advocates an aesthetics of existence,
that is, “an existence blessedly free from the shackles of truth, meaning and
sociality.” At the same time, however, it is pessimistic, “because whatever
blocks such creativity – law, meaning, power, closure – is acknowledged to
be built into it, in a sceptical recognition of the imbrication of authority
and desire” (p. 387). Also see C. Taylor (1986), “Foucault on Freedom and
Truth,” in D. E. Hoy (ed.), Foucault. A Critical Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell),
pp. 69–102. Charles Taylor points out that although Foucault wishes to
discredit the very notion of a liberation from power, his own concept of
power does not in fact make sense without the idea of such liberation.
45. Balibar, Politics and the Other Scene, p. 19. “Regress” is here used in the philo-
sophical sense of the term, referring to a series of actions (practices or tech-
nologies of the self) in which resistance is continually reapplied to its own
result without approaching a useful conclusion.
46. M. Foucault (1990) The History of Sexuality. Volume III: The Care of the Self,
trans. Robert Hurley (London: Penguin), p. 64.
47. Foucault, “Power and Strategies,” p. 141.
48. Foucault, “The Ethic of Care for the Self,” p. 11, my emphasis.
49. Cf. J. Bennett (1996), “How Is It, then, that We Still Remain Barbarians?
Foucault, Schiller, and the Aestheticization of Ethics,” Political Theory 24 (4),
pp. 653–672. Jane Bennett refers to what she has dubbed Foucault’s “Ethic of
Heteronomy:” “Moral action is heteronomous both with regard to the web of
social, legal, institutional, and other cultural constraints or regimes of power
and with regard to the recalcitrant materials within the ‘individual’ body, for
example, desires, fears, the process of aging” (p. 665).
51. Ibid., pp. 3–4.
52. Deleuze, Foucault, p. 100.
53. S. Lotringer (ed.) (1996), Foucault Live. Interviews 1961–1984, trans. Lysa
Hochroth and John Johnston (New York: Semiotext(e)), p. 451.
55. Cf. M. Foucault (1992), Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, trans.
Alan Sheridan (London: Penguin). In this work, Foucault joins power and
knowledge as “power-knowledge” (p. 27). This juxtaposition opposes the
traditional notion that knowledge can exist only where the effects of power
are suspended. According to Foucault, power and knowledge are in fact
co-constituting – they directly imply one another. In other words, knowledge
cannot exist except through relations of power, and power makes possible
and produces “regimes of truth.” Cf. Hiley, “Foucault and the Analysis of
Power,” p. 200. This would imply that if the subject remains dependent upon
knowledge, it is also per definition tied to power.
56. Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume II, p. 77.

57. Cf. M. Foucault (1977), “Intellectuals and Power. A Conversation between
Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze,” in D. F. Bouchard (ed.), Michel Foucault.
Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Selected Essays and Interviews, trans.
D. F. Bouchard & S. Simon (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press),
pp. 203–217. In this conversation with Foucault, Deleuze seems to be aware
of the diffuse character of power: “it is clear who exploits, who profits, and
who governs, but power nevertheless seems to be something more diffuse”
(p. 214).
58. Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” pp. 217, 219.
59. Ibid., pp. 220–221.
60. Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume I, p. 95.
61. Contrary to Deleuze’s insistence. Cf. Deleuze, Foucault, p. 101.
62. J. Rajchman (1985), Michel Foucault. The Freedom of Philosophy (New York:
Columbia University Press), p. 38.
63. Foucault, “Intellectuals and Power,” p. 207.
64. Ibid., p. 208.
65. Ibid., pp. 214, 216.
66. M. Foucault (1977), “Revolutionary Action: ‘Until Now,’” in D. F. Bouchard
(ed.), Michel Foucault. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Selected Essays
& Interviews, trans. D. F. Bouchard & S. Simon (Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press), pp. 218–233.
67. Foucault, “Revolutionary Action,” p. 230.
68. Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” pp. 212, 216; Foucault, “What is
Enlightenment?” p. 34; Lotringer, Foucault Live, p. 407; M. Foucault (1986),
“Kant on Enlightenment and Revolution,” trans. Colin Gordon, Economy and
Society 15 (1), pp. 88–96.
69. Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” pp. 212, 216.
70. Hiley, “Foucault and the Analysis of Power,” p. 196.
71. M. Foucault (1981), “Is it Useless to Revolt?” trans. James Bernauer, Philosophy
and Social Criticism 8, pp. 5–9.
72. G. Gutting (ed.) (1996), The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), p. 144.
73. Foucault, “Intellectuals and Power,” p. 208.
74. Cf. N. Fraser (1981), “Foucault on Modern Power: Empirical Insights and
Normative Confusions,” Praxis International 1 (3), pp. 272–287. Fraser (p. 286)
precisely argues that Foucault cannot provide a politically engaged critique
of modern forms of power when his analysis has as one of its consequences
a suspension of a normative framework for criticizing exercises of power.
75. After all, in an interview Foucault admits that “what interests me is much
more morals than politics.” However, he immediately qualifies this state-
ment, by adding, “…or, in any case, politics as an ethics” (Foucault, “Politics
and Ethics,” p. 375). Ethics in Foucault refers to “the kind of relationship
you ought to have with yourself, rapport à soi… which determines how the
individual is supposed to constitute himself as a moral subject of his own
actions” (Foucault, “On the Genealogy of Ethics,” p. 352). Morals, on the
other hand, entail a set of values and rules of conduct (Foucault, The History
of Sexuality Volume II, p. 25).
76. D. R. Hiley (1985), “Foucault and the Question of Enlightenment,” Philosophy

and Social Criticism 11, pp. 63–84. Also see Hiley, “Foucault and the Analysis
of Power,” p. 206, where he reiterates that Foucault’s constant concern for
the self induces a withdrawal from politics.
77. S. Best & D. Kellner (1991), Postmodern Theory. Critical Interrogations
(Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 290.
78. Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic, p. 387. According to Eagleton, Foucault’s
work consequently “represents a kind of negative or inverted ultra-leftism, in
which a resolute revolutionary negation is at once clung to and disowned.
The dream of liberty must be cherished, but this impulse has fallen, histori-
cally speaking, on hard times, and caustically refuses the possibility of its
own realization.”
79. S. White (1986), “Foucault’s Challenge to Critical Theory,” American Political
Science Review 80 (2), pp. 419–432.
80. To be sure, Foucault is wary of consensus politics, but he never claims that
a society can or should function without certain rules and norms (Foucault,
“Politics and Ethics,” pp. 377–379). What he questions is “whether the
system of constraints in which a society functions leaves individuals the
liberty to transform the system ... a system of constraint becomes truly intol-
erable when the individuals who are effected by it don’t have the means of
modifying it.” M. Foucault (1988), “Sexual Act, Sexual Choice: Foucault and
Homosexuality,” in L. D. Kritzman (ed.), Michel Foucault. Politics, Philosophy,
Culture: Interviews and Other Writings 1977–1984, trans. A. Sheridan et al.
(London: Routledge), pp. 294–295.
81. J. Butler (2002), “Bodies and Power, Revisited,” Radical Philosophy 114,
pp. 13–19.
82. As Butler points out, the “effect” in Foucault “is not the simple and unilat-
eral consequence of a prior cause. ‘Effects’ do not stop being affected: they
are incessant activities, in the Spinozistic sense. They do not, in this sense,
presuppose power as a ‘cause’; on the contrary, they recast power as an
activity of effectuation with no origin and no end” (Butler, “Bodies and
Power, Revisited’, p. 19).
83. To be sure, force relations can either mutually support each other like links in
a chain, or be isolated from one another due to disjunctions and contradic-
tions (Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume I, p. 92).
84. It might be argued that, apart from a few exceptional individuals such as
Nelson Mandela, for example, there is little evidence of individual action
effecting societal change. This might be due to the fact that few individuals
make use of their power to resist. Most people are still tied to the identities
around which ethnic, national and racial conflicts are fought. They know-
ingly or unknowingly choose to abide by imposed and internalized identities
and relinquish the power of subjectivization. It is, after all, the easier route to
take.
85. M. Foucault (1977) “Preface,” in G. Deleuze and F. Guattari (eds), Anti-
Oedipus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press), pp. xi–xiv.
86. The expression “politics of ourselves” comes from a lecture “Christianity and
confession” that Foucault delivered at Dartmouth College in November 1980
(M. Foucault (1997) “Christianity and Confession,” in S. Lotringer and L.

Hochroth (eds), Michel Foucault. The Politics of Truth (New York: Semiotext(e)),
pp. 199–236.
Author’s Note: I am grateful to Stella Sandford and Matthias Pauwels for their
contributions to this essay. Originally published in Journal of Moral Philosophy 3
(2), pp. 215–230. Reprinted here with permission of the publisher.

8
Jacques Derrida on the Ethics of
Hospitality
Gerasimos Kakoliris
Introduction
“You’re probably surprised to find us so inhospitable,” said the

man, “but hospitality isn’t a custom here, and we don’t need any
visitors.”1
If this quotation from Kafka’s Castle seems strange to us, it is because

we cannot believe that there is a culture, a society or “a form of social
connection without a principle of hospitality.”2 But what is left of this
principle of hospitality today, or ethics in general, when fences are
erected at the borders, or even “hospitality” itself is considered a crime?
In “Derelictions of the Right to Justice (But what are the ‘sans-papier’
Lacking?),” concerning the clumsy and violent imposition of the Debret
laws on immigrants and those without rights of residence, the so-called
“sans-papier,” which provoked mass demonstrations of protest in Paris,3
Derrida writes,
I remember a bad day last year: It just about took my breath away,
it sickened me when I heard the expression for the first time, barely
understanding it, the expression crime of hospitality [delit d’hospitalité].
In fact, I am not sure that I heard it, because I wonder how anyone
could ever have pronounced it [ ... ] no, I did not hear it, and I can
barely repeat it; I read it voicelessly in an official text. It concerned a
law permitting the prosecution, and even the imprisonment, of those
who take in and help foreigners whose status is held to be illegal.
This “crime of hospitality” (I still wonder who dared to put these
words together) is punishable by imprisonment. What becomes of a
country, one must wonder, what becomes of a culture, what becomes
144
Jacques Derrida on the Ethics of Hospitality 145
of a language when it admits of a “crime of hospitality,” when hospi-

tality can become, in the eyes of the law and its representatives, a
criminal offense?4
This perplexity provoked Derrida’s thoughts on the Ethics of Hospitality.

For Derrida, the logic of the concept of hospitality is governed by an
absolute antinomy or aporia. On the one hand, there is the law of unlim-
ited hospitality that ordains the unconditional reception of the stranger.
On the other hand, there are the conditional laws of hospitality, which
relate to the unconditional law through the imposition of terms and
conditions (political, juridical, moral) upon it. For Derrida, the respon-
sible action and decision consists of the need to continuously negotiate
between these two heterogeneous requirements. In this chapter, I iden-
tify a problem with Derrida’s position, which is that it resorts to the
use of terms such as “pure,” “real,” “genuine” or “absolute,” in order to
describe unconditional hospitality and to differentiate it from condi-
tional hospitality. Yet, such terms have been placed into question by
deconstruction itself. Moreover, the disjunctive distinction that Derrida
installs, at an initial level, between “unconditional” and “conditional”
hospitality contradicts the work which he had undertaken during the
1960s and the 1970s of deconstructing basic conceptual hierarchical
binary oppositions that govern Western metaphysical thought. Against
the rather problematic guiding concept of “unconditional” hospitality, I
then propose a continuous, incessant effort of limiting violence towards
the arriving stranger. My argument draws from the particularly insightful
remarks of Derrida regarding the violence that inescapably resides in
every act of hospitality as a result of the host’s exercise of sovereignty
over his/her home.
Derrida on unconditional and conditional hospitality
During the 1990s, and until his death in October 2004, the French
philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) wrote extensively on the
ethics of hospitality.5 Derrida often identifies a concept from the Western
heritage and employs it to address critically a specific and concrete
context. In this case, it is the rising hostility of European governments
towards immigrants. In an analysis that is at once historical, conceptual,
and thematic, Derrida attempts to bring out the logic that governs the
concept of hospitality. The logic that Derrida identifies as conditioning
the concept of hospitality within Western tradition takes the form of a
tension, a contradiction, an antinomy or a double imperative. On the one
146 Gerasimos Kakoliris
hand, there is the law of unlimited hospitality that ordains the uncondi-
tional reception of the other, whoever he or she is: that is, the provision
of hospitality to a stranger without conditions, restrictions and returns.
The law of absolute, pure, unconditional, hyperbolic hospitality, asks
us to say “yes” to the newcomer [arrivant], before any determination,
before any prevention, before any identification – irrespective of being a
stranger, an immigrant, a guest or an unexpected visitor. On the other
hand, there are the conditional laws (in the plural) of hospitality, which,
while they establish a right to and a duty in hospitality, they simulta-
neously place terms and conditions on hospitality (political, juridical,
moral), ordaining that this right should be given always under certain
conditions: as, for example, that they should exist certain restrictions in
the right of entry and stay of the foreigner. Moreover, the reciprocity of
the commitment that conditions this notion of hospitality entails that
the foreigner does not only have a right: he or she also has, reciprocally,
obligations, as it is often recalled, when someone wishes to reproach
him or her for bad behavior. The right to hospitality subsumes the recep-
tion, the welcome that is given to the foreigner under a strict and restric-
tive jurisdiction. From the point of view of a right to hospitality, the
guest, even when he or she is well received, is mainly a foreigner; he
or she should remain a foreigner. Certainly, hospitality is a debt to the
guest, but it remains conditioned and conditional. If, for example, he or
she does not possess a right to hospitality or a right to asylum, each new
arrival is not accepted as a guest. Without this right, he or she can enter
one’s “home,” the “house” of the host, only as a “parasitize” – as illegal,
clandestine, subject to arrest or deportation.
In the context of unconditional hospitality, Derrida makes special
reference to Immanuel Kant, who, in the third article entitled “The
Law of World Citizenship Shall Be limited to Conditions of Universal
Hospitality” of his essay Towards Perpetual Peace, defines “universal
hospitality” as
the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives

in the land of another. One may refuse to receive him when this can
be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he peacefully
occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility.6
In addition, Kant limits the right to hospitality to a “right of visit,” in

virtue of an initial common possession of the surface of earth, and not
to a “right of residence” (a right of residence would presuppose a special
convention between nation-states, demanding that the foreigner is a
citizen of another nation-state). To Kant’s “conditional” hospitality,

Derrida will oppose “unconditional” or “pure” hospitality, which is
without conditions and which does not seek to identify the newcomer,
even if he is not a citizen.
For Derrida, absolute or unconditional hospitality presupposes a
rupture with hospitality under the current sense, with conditional
hospitality, with the right to or pact of hospitality. As he explains in Of
Hospitality:
... absolute hospitality requires that I open up my home and that I

give not only to the foreigner (provided with a family name, with the
social status of being a foreigner, etc.), but to the absolute, unknown,
anonymous other, and that I give place to them, that I let them come,
that I let them arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without
asking of them either reciprocity (entering into a pact) or even their
names.7
Derrida reminds us that, even though hospitality begins with the ques-
tion that someone addresses to the person that comes (something that
appears very human and occasionally expresses love: “tell me your name,
what should I call you, I who am calling on you, I who want to call you
by your name?”),8 nevertheless, the foreigner, according to the laws of
conditional hospitality, is somebody to whom, in order to receive him or
her, someone begins by placing the question about his or her name: he
or she ordains him or her to declare his or her identity and to give guar-
antees about it. To ask, however – to learn who the other is, to ask for the
other to be identified before I accept or reject my obligation to welcome
him or her – means to render my moral obligation conditional on me
and my knowledge of the other. Hospitality, nevertheless, in order to
be “real,” “true” hospitality, should not discriminate. It should be open
to indiscriminate otherness even if it risks always opening the door to
its own undoing. In this sense, “pure” hospitality is a risk, because we
cannot determine who will be our guest or how he or she will behave
as a guest. Consequently, hospitality, for Derrida, obeys the following
paradox with regard to whether we should or should not ask questions,
to call someone by his or her name or not: Hospitality presupposes the
call or the mnemonic recall of the proper name in its pure possibility
(“it’s to you, yourself, that I say ‘come,’ ‘enter’”), and at the same time
the obliteration of the proper name itself (“‘come,’ ‘enter,’ ‘whoever you
are and whatever your name, your language, your sex, your species may
be, be you human, animal, or divine ... ’”).9
Even though these two regimes of hospitality – the unconditional law

of hospitality, in its universal singularity, and the conditional (plural)
laws of hospitality – are heterogeneous, irreducible, they do, however,
resemble each other. This is because, on the one hand the conditional
laws of hospitality would cease to be laws of hospitality if they were not
guided by the law of unconditional hospitality: if they were not inspired
by it, if they did not aspire to it, if, indeed, they did not demand it.
Political and moral action needs to be related to a moment of uncon-
ditional or infinite responsibility in order not to be reduced to the
demands of the moment: that is, it should be based on a moment of
universality that exceeds the pragmatic demands of a certain context.
Therefore, the laws of hospitality need the law of absolute hospitality in
order to place them and to keep them in an incessant progressive move-
ment, to improve them.
On the other hand, without the conditional laws of a right and a duty
to hospitality, the law of unconditional hospitality would be in danger
of remaining abstract, ineffective, wishful thinking, utopian. In order to
be what it is – namely, an ought to be – the law should become existent,
effective, concrete, determined. Consequently, it needs the laws, which,
nevertheless – through the determination of limits, powers, rights and
duties – threaten, corrupt or “pervert” it.
For Derrida, the “pervertibility” of the law of hospitality arises from
the complicity between traditional hospitality, hospitality in the current
sense, and power. There is no hospitality, in the classical sense of the
term, without the sovereignty of the person who offers hospitality in
his or her house. Therefore, there is an essential “self-restraint” incor-
porated in the idea of hospitality that maintains the distance between
what belongs to the host and the foreigner, between the power of the
host to remain master of his or her house and the invitation of the other
into it. As John Caputo observes in Deconstruction in a Nutshell:
When the host says to the guest, “Make yourself at home,” this is a
self-limiting invitation. “Make yourself at home” means: please feel
at home, act as if you were at home, but, remember, that is not true,
this is not your home but mine, and you are expected to respect my
property.10
Since there is no hospitality without time restrictions (it is not possible

to come to your place as a visitor and stay there forever), or without
numerical restrictions (if you invite me to your place, I cannot bring all
my relatives and friends), the host exercises his or her sovereignty by
selecting, filtering, choosing his or her guests or visitors – by deciding

who to offer the right of hospitality to, and also by fixing the period
over which they can stay.
Thus, there is always a certain hostility in every act of hospitality: that
is, hospitality always brings within itself its opposite, a certain “hostipi-
tality.” This is also reflected in its etymology: The word “hospitality” stems
from the Latin hospes, which is formed from the word hostis, initially
meaning a “stranger,” and afterwards received the meaning of enemy
or “hostile” stranger (hostilis), plus the word pets (potis, potes, potentia) –
to have power.11 Therefore, exclusion, unfairness, a certain violence, or
even “perjury” towards the absolute law of hospitality, begins immedi-
ately, from the threshold of the right to hospitality. Nevertheless, Derrida
recognizes that, without the possession of a home (which, indeed, limits
hospitality) there is in reality no door to hospitality – no right and no
subsequent debt. The exercise of possession over one’s “home” is not
ultimately negative since it yields the possibility of hospitality – though
not in an absolute, unconditional form. What is required, according
to Derrida, is a continuous “negotiation” or “compromise,” which one
has always to invent, between the wish to have and retain a house or a
country, and the renunciation of one’s mastery over it. Derrida writes in
Echographies of Television (1996):
When we say negotiation, we say compromise, transaction [ ... ]

Transaction is necessary in the name of the intractable, in the name
of the unconditional, in the name of something that admits of no
transaction, and that’s the difficulty. The difficulty as “political”
difficulty.12
For Derrida, this asymmetry between conditional and unconditional

hospitality maintains an endless demand, since each event of welcoming
the other can only fall short of the requirements of the unconditional
law of unlimited hospitality. Whatever decision we make in relation to
the arrival of a stranger, the infinite obligation to welcome the other,
whoever he or she is, will always exist, and will exceed the apparently
justified restrictions and conditions that we place on the other in his
or her arrival and stay. Responsible action and decision consists in the
necessity of an incessant negotiation between the law of unconditional
hospitality – which disregards right, duty or even politics – and ordains
a welcome to the newcomer beyond any terms and conditions. The laws
of hospitality – through the determination of limits, powers, rights and
duties – defy and violate the law of unconditional hospitality.
The decision of hospitality, according to Derrida, asks me each time

to invent my own rule. If I want to appear hospitable to a guest or an
unexpected visitor, my behavior – and this is a condition of any moral
responsibility – should not be dictated, programed or arranged by
nothing, which would be used as a rule that is applied mechanically.
Otherwise, I can appear hospitable even when I have not chosen to be.
According to Derrida’s anti-normative ethics, only when somebody
starts from nothing – that is, from no previous rule or norm – does the
“inventive” or “poetic” event of hospitality have some possibility of
occuring. In order for a real event of hospitality to take place, it is neces-
sary to make the “impossible” possible. In “As If it were Possible, Within
Such Limits,” Derrida writes,
When the impossible makes itself possible, the event takes place
(possibility of the impossible). That, indisputably, is the paradoxical
form of the event: if an event is only possible, in the classic sense of
this word, if it fits in with conditions of possibility, if it only makes
explicit, unveils, reveals, or accomplishes that which was already
possible, then it is no longer an event. For an event to take place, for
it to be possible, it has to be, as event, as invention, the coming of
the impossible.13
Critiquing Derrida’s position
In what follows, I examine some problems, which, I believe, arise from

Derrida’s treatment of the moral principle of hospitality. The first of
my two main objections concerns the distinction that Derrida makes
between unconditional and conditional hospitality. Even though he
says these two concepts are “inseparable,” he does not refrain – before
declaring their inseparability – from separating them into two distinct
possibilities. Either hospitality is unconditional or conditional; the
one excludes the other. Hence, the philosopher who has identified
himself with the disclosure and deconstruction of the hierarchical
binary oppositional logic of Western metaphysics seems to have set
up a binary opposition of his own. Derrida’s first possibility is identi-
fied with “purity” (“pure hospitality”), “truth” (“true hospitality”) and
the “absolute” (“absolute hospitality”), while the opposite, uncondi-
tional hospitality, is identified with all those elements which threaten
or contaminate the “purity” of the first. And if it should happen that
unconditional hospitality does intermix, even by necessity as Derrida
claims, with “conditions,” in the form of conditional hospitality, then
this should confirm (since, after all, we are speaking of “mixing”), the
essential purity of its identity.
It is quite paradoxical – and this is my second objection to Derrida’s
views on hospitality – to find him talking of “pure” hospitality, “real
hospitality,” “true” hospitality,” when he is the philosopher par excel-
lence who has put the concepts of “purity” and “truth” under question.
For Derrida, concepts such as, essence, truth, purity, are linked and
grounded in the conception of an immediate presence (What he calls
“metaphysics of presence”). Through the deconstructive readings that
he undertook during the 1960s and 1970s, he tried to show that absence
and difference are not mere deviations from presence and identity but
conditions of possibility for them (as well as conditions of non-possibility
of an absolute presence or identity). This is crystallized in his thought of
différαnce which means simultaneously difference and deferral.
In “Signature Event Context,” Derrida attacks the idea of “purity,”
claiming that there is a “general iterability which constitutes a viola-
tion of the allegedly rigorous purity of every event of discourse or every
speech act14.” Derrida’s claim is that there can be no identity without
repetition. And yet, this very repetition puts in question the identity
which it promotes – for there can be no repetition without difference.
From what has already been said, Derrida should have concluded the
impossibility of the existence of a “pure” concept of hospitality: that the
concept of hospitality, as with the concept of presence, is affected straight
away by an essential disruption, impurity, corruption, contamination or
prevention. In this sense, “impurity,” in the form of conditions, is not
a “supplement” which comes from outside to be added to an original,
uncontaminated, pure hospitality. As Derrida himself has shown in his
deconstruction of Rousseau, the supplement is in the origin, rendering
the idea of an origin absurd. “Impurity” is always-already inscribed in
any act of hospitality due to its condition of possibility and impos-
sibility (hospitality as impossible in a pure, absolute, unconditional
form). As a consequence, Derrida is right to conclude that every act of
hospitality is conditioned by its opposite – a certain hostility; but he is
wrong to claim that we can presuppose something as “pure,” “real” or
“true” hospitality.
Another problem (or “advantage” for some) with Derrida’s “hyper-
bolic” ethics of hospitality is that it retains us in a permanent situa-
tion of “bad conscience,” or “guilt.” The “absolute” or “hyperbolic” law
of hospitality precludes someone from ever being hospitable enough.
Therefore, one is always guilty and must always ask for forgiveness for
never welcoming the other enough. Further, this applies to the fact
that the hospitality offered can be rendered as a weapon – a confirma-

tion of sovereignty, or even omnipotence, or an appeal for recognition,
since “one always takes by giving.” One must ask, therefore, a priori,
forgiveness for the gift of hospitality, for the sovereignty or the desire
of sovereignty.15 Consequently, we see that such an ethics is not only
run through by Kantianism – which views the ethical as purity of the
will, and thus is unwilling to examine something as eudemonistic as the
act of hospitality – but it leaves us constantly with a feeling of guilt. As
Derrida declares:
... if you think that the only moral duty you owe is the duty to the
people – or the animals – with whom you have affinity, kinship,
friendship, neighborhood, brotherhood, then you can imagine the
consequences of that. I, of course, have preferences. I am one of the
common people who prefer their cat to their neighbor’s cat and my
family to others. But I do not have a good conscience about that. I
know that if I transform this into a general rule it would be the ruin
of ethics. If I put as a principle that I will feed first of all my cat,
my family, my nation, that would be the end of any ethical poli-
tics. So when I give a preference to my cat, which I do, that will not
prevent me from having some remorse for the cat dying or starving
next door, or, to change the example, for all the people on earth who
are starving and dying today. So you cannot prevent me from having
a bad conscience, and that is the main motivation of my ethics and
my politics.16
Yet, we don’t really know if the right response to an ethics of “good

conscience” – to an ethics that puts clear-cut limits to my responsibility
so as to allow me to sleep easier and live with a clear conscience – is to
substitute it with an ethics of infinite responsibility, which leaves me with
a “bad conscience.” (I would expect Derrida here to complicate things,
rather than just oppose “good conscience” with “bad conscience.”) It is
true that there are few a priori limits to one’s responsibility, but there are
some (for example, I cannot feed all the starving children of the world).
As David Wood remarks in “Responsibility Reinscribed (and How):”
I am not a divine being [ ... ], but a mortal [ ... ], aware of the fragility
of every sense I might have of “what my situation is” or “what my
responsibilities are.” But equally aware that to respond or act at all I
cannot cease to be finite, situated, to have my own needs and limita-
tions etc. [ ... ] our exposure to the other is not some huge, excessive
obligation, but rather a complex openness to requests, demands,

pleas, which call not just for an acknowledgement of my obligations,
but for scrutiny, for negotiation, for interpretation, and ultimately for
recognizing both opportunities and limitations.17
Hence, just because there are no a priori limits to my responsibility

does not necessarily mean that my responsibility is infinite, or that, as a
result, I should always feel “guilty” or “have a bad conscience.” Here also
I would dare to insist that one cannot have a pure sense of infinity (e.g.
infinite responsibility) uncontaminated by the marginal, and vice versa.
Moreover, it seems to me that, since such an ethics is “hyperbolic,” it
ends up saying that one never does anything ethical.
In addition, what Derrida seems to overlook is that, in a sense, the
more “absolute” or “hyperbolic” the ethics of hospitality is rendered,
the more “unethical” it becomes. By ordaining the unconditional
welcome of the stranger beyond the possibility of any discrimination,
pure or absolute hospitality can lead, not only to the destruction of
one’s home, but also to the suffering – or even death – of the host, since
the guest could, for example, be a murderer or invader. This is a prospect
that Derrida acknowledges but considers as unavoidable and surely not
worth making him suspicious of his ethics of unconditional hospitality.
He thus maintains, in “Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility”:
If, however, there is pure hospitality, or a pure gift, it should consist

in this opening without horizon, without horizon of expectation, an
opening to the newcomer whoever that may be. It may be terrible
because the newcomer may be a good person, or may be the devil;
but if you exclude the possibility that the newcomer is coming to
destroy your house – if you want to control this and exclude in
advance this possibility – there is no hospitality. In this case, you
control the borders, you have customs officers, and you have a door,
a gate, a key and so on. For unconditional hospitality to take place
you have to accept the risk of the other coming and destroying the
place, initiating a revolution, stealing everything, or killing everyone.
That is the risk of pure hospitality and pure gift, because a pure gift
might be terrible too. That is why exchange and controls and condi-
tions try to make a distinction between good and evil. Why did Kant
insist on conditional hospitality? Because he knew that without these
conditions hospitality could turn into wild war, terrible aggression.
Those are the risks involved in pure hospitality, if there is such a
thing and I am not sure that there is.18
Consequently, if “[f]or unconditional hospitality to take place you have

to accept the risk of the other coming and [ ... ] killing everyone,” then
one might ask if such a thing is really ethical. Here again, purity in ethics
can be disastrous – or “monstrous” (to use Derrida’s word). As Derrida
contends in The Gift of Death, “I cannot respond to the call, the demand,
the obligation, or even the love of another without sacrificing the other
other, the others others.”19 In this sense, speaking in Levinas’ terms,
the face-to-face ethical relationship will always be contaminated by the
“third” – by the other’s other.
Moreover, as Martin Häglund remarks, “ ... if I did not discriminate
between what I welcome and do not welcome, what I find acceptable
and unacceptable, it would mean that I had renounced all claims to be
responsible, make judgments, or pursue any critical reflection at all.”20
Of course, I agree with those who might claim that it is not always easy to
say in advance who will be a good and or a bad visitor. There would be no
need for human decision if it were clear what is to be done – what is good
and what is evil, who a saint and who a villain. In the First Book of The
Republic, Socrates opposes Polemarchus’ claim that “justice is to help your
friends and harm your enemies” (334b), by saying: “But don’t men often
make mistakes, and think a man honest (christous) when he is not, and vice
versa?” (334c). Moreover, there is always the possibility of the “bad” visitor
changing over time into a “good” one or vice versa. Hence, I would agree
with Häglund that there are no criteria “that would allow us to decide once
and for all whether the other is good or evil.”21 Therefore, the difficulty to
differentiate is something that we ought to take into consideration every
time a decision needs to be made. All decision-making, all action, must be
haunted by the shadow of a doubt: of a risk, of a feeling that we may be
unjust to the other. In this sense, isn’t xenophobia, among other things, a
frivolous, but also dangerous, attempt to take all the agony, all the risk, out
of a decision by always posing the foreigner as a threat?
Conclusion
Yet, if ethics is about responsibility, the ethics of unconditional hospi-

tality would preclude us from taking any decision – and thus any
responsibility for our decisions. Unconditional hospitality requires that
I cannot react in a negative or protectionist manner but must auto-
matically welcome everything. Consequently, an ethics of uncondi-
tional hospitality would short-circuit all decisions and be the same as a
complete indifference to whatever happens. Decision is something that
resides within the field of the conditional and not of the unconditional.
When Derrida talks in Echographies of Television, about the need of

“negotiation,” “compromise,” “transaction” between unconditional and
conditional hospitality – something that presupposes a decision – one
shouldn’t forget that all these belong to the domain of the conditional.
Because, as Derrida himself emphasizes, the unconditional “admits of
no transaction”22: that is, of no decisions.
Hence, do we actually need a quasi-transcendental concept of uncondi-
tional hospitality? Do we really need a rather problematic ideal to guide
us through the process of a decision? Does such a pronouncement presup-
pose the existence of an ideal of hospitality in the same way that, for Plato,
the existence of certain criteria for judging something beautiful presup-
posed an eternal, absolute, objective Idea of beauty? Yet, isn’t it enough
just to say that the fewer conditions we put on our hospitality the more
hospitable we are? Against the rather problematic guiding concept of
“unconditional” hospitality, I would prefer to concentrate on the particular
instructive analyzes of Derrida concerning the various kinds of violence
that necessarily condition every action of hospitality. This violence stems
from the host’s exercise of power and sovereignty over his or her house or
country. My counter-position would be, therefore, a continuous, incessant
effort of limiting violence towards the arriving foreigner.23
Notes
1. F. Kafka (2009), The Castle, trans. Anthea Bell, with an introduction and notes
by Ritchie Robertson (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 15.
2. J. Derrida (2005), “The Principle of Hospitality,” in Paper Machine, trans.
Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press), p. 66.
3. Jean-Luis Debret was the French Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time.
4. J. Derrida (2001), “Derelictions of the Right to Justice (But what are the ‘sans-
papier’ lacking?), in Negotiations. Interventions and Interviews 1971–2001,
edited, trans., and with an introduction by Elizabeth Rottenberg, (Stanford,
California: Stanford University Press), p. 133.
5. Derrida develops the question of hospitality mostly in the following texts:
(1) J. Derrida (2000), Of Hospitality, trans. R. Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford
University Press); (2) J. Derrida (1999), Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, trans. P.-A.
Brault & M. Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press); (3) J. Derrida (1999),
“Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida,”
in Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, ed. R. Kearney,
M. Dooley (London: Routledge), pp. 65–83; (4) J. Derrida (1999), Autour
de Jacques Derrida. Manifeste pour l’hospitalité, ed. M. Seffahi (Paris: Paroles
l’Aube); (5) J. Derrida (2000), “Hospitality,” Angelaki, 5 (3), pp. 3–18. (6) J.
Derrida (2005), “The Principle of Hospitality,” in Paper Machine, trans. Rachel
Bowlby, (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press), pp. 66–69; and (7) J.
Derrida (2002), “Hospitality,” in Acts of Religion, edited and with an introduc-
tion by Gil Anidjar (New York, London: Routledge), pp. 358–420.
6. I. Kant (1988), “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” in L. W. Beck (eds),

Kant. Selections (London: Collier Macmillan Publishers), p. 439.
7. J. Derrida (2000), Of Hospitality, p. 25.
8. Ibid., pp. 27.
9. Ibid., pp. 137–139.
10. J. D. Caputo (1997), Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques
Derrida (NY: Fordham University Press), p. 111.
11. Derrida is following the etymology of Emil Benveniste, in (1969), Le vocabulaire
des institutions indo-européennes I (Paris: Minuit), chap. 7, “L’hospitalité.”
12. Jacques Derrida & Bernard Stiegler (2002), Echographies of Television: Filmed
Interviews, trans. Jennifer Bajorek (Oxford: Polity Press), p. 81.
13. J. Derrida (2005), “As If it were Possible, ‘Within Such Limits,’” in Paper
Machine, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, California: Stanford University
Press), p. 90.
14. J. Derrida (1988), “Signature Event Context,” in Limited Inc. (Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press), p. 18.
15. J. Derrida (2001), “The Unforgivable and the Imprescriptible,” in J. Caputo,
M. Dooley, & M. Scanlon (eds), Questioning God (Bloomington: Indiana
16. J. Derrida (2001), “On Forgiveness: A Roundtable Discussion with Jacques
Derrida,” in J. Caputo, M. Dooley, & M. Scanlon (eds), Questioning God
(Bloominghton & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press), p. 48.
17. D. Wood (1997), “Responsibility Reinscribed (and How),” in Jonathon
Dronsfield & Nick Midgley (eds), Responsibilities of Deconstruction, PLI Warwick
Journal of Philosophy 6, p. 110.
18. J. Derrida (1999), “Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue with
Jacques Derrida,” pp. 70–71.
19. Jacques Derrida (1993), The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago:
Chicago University Press), p. 68.
20. Martin Hägglund (2008), Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press), p. 103.
21. Ibid., 125.
22. J. Derrida & B. Stiegler (2002), Echographies of Television: Filmed Interviews,
p. 81.
23. I would like to thank Dr Peter Langford for his invaluable help.

9
Karl Popper’s Contribution to
Postmodernist Ethics
Joseph Osei
“I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no

symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain
and pleasure.” (Popper. 1945)1
Introduction
Preoccupied mostly with epistemological and metaphysical issues, and

their implications for scientific and socio-political theories, Popper
did not set out to construct a normative ethical theory defining right
and wrong, as one finds in the works of modern or postmodern2 moral
philosophers such as Kant, J.S. Mill, or W. D. Ross. The closest he
comes to formulating an ethical theory is speaking in favor of Negative
Utilitarianism as opposed to Positive Utilitarianism.3
However, one cannot read Popper’s socio-political publications or
arguments, especially as presented in the Open Society and Its Enemies,
without coming to the conclusion that here was a mainstream analytic
philosopher who also cared very much about normative moral issues. I
was therefore not surprised, at the 1992 Eastern Division APA Conference
in New York, when a tongue-in-cheek joke written about him in a
pamphlet by a colleague read: “What is Popper? A Popper is a person
who cares too much about morality.” Given concrete but regrettable
historical realities such as trans-Atlantic slavery, north-south economic
exploitation, the monstrosity of the Jewish holocaust and the atrocities
of the two World Wars, it is hard to understand how any intellectual
could be said to be taking morality too seriously, even in a joke in the
last half of the 20th century. Add to the list the threat of total annihi-
lation during the Cold War triggered by the Cuban-missile crisis, the
inhumanity of segregation in the southern US, and apartheid in South
157
158 Joseph Osei
Africa, as well as the brutality of the Vietnam war, and so on, and the
question bears repeating: How could any intellectual be said to be taking
morality too seriously, even in a joke? Since Popper passed away in 1994,
he did not have the opportunity to construct his own postmodernist
ethical theory, which to some extent is already implicit in his worldview
and literary corpus.
My objective in this chapter, therefore, is to show that a tentative but
plausible postmodern Popperian ethical theory can be constructed from
Popper’s theories in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science,
political philosophy and their derivative ethical principles. Postmodern
as used here refers to the late 20th-century movement within Western
Philosophy characterized by “broad skepticism, subjectivism, or rela-
tivism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the
role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic
power.”4
My method involves a critical analysis, interpretation, and applica-
tion of Popper’s Theory of Evolutionary Epistemology, the Three-World
Theory, the Theory of Science, the Theory of the Open Society, as well
as their derivative principles – such as, inter-subjectivity, the possibility
of rational discussion, human fallibilism, freewill, and moral evolu-
tion. I will also show how his ethical theory satisfies the three neces-
sary conditions for establishing a sustainable ethical system: A principle
of moral objectivity, a principle for moral guidance, and a principle
moral motivation. This will be supplemented with four postmodern
moral principles: the Non-Absolute-Objectivity, the Transformative,
the Inclusivity/Universality, and the Feminist or Care Ethics principles,
together with their application to moral issues at the personal, national
and global level.
As preparation for the discussion of his contribution to the evolution
of postmodernist ethics, it is pertinent to define two of Popper’s funda-
mental theories in epistemology and metaphysics.
Popper’s theory of evolutionary epistemology as a

foundation for his ethics
Karl Popper recounts in the Objective Knowledge (1981) that his reflection
on the effect of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in his formative years
led him to the discovery of the Theory of Evolutionary Epistemology:
The idea that “all theories are true only provisionally, regardless of the
degree of empirical testing they have survived.”5 As a prime example,
he cited Newtonian physics as a body of theories that were thoroughly
Karl Popper’s Contribution to Postmodernist Ethics 159
confirmed by sustained testing, through both observation and experi-

ment, so as to be considered unassailable, but were surprisingly over-
turned or defeated by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Reflecting on the impact of Einstein’s Theory on Newtonian physics
and similar theories before it, Popper advanced the view that the growth
of scientific knowledge is an evolutionary process that can be illustrated
by means of a fundamental conceptual schema or formula:
PS1 TT1 EE1 PS2
[PS = Problem Situation, TT = Tentative Theory, EE = Error Elimination].

Popper’s explanation of this apparently simple formula is that, in
response to a given problem situation (PS1), a number of competing
conjectures proposed as tentative theories (TT) or solutions, are system-
atically subjected to the most rigorous attempts at falsification possible
at the time.6 Theories that cannot be falsified or refuted even in principle
are to be eliminated as unscientific, while those that survive are to be
considered not as true or confirmed but as only “fit” or adequate for the
problem situation at hand. Borrowing a biological analogy he compares
this process of error elimination (EE) in epistemology to the process of
natural selection which performs a similar function for biological evolu-
tion and for science in general. As a critical realist, he believed in the
evolution of theories through the scientific method, which in his view
reflects a type of progress toward more interesting problems (PS2) and
more complex tentative solutions analogous to the process of natural
selection.7 In Section III, the discussion will show how his Theory of
Evolutionary Epistemology leads him to adopt an aspect of the theory
of Utilitarianism called Negative or Minimal Utilitarianism.
Ethical principles in Popper’s philosophy
The most important elements for constructing a moral theory are princi-
ples for moral objectivity, moral guidance as well as moral motivation.8
Popper identifies and makes use of several moral principles he approves
in his socio-political writings that can serve collectively as a founda-
tion for moral objectivity, as well as moral guidance and motivation for
constructing an ethical theory out of his philosophical world view. We
find these mostly from The Open society and its Enemies: Volumes I and II
(1945), Conjectures and Refutations (1963), Unended Quest; An Intellectual
Autobiography (1976), In Search of a Better World (1984), A World of
Propensities (1990), All life is Problem Solving (1994), and The Lessons of
160 Joseph Osei
This Century (2000). The most prominent of these explicit and implicit
ethical principles are discussed here.
Negative utilitarianism
Classical Utilitarianism, as defended by Bentham or Mills, has been
under sustained attack by deconstructionists,9 especially for its scape-
goat problems, insensitivity to special relationships and the reciprocal
obligations, as well as its vulnerability to dictators who ask their people
to make sacrifices for an illusive future happiness.10
Karl Popper does not refer to himself as a utilitarian. He is rather
critical of utilitarianism, not only for its scapegoat problems – which
contradict human and civil rights principles, but also for its inherent
subjectivity and utopian, as well as its totalitarian tendencies, ostensibly
aimed at maximizing happiness for all people – a condition he found
through his personal experience with communism in his youth.
Popper is however an admirer of the aspect of Utilitarianism that
requires us to aim at minimizing harm or pain and suffering for all or
most people concerned. Thus he sometimes refers to his ethical position
as a Minimalist Utilitarian or a Negative Utilitarian. Instead of claiming
that we ought to maximize happiness or well-being for the greatest
number of people concerned, as Bentham and J.S. Mill do, this aspect
of the theory states that we as humanity ought to minimize pain and
suffering for the greatest number of people, especially the most vulner-
able ones concerned.
Further, Negative Utilitarianism is consistent with Popper’s Theory of
Evolutionary Biology that states that scientific knowledge grows by the
critical elimination of our false theories or errors. Like scientific knowl-
edge, ethical knowledge grows and public policy benefits by aiming at
“the elimination of suffering rather than the promotion of happiness,”
which is so hard to define and to achieve.11 Aiming at maximizing
happiness, states Popper, is as illusive as chasing after a never-ending
goal or “the will-o-the wisp.”12
In Conjectures and Refutations Popper argues that the principal aim
of piecemeal social engineering, as opposed to violent revolutionary
means of social change, should target specific social problems guided
by the principle of Negative Utilitarianism. With this, state planners
and international Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as
the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN, Oxfam, and World
Vision, could set up measurable priorities or targets to reduce famine,
or infant undernourishment, rather than aim at unmeasurable ideals
like increasing happiness. To some extend the global community has
been applying this principle in recent years, adopting long-term plans

to reduce suffering, such as Poverty Reduction, Famine Relief, and
Elimination of Polio and other childhood diseases. Popper sums up his
political philosophy in this respect, saying the aim of politics should be
to prevent or minimize human suffering because “Human misery is the
most urgent problem of a rational public policy.”13
In defending this thesis Popper offers three main arguments: First, he
argues that the obligation to reduce human suffering is by far superior
to any obligation to increase human happiness:
I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry
between suffering and happiness or between pain and pleasure” ... In
my opinion ... human suffering makes a direct moral appeal, namely,
an appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the
happiness of a man who is doing well anyway. There is therefore no
symmetry between minimizing suffering and maximizing happiness
for others as moral duties14
Contrasting his position to the Theory of Utilitarianism and Kant’s

Ethical Theory, he argues that both are wrong for assuming that there
is moral symmetry between suffering and happiness. Jamie Mayfeld, a
British moral philosopher who defends Popper’s asymmetrical theory,
observes that most people agree with Popper that the alleviation of
suffering is more urgent than the promotion of happiness. I could not
agree more with both philosophers: the moral imperative to prevent or
reduce human suffering – hunger, disease, oppression, rape and torture –
is more urgent and compelling than any to increase happiness for self or
others. Further, I think Mayfeld is right when he adds that most people
also share the belief that the reduction of “more intense suffering” is
more urgent than the reduction of “less intense suffering.”15
Second, Popper argued that it is easier to reach political agreement
to combat suffering than to increase happiness since happiness, unlike
suffering, is too subjective for effective policy-making:
For new ways of happiness are theoretical, unreal things, about which
it may be difficult to form an opinion. But misery is with us, here and
now, and it will be with us for a long time to come. We all know it
from experience.16
The examples he cites to illustrate suffering include such real-life miser-

able but universal conditions as “poverty, unemployment, national
162 Joseph Osei
oppression, war, and disease.”17 Not only does he believe them to be

easily identifiable, he also believes that, since it is readily recognizable,
it is relatively easy to use suffering as both a motivating and an organ-
izing principle for securing agreement and cooperation from others in
the attempt to prevent or minimize it.
Further, Popper continues his attack on Positive Utilitarianism by
stressing the dangers of utopianism. Attempts to increase happiness,
especially when guided by some utopian ideal of complete or perfect
happiness, he warns, are dangerous because they are bound to lead into
diabolical or utopian political or ideological projects such as socialism,
communism, and other forms of totalitarianism. But totalitarianism,
whether from Plato’s Republic or Marxist Communism, as Popper has
shown in The Open Society, is incompatible with democratic ideals since
it undermines individual liberties and thrives on indoctrination and
violence.18
Popper’s skepticism toward Positive Utilitarianism may be epitomized
in this quote:
Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness

principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictator-
ship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic prin-
ciple – the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should
be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness
should be left, in the main, to private initiative.19
His skepticism of Positive Utilitarianism is deeply rooted in his own

experience as a young Communist. Popper learned not to trust utopian
ideals even if they are claimed to be scientific. Having been assured that
Communism was a pacifist movement he was shocked to learn after
joining that this was not true and that violence was an integral part
of their doctrines and strategies. This experience sufficed to transform
Popper into a fallibilist: he became extremely suspicious of pseudo-sci-
entific creeds, such as the Marxist doctrine that capitalism will inevi-
tably crash and disappear, giving way to socialism for the benefit of the
working classes and eventually a classless society called Communism.
Such predictions of a necessary course of history or historicism were
condemned by Popper as very dangerous and morally unacceptable.
This experience with communism also informed and influenced his
philosophy of science. It explains why Popper maintained that the first
condition to any allegedly scientific theory in the future was that it
should be held tentatively or with an attitude of intellectual modesty.
Instead of denying our human fallibilism this intellectual attitude that

Socrates also recommended calls on us to accept our imperfections and
to admit the magnitude of our ignorance. For Popper it is the recognition
that scientific certainty has proved itself deceptive and should, therefore,
be replaced with the epistemological attitude of learning through our
unavoidable mistakes, now known in contemporary higher education as
critical thinking. From this epistemological attitude, mistakes – whether
in science, ethics or politics – would not be considered evil, but instead
the way we prepare for personal progress or social transformation.20
Further, Popper also argues that such utopian and romantic political
projects are too dangerous as policies. His reason is that, no matter the
condition of human suffering in the present, ideological defenders will
rationalize the suffering by arguing that it is necessary as the means of
securing a much greater happiness to come. Using a Kantian moral prin-
ciple, Popper rejects such arguments, on the grounds that we must not
argue that the misery of one generation may be considered as “a mere
means to the end of securing the lasting happiness of some later genera-
tion or generations.”21
Additionally, Popper offers a pragmatic argument in defense of
minimal Utilitarianism. Whereas Classical or Positive Utilitarianism
requires us to maximize happiness – which is too subjective and
unclear, Negative Utilitarianism is rather more objective. As he puts
it, “[It] tries to clarify the field of ethics” by requiring that “we formu-
late our demands negatively.”22 The principle is analogous to Popper’s
Falsification Principle, which requires science to aim at demonstrating
the falsifiability of theories, “rather than the attainment of established
truths,”23 by a method of confirmation which can never be completely
achieved.
Conceptually Negative Utilitarianism implies the ethical principle
of non-malfeasance or do-no-harm in Natural Law associated with the
Hippocratic Oath for medical professionals. This prohibition, however,
should be observed not only by medical professionals but everyone in a
position to inflict unnecessary pain or suffering on fellow human beings
and other sentient creatures. It also implies the principle of benevo-
lence, since it requires everyone to do their best to relieve fellow human
beings and other sentient beings from unnecessary pain and suffering:
from oppression, abject poverty, famine, disease, and preventable
deaths – including deaths from unjust wars and terrorism. The goals and
guidelines of Minimal Utilitarianism are therefore neither as utopian or
overwhelming as the Classical Utilitarianism of Bentham or Mills, but is
more realistic and attainable, more motivating for the average person.24
164 Joseph Osei
The human rights principle in Popper

That Popper was a strong defender and advocate of human rights can be
supported with both implicit and explicit statements and arguments in
almost all his writings, from the most metaphysical to the most political.
For Popper, one of the first virtues – and arguably the most important –
in the open society is freedom. Explaining the concept of the “Open
society” and his motivation for writing The Open Society and Its Enemies,
Popper states:
The open society is an association of free individuals respecting each

other’s rights within the framework of mutual perception supplied
by the state.25
For Popper, individual freedom is not only a fundamental right, it is also

a necessary condition for the possibility of any rational discussion. We
also know that without rational discussion there can be no criticism or
the critical elimination of human error that create the possibility for the
growth of knowledge. Since human progress is impossible without the
growth of knowledge this implies that, without freedom and rational
discussion there can be no human progress.
Popper’s admiration for Pericles, the arch defender of Athenian democ-
racy, is mostly based, not on his oratorical skills but on his intellectual
ability to identify freedom as a fundamental value in democracy. This
admiration becomes explicit when Popper quotes Pericles as saying in
defense of democracy; “The poverty of democracy is better than the pros-
perity which allegedly goes with aristocracy or monarchy, just as liberty
is better than slavery.” Popper follows this quote with another telling
quote on the right of free speech in Athenian democracy: “Although
only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.”26
The ability in vogue here is neither a reference to physical nor intel-
lectual capability, but an implicit reference to the rights or entitlements
individuals have by virtue of being human: fellow citizens who can speak
their minds in support of, or against, others’ ideas without undue inter-
ference or threat. Popper agrees with Pericles in saying that although
happiness is an important value, freedom is a more fundamental value
because without freedom there can be no happiness. “Happiness is
the fruit of freedom, and freedom that of valor.”27 Athenian valor and
respect for freedom can be seen in their resolve to fight in defense of their
freedom. Popper’s admiration for American democracy is partly based
on Americans’ understanding of freedom or liberty as the most impor-
tant democratic value, just as the Athenian democracy maintained.
The Athenian conception of freedom articulated by both Pericles and

Popper refers in this context not to the positive conception of right
but to the negative conception of right that has characterized Western
culture and other open societies for centuries. While negative rights
are essentially the right not to be interfered with without just cause by
anyone, including the government, positive right means one is entitled
to X where X is a public facility, such as a school, clinic, or an apart-
ment constructed and controlled by the state.28 As a liberal philosopher,
Popper is wary of positive rights, given that historically they tend to give
too much power to the state and thereby jeopardize some fundamental
negative rights, including free speech and freedom of association.
Another reason why Popper defends fundamental rights is that they
are critical for democratic institutions and ideals, such as the right to
freedom of thought, freedom of expression and the right to just and fair
treatment as found in open societies. He also values highly the right to
travel and the freedom of association which lead to the cross-fertiliza-
tion of ideas and in turn enhance the growth of science and commerce
and, ultimately, human progress in all spheres of life.
Instead of focusing on the virtues of freedom and other human rights,
and their metaphysical or historical foundations – as Locke, Mills or
Rawls did – Popper thinks it is more important to focus on the obstacles
to these rights and freedoms. The focus of his writing is, therefore, on
exposing the enemies or hindrances to freedom, as seen in his fierce
critique of Plato, Hegel and Marx. He is extremely critical of these
philosophers, whom he characterizes unfavorably as “enemies” of the
open society for perpetrating and defending such social evils as: histori-
cism, propaganda, censorship, and totalitarianism. Holding on firmly
to their utopian ideals about society, philosophers and social scientists
under their influence explained and predicted human behavior and
history as if humans had no control of the events around them: history
happened with deterministic inevitability. Popper is strongly opposed to
such unfalsifiable ideological or philosophical beliefs, masquerading as
scientific evidence. He rightly rejects them as historicist ideas. He also
rejects them on moral grounds: within such a metaphysically deter-
mined world, the concept of human freedom – so critical for morality,
autonomy, and moral responsibility – is made not only inexplicable but
also useless.29
The belief in historicism or determinism, Popper laments, tends to
mislead many people to give up on life and to psychologically resign to
fatalism stating: “Que sera, sera” or “Whatever will be, will be.” Places
and people with such fatalistic mentalities, Popper points out, can easily
166 Joseph Osei
become fertile grounds for the seed of propaganda and eventually totali-
tarian control of all aspects of their lives.30
In the opening chapter of The Open Society and its Enemies: The Spell of
Plato, Popper quotes aspects of Plato’s totalitarian policies:
Whether in war time or peace time, leaders are to habituate the minds
of their followers and not let them do anything at all on their own
initiative, even in the smallest matter. For example, “he should get
up, or move, or wash, or take his meals only if he has been told to do
so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream
of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it.31
Popper uses this quote to illustrate the loss of individual freedom in

Plato’s Republic. Individuals in the state are to subject themselves in all
things to their respective leaders with no exception for rights to privacy
or opposing views. The history of Marxism in Socialist and Communist
countries also bears eloquent testimony to how pernicious these histori-
cist and totalitarian ideas can be to individual freedoms and other
fundamental rights. For Popper, not only were the Marxists mistaken on
their metaphysical and economic analyzes and predictions, they were
also a threat to democracy, in particular, and to human civilization in
general. Marxist ideas like those of Plato were clearly aimed at closing
open societies by stifling individual freedoms so critical for sustaining
open societies and democracies.
It is also interesting to note what Popper would think of Mikhail
Gorbachev’s revolution in the former Soviet Union. Gorbachev, who
spearheaded the non-violent revolution against communism, succeeded
mainly through free rational criticism of the system. The term which
he introduced, operationalized, and popularized for this revolution was
“glasnost”; meaning, openness or the right to free speech and govern-
mental transparency. Popper would gladly approve of Gorbachev’s
approach to the political problem of communism, given that he recog-
nized the value of the right to free speech as a significant instrument
in the transition from a closed to an open society. For the same reason,
Popper would disapprove of the current policies of Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin, who seems to be returning Russia from an emerging,
open, and democratic society back to an enclosed society.
As a critical and an objective thinker, Popper was also very conscious
of the possibility of unrestricted freedom and the havoc it could wreck in
open societies. He was, therefore, also eager to warn against the misuse or
abuse of freedom and other human or civic rights. Unqualified freedom,
Popper warns, leads to a paradox. For it is bound to produce its own oppo-
site, and is therefore self-destructive. If all restraints were removed, he
explains, there would be nothing to stop the strong from enslaving the
weak or the meek. Complete freedom, therefore, would not bring about
peace or happiness, but the end of freedom itself. Proponents of complete
freedom (such as Ayn Rand and her circle of political libertarians), Popper
would say, are therefore unwitting enemies of freedom, no matter how
lofty their intentions might be. Popper would accordingly welcome the
limitations that John Rawls places on freedom, within his conceptual
framework of the first principle of justice as fairness: “Each person has the
same indefeasible claim to fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties,
which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all.”32
The social justice principle in Popper

“What do we really mean when we speak of “Justice?” Popper asks as an
introduction to his critique of Plato’s totalitarian and anti-humanitarian
conception of justice. For Popper, justice, as used in the humanitarian
context, means:
1. An equal distribution of the burden of citizenship, i.e. of those limita-

tions of freedom which are necessary in social life;
2. Equal treatment of citizens before the law, provided of course that
the laws show neither favor nor disfavor individual citizens, groups
or classes;
3. Impartiality of the courts of justice; or
4. An equal share in the advantages (not just the burdens) which
membership of the state may offer to its citizens.33
Justice as conceived here is like rights among the fundamental and

indispensable virtues of the open society. It is exemplified to a large
extent in his two models of democracy: Athens and the United States. In
Athens the great leader and defender of democracy, Pericles, is also cred-
ited with being the first to formulate the principle of “equality before
the law” and “the principle of political individualism.” The administra-
tion, according to Pericles, being a democracy, favored the opinions of
the majority instead of the few. The laws afford equal justice to all alike
in their private disputes. Even so, Pericles adds, “We do not ignore the
claims of excellence.”34 Thus, if a person distinguishes himself or herself
in some relevant category, the person is called to serve the state, not as
a matter of privilege, but as a reward or merit – and more importantly,
Pericles adds, “ poverty is no bar.”35
168 Joseph Osei
In spite of these humanitarian and fair conceptions of justice in Plato’s

own days (as evident in Pericles’ defense of democracy and the trial of
Socrates) Plato defended and advocated a new conception of justice that
was neither humane nor fair. For him, justice was none of the above,
but a state of total harmony. For Plato, therefore, the state is just if it is
strong, united, and stable. Plato uses this conception of justice as the
foundation for his political construct – the ideal society he calls the
Republic. Within this ideal society, characterized by a rigid caste system
or social class distinctions with no possibility of upward mobility, injus-
tice for Plato is doing anything that could disturb the harmony of the
rigid caste system or the state. For Plato, there is justice provided each
class in the city minds its own business, when the auxiliary workers
and slaves work under strict orders of their task masters and owners
without complaining or attempting to disrupt the rigid the social order.
As Popper bluntly puts it, “In the Republic, the state is just if the ruler
rules, if the worker works, and if the slave slaves,”36 and there is no
attempt to cross over from one class to the other.
In defense of individual rights and the humanitarian conception of
justice, as analyzed above, Popper rightly rejects and condemns the
holistic, totalitarian and anti-humanitarian conception of justice by
Plato. Popper is equally critical of Aristotle who also tries to ration-
alize slavery – not by a handy religious lie, as Plato admitted doing,
but ostensibly by a biological argument. In Aristotle’s theory of slavery,
some people are naturally or genetically inferior to others and are conse-
quently better off submitting to slavery or bondage in their own interest
under their superior masters.37
Popper also exposes the hypocrisy in Plato’s conception of justice
and that of Aristotle. He argues, and rightly that their conceptions of
justice make it possible to regard slave owners and states with constitu-
tional provisions protecting slavery as just without self-contradiction.
The logical inconsistency or hypocrisy in Plato’s Republic is evident in
upholding the Republic as just, despite its institutionalization of slavery,
racism, propaganda, censorship, and a rigid caste system. Similarly, there
can be no denying the logical inconsistency and hypocrisy in Aristotle’s
conception of justice, as exposed in his theory of distributive justice.
Ostensibly defined as a form of corrective justice, Aristotle’s model of
justice enables him to distribute, not only material goods but also rights
and punishments in proportion to a person’s socio-economic status,
which by his own theory of slavery, is also biologically determined.38
For similar reasons, Popper is also critical of the Marxist conception of
justice. It “justifies” abolishing individual or corporate rights to private
ownership and nationalizing private means of production and distribu-

tion, as well as their management without compensation. It is for these
and similar violations of the principle of justice in the humanitarian, or
Rawls’ sense of justice as fairness discussed above, that Popper considers
Marxism “one of the many mistakes we (humans) have made in our
perennial and dangerous struggle for building a better and freer world.”39
How much Popper has contributed to the emergence of postmodernist
reconstruction is certainly hard to determine. It is, however, neither too
hard nor too controversial to infer that in the light of his unrelenting
criticism of the ethical and political ideas of Plato, Hegel and Marx and
their derivative political ideologies – including Socialism, Communism,
Ujamaa, Nkrumaism, and Third World Socialist-style dictatorships –
Popper was paving the way for postmodernist moral and political
deconstruction. By the same token, it can be said that he was contrib-
uting toward the postmodernist ethical reconstruction by exposing and
deconstructing these dogmatic, racist, inhumane, and unfair ideologies,
which are clear obstacles to any authentic or credible moral evolution
or progress.
From the foregoing it becomes evident that Popper did not only have
objective moral principles for determining right and wrong, but that
he also had moral principles that provide guidance as well as motiva-
tion for pursuing just policies and actions. The principle of negative
Utilitarianism clearly satisfies all three conditions for constructing a
moral theory, while the emphasis on human rights and justice prin-
ciples that ensure human rights, including individual liberties, serve
as moral constraints and are not sacrificed for Utilitarian ideologies or
political schemes.
Foundational moral principles for constructing a

Popperian postmodernist ethical theory
Postmodernist ethics, having learned the lessons of deconstruction and

the emergence of acutely questionable moral theories – such as Cultural
Ethical Relativism, Subjectivism, Emotivism, and Moral Nihilism –
will undoubtedly prioritize the contrary moral principles, including:
The Objectivity Principle, The Inclusivity/Universality Principle, The
Transformative Principle, and The Care Principle. In this section, I will
show that all these principles are embedded in Popper’s political philos-
ophy, as well as his metaphysical and epistemological theories. I will
also show how they can be applied to highly sensitive historical and
contemporary moral issues.
170 Joseph Osei
The non-absolute objectivity principle in Popper’s ethics

Every authentic moral system requires an objective method or principle
for determining right and wrong. Ideally, such a principle should have
no bias, controversial or subjective underpinnings that would make it
unfair to any group of people concerned. Neither should an objective
principle be skewed in favor of anyone, irrespective of their social status,
race, ethnicity, religion or nationality.
Although Popper did not set out deliberately to construct a postmod-
ernist ethical theory, W3 in his Three-World Theory provides several
objective standards for facilitating an all-things-considered moral
judgment.
Popper’s three-world theory as a source of moral objectivity

In this section, I wish to briefly describe Popper’s Theory of the Three
Worlds and its relevance for constructing a Popperian postmodernist
Theory of Ethics. In this metaphysical or cosmological worldview,
Popper conceives of three distinct but interrelated worlds that can be
identified as W1, W2, and W3, for convenience.40 W1 represents the
world of physical objects and states: rocks, trees, buildings, machines,
physical forces, and so on. W2 represents our individual private subjec-
tive or mental worlds of thoughts, beliefs, dispositions, and intuitions.
W2 is also the place for our individual and diverse emotional states,
including love, sympathy, compassion, hopes, as well as fears, and
hatred. W3 represents the world of objective knowledge, a semi-Pla-
tonic world of ideas discovered or created from W2 and made public
through their publication or sharing by word or print. W3 is thus the
world of abstract ideas, theories, principles, arguments, logical forms,
ideologies, true or false doctrines, abstract constitutions, as well as
codes of ethics and conduct in the public domain; including, I dare
say, all the knowledge in the world wide web (www), or the Internet,
and so on.
The order of the three worlds is not arbitrary but historical.
Evolutionarily speaking, Popper believes that the physical world (W1)
existed prior to the world of animal feelings in the course of human
evolution. W2, the subjective world of personal emotions and beliefs
and so on, and W3 only emerged with the evolution of the higher func-
tions of human language, including the descriptive and argumentative
functions. Popper does not claim originality in the conception of W3
but traces it back to Plato and the Stoics, who articulated the ontological
and epistemological significance of the “Forms.”
Application to ethics
What is new in Popper’s views of Platonic forms is their modification
and application to the problem of human freedom and related moral
principles. The relationships among the three Worlds are of paramount
interest to our discussion. The three worlds, according to Popper’s anal-
ysis, are so related that W1 can interact with W2, and W2 can interact
with W3: implying indirect interaction between W1 and W3 via W2, as
shown below:
W1< – – – – – – – – > W2 < – – – – – – – – >W3.
The illustration shows the interaction between the three worlds via
the feedback effect, so critical in understanding Popper’s theory. W3 has
two features necessary for understanding Popper’s contribution to ethics:
first, it is autonomous – as soon as we have uttered a word, created a
theory or a book and published it in print or online, we have created
objects that have now become, whether we like it or not, independent
of ourselves. By communicating or sharing the ideas of our subjective
or private world with others, we create the possibility for others also
to critique our ideas and to share theirs with us. This inter-subjectivity
then becomes a form of objectivity that can now be found in W3 – the
world of objective and regulatory ideas.
These shared ideas have now become objects in W3: they are acces-
sible and open to others for critique, rejection or approval. To borrow
Popper’s metaphor, they are now like loosed arrows, or words spoken –
they cannot be retrieved or withdrawn. W3, therefore, contains what
Popper terms “knowledge without a knowing subject” or “knowledge
without a knower.” All the elements in W3 constitute our collective
human intellectual collection, which is no longer subjective but an
independent or autonomous constitution of the infinite semi-Platonic
world of objective knowledge.
For the present purpose, the most important components of this
objective and autonomous W3 are the regulative ideas relevant for
moral thinking and decision-making. These include our moral theo-
ries and their derivative moral principles for determining the right-
ness or wrongness of our ideas, policies, actions, theories of truth,
priorities, logical principles of consistency, and valid argument forms.
For Popper, such concepts come as unplanned by-products of human
thoughts and actions, just as honey is the unplanned offshoot of the
activities of bees.
172 Joseph Osei
The elements of W3 are critical for moral decision-making and

problem solving. For, when we encounter moral dilemmas or competing
ideas we deliberate and weigh our options in the light of their most
likely desirable or undesirable anticipated consequences, including
the worst-case scenarios. In this process, we are guided by the Law of
Non-contradiction, and other Laws of Thought in logic, constitutional
principles and laws, as well as fundamental ethical principles of human
rights and justice, such as fairness. Together they guide and facilitate
our all-things-considered synergetic moral judgments towards our best
decisions or choices. The principles adopted after due reflection will be
objective to the extent that they are universally applicable, irrespective
of cultural or nationalistic differences in customs and beliefs.
Arriving at our moral decisions also calls for much deliberation using
the relevant elements within W3 or the World of Objective Knowledge.
For example, we ask, “Which action is right for me to do now?” “Which
action should be given priority?” “Which action is more consistent with
my personal beliefs or philosophy of life?” “Or which action should be
allowed to override all the competing alternative actions open to me?”
The decisions that we eventually make after due reflection are then
adopted as guides for our actions. The elements of W3 do not, however,
determine or fix what we do as the metaphysical determinist presumes
since it is still within our power to reject or modify the decisions, or
even to suspend the planned action. Hence, these regulative ideas of W3
are best understood as “plastic controls” as opposed to “iron controls”
in a metaphysically determinist world that leaves no room for human
freedom or deliberate action.
The theory of the three worlds, therefore, represents a rational and
objective mechanism for subjecting all theories including moral theo-
ries and moral values, as well as other regulative ideas like the law,
to critical discussion as a prelude to formulating personal, corporate,
or political decisions and national or international policies. Being
objective rather than absolute (as in classical Kantian Ethics) there
is always room for supplementation, modification and overriding of
moral principles, especially when it becomes an imperative to over-
ride specific moral actions, policies, or principles in order to resolve
precarious moral dilemmas, prevent dangerous moral conflicts, as well
as to avoid worst-case scenarios such as genocide, a Third World War or
total annihilation.
Evidently, one-dimensional moral thinking, such as thinking only as
an egoist, a Utilitarian or Kantian, is no longer the norm in the post-
modernist worldview except for academic purposes. Real-life problem
solving requires the all-things-considered approach which is made

possible and facilitated by the elements of Popper’s objective world,
since it includes all moral theories and their derivative moral principles.
Popper’s objectivity theory therefore eliminates the need for cultural
ethical relativism, as well as individual ethical relativism or any form of
moral subjectivism in favor of universally applicable moral standards of
right, wrong, and so on.
When properly applied, not only can the objective principles in W3
help ensure conflict prevention and conflict resolution, they can also
promote global stability and peace. The peace dividend could then be
widely beneficial for promoting, among other things: global health,
environmental ethics, sustainable growth and development – especially
within emerging democracies of the Third World.
The transformative principle in Popper’s ethics

Most students of political philosophy or political science would
remember Popper for one of his key concepts, “The open society,” in
contradistinction from “The enclosed society.” Popper defines the open
society as:
An association of free individuals respecting each other’s rights

within a framework of mutual perception supplied by the state, and
achieving through the making of responsible, rational decisions, a
growing measure of humane and enlightened life.41
As metaphors they are obviously helpful in his attempt to draw the

contrast between democratic and non-democratic societies. What may
not be obvious is that these two concepts also provide clear and ample
evidence of his philosophical and life commitment to the Transformative
Principle in ethical theorizing. Popper spent most of his 90 years doing
philosophy, not just for fun or for satisfying his intellectual curiosity,
but as a means of motivating and guiding as many people and countries
as possible to move from the enclosed society towards the open society.
In other words, philosophy should not be studied for its own sake, or
just for conceptual clarification, but as a means of problem solving, such
as helping people in enclosed societies to transition into open socie-
ties.42 This explains Popper’s disagreement with the Emotivists, Moral
Nihilists, and other Logical Positivists, who maintained that philosophy
is nothing more than the clarification of concepts, epitomized in this
rhetorical question he addressed to them: “What is the value of sharp-
ening a knife if it is not for cutting anything?”
174 Joseph Osei
The enclosed society, as exemplified in the life of Sparta and Plato’s

Republic are also reflected in the collectivist and communist, as well as
religious or secular authoritarian, cultures of today, especially in conserv-
ative or radical Moslem nations. It is mostly characterized by opposition
to change and all foreign influences or universalistic tendencies, such
as globalization. Such societies also tend to oppose humanitarianism,
including: justice as equality, liberal democracy and individualism – or
respect for individual rights and liberties. Many of them also have strict
caste systems and deny equal rights to women. Further, they tend to be
totalitarian and deny freedom of religion or fail to recognize religious
pluralism. The extremist ones, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, are marked
by systematic beheadings, rape, torture and massacre of innocents just
because they are non-Moslems, or Moslems who do not ascribe to their
radical ideologies.
According to Popper, the open society on the other hand is symbol-
ized in the democratic spirit of Athens during the time of Pericles and in
more contemporary times in the American Democracy:
Members of the Open society are dynamic, competitive (character-

ized by class struggle), individualistic, open to new ideas, and exper-
imental. They are also in favor of changes towards more freedom,
liberty, and equality. It is also characterized by a new faith in reason,
freedom as well as the brotherhood of all men.43
After the World Wars Popper states he fell into a depression about the
prospect of the growth of open societies, until he visited America. As he
writes in the preface to the second edition of his The Open Society and Its
Enemies, Vol. 1, (1971):
But my mood of depression has passed, largely as a result of my visit

to the United States ... . For, in spite of the present world situation I
feel as hopeful as ever I did.44
Explaining why the US is a model of the open society, Popper refers to

the vision of the American founding fathers as a longing to free them-
selves and their friends from the tutelage of authority and prejudice.
Popper admired the attempt of the Americans to build an open society
that rejects the absolute authority or control of the political and tradi-
tional establishments in favor of individual freedom. Consequently,
after his visit to the US he notes that he did not have to make any
significant changes to his views about the open society or the standards
of freedom, humanness, and of rational criticism.
Popper is, however, not being naive or romantic about his ideas of
the open society. Just as the Athens of Pericles is scandalizing due to
its dependence on slavery while extolling the virtues of freedom and
democracy, the American model has also been stigmatized, with its past
history of slavery and the vestiges of slavery, such as its history of segre-
gation and racism. He was however hopeful that through rational and
critical discussions such human errors would be corrected, resulting in
an evolution and transformation towards a more free, just and demo-
cratic society. The civil rights improvements made since the Civil Rights
Acts of 1964 and 1968, culminating in the election of the first black
American president in 2008, are certainly remarkable achievements
Popper would recognize as reflecting the spirit of open societies.
While Popper was totally dedicated to the Transformative Principle, he
was not open to just any method of change. For example, being opposed
to the methods of change associated with enclosed societies, such as
the resort to Plato’s type of so-called “noble lies,” he would be equally
opposed to deception, propaganda, indoctrination, fortuitous violence,
and so-called Marxist-style peoples’ revolution, that dominated many
Third World countries in the middle of the last century, since they also
thrive on ignorance, fear, intimidation, and eventually lead their people
back toward the enclosed society.
Although Popper did not live long enough to observe the Arab Spring
(that, at the time of writing, is fast turning into an Arab nightmare,
especially in Libya and Syria) he would have welcomed its emergence
and its good intentions. He would, however, have renounced the use of
violence, rather then the ballot box, to resolve internal political conflicts
and admonished subsequent actions, on the grounds that one cannot
achieve a stable democracy through the institutionalization of violence
as a method of conflict resolution, since it is inconsistent with the ideals
and methods of open societies and democracies.
Popper clearly states, “Not only do I hate violence, but I firmly believe
that the fight against it is not hopeless.”45 His position on violence is
well-supported by his British colleague, in political philosophy, D. D.
Raphael, who famously said, “In the case of disagreement (within a
democracy) we count heads instead of breaking them.”46
Consequently, Popper urges that the journey or methods towards the
open society must be consistent with the values of the open society.
Such methods include education (as opposed to indoctrination or
176 Joseph Osei
propaganda), rational and critical discussion, and the use of the ballot
box, as opposed to political violence, to decide on issues or leaders where
there is no consensus. Popper was aware of America’s past struggles with
slavery and the vestiges of slavery in the present, but was confident
that these could be resolved with the methods of the open society that
includes education, moral appeals, civil disobedience, and legislation as
defended by America’s Civil Rights torch bearer, and Nobel Prize Laurent
for peace, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.47
As a result of his renewed confidence in the nonviolent and rational
methods of the Open society after visiting the US, Popper condemned
all forms of revolutionary violence, and Marxism in particular. Critically
evaluating Marxism he wrote almost 50 years ahead of its collapse:
Marxism is only an episode – on of the many mistakes we have made

in the perennial and dangerous struggle for building a better and
freer world.48
Magee, one of the foremost scholars on Popper, regards these ideas as

“the philosophical foundations of democratic socialism.” They are, he
explains, plainly anti-conservative as it is anti-totalitarian. More inter-
esting for the present discussion, “It is a philosophy of how to change
things, and to do so in a way which, unlike violent revolutions, is
rational and humane.”49
For the postmodernist who has experienced the disastrous conse-
quences of using violence as the means of social or political change,
including the two World Wars, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well
as the numerous coups, counter-coups, Marxist-style revolutions, and
civil wars, the lesson must be unmistakable. Desirable change must be
carefully planned and executed not through violence, but through what
Popper rightly terms, “piecemeal social engineering.”50 This process
begins primarily with the use of our critical faculties. Popper believed that
the greatest revolution that man made in ancient time was to invent a
tradition of open and rational criticism and discussion. This gave man a
method of problem solving and a better alternative to fighting and other
violent methods of dealing with social problems. More significantly for
him, piecemeal social engineering through formal and informal educa-
tion is the most desirable and effective method in humanity’s general
transition from the enclosed society to the open society; that could also
mean transitioning from underdeveloped or developing countries to the
status of developed countries.
The Transformative Principle in Popper is therefore significant for

all societies, but especially developing countries. As noted in the fore-
going and by the theories of development experts, the search for an
open society promotes active participation in the search for socio-
political and economic transformation and total well-being without
resorting to violence and the abuse of human rights and rationality
inherent in Marxist and other forms of inhumane and violent total-
itarian ideologies, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS or ISIL in the Middle
East.51
The inclusivity/universality principle in Popper

The deconstruction of Western literature and other literary conventions,
including philosophical texts, have uncovered both explicit and implicit
racist comments and arguments including embarrassing examples from
Hume, Kant, and especially, Hegel. Hume claims there has never been
any civilization by a race other than the white race. Kant does not only
endorse this but goes further to cite the irrationality of a black person
he presumably encountered addressing the mind–body problem posed
by Rene Descartes: “This fellow was quite black from head to toe, a clear
proof that what he said was stupid.”52 Why a first-rate philosopher like
Kant used a person’s color as an index for identifying his/her level of
rationality is beyond reason.
Hegel took the racist comments to a whole new level. In the
Introduction of his History of Civilization or Philosophy of History, he
states that that he had to omit the inhabitants of the parts of Africa
below the Mediterranean area and Egypt because:
• They are not a real part of the civilized world. Their minds have not
yet evolved to the level of abstract thinking. Consequently, Hegel
explains, they have no understanding of abstract concepts such as
God, morality, logic, rationality, and law etc. such abstract concepts.
Whoever wants to deal with them should, therefore, not consider
them from a moral standpoint.53
The implications of these claims are enormous and include rationaliza-

tions, not only for slavery, but also for any form of torture or oppression
targeting blacks and similar groups to attain full humanity as defined
by Hegel and his like-minded Eurocentric scholars. These examples by
no means exhaust the insensitivities towards the “Other” uncovered by
deconstructionists.
178 Joseph Osei
Consequently, any viable postmodernist ethical theory will have to

counter centuries of Eurocentrism, racism, sexism, tribalism, ethnocen-
trism, and xenophobia of all types and categories. In the 21st century
our common humanity should be obvious to anyone who examines
human nature objectively, whether from an anthropological, psycho-
logical, bio-genetic, or socio-biological perspective. People of all races
and genders are part of the human race or the human family.
Long before anyone used the term “global village,” Popper wrote
in 1943, “Our world has become so small that everybody is now a
neighbor.”54 Among other things, this means for Popper that values
such as humanitarianism and human rights have become universal
values, therefore one can destroy them in his or her country only by
destroying them all over the world. From a Popperian standpoint then,
the same can be said about other values and ideals within the open
society, such as freedom, liberty, equality, justice, and democracy. The
spread of these open society values or ideals and democratic institu-
tions to most parts of the world is responsible in part for the collapse
of the Soviet Union and the democratization in Eastern Europe and
Africa, as well as in Latin America, and so on in the last half of the
20th century. It is also partly responsible for current (2015) pressures
on China, Cuba, Hong Kong, and most authoritarian Islamic states
following the Middle Eastern youth democratic revolutions collec-
tively known as the Arab Spring, to embrace democratic change in the
21st century.
While closed societies oppose universalistic tendencies, open socie-
ties welcome them as a means of growth and progress. In supporting
this point Popper quotes from Pericles, the spokesperson for Athenian
democracy:
Our city is thrown open to the world; we never expel a foreigner ... We
are free to live as we please, and yet we are always ready to face any
danger ... 55
Historians agree that this openness of Athens, like the openness of the
United States when Popper paid his first visit in 1950, is part of the
explanation for any society’s rapid development. As both countries
shared their ideas with the world through art, education and commerce,
they also received new ideas for further transformation. The mixture of
ideas, especially conflicting ideas – as Hegel, Marx, Popper and others
have noted – has always been associated with the emergence of new
ideas and subsequently fundamental social change and transformation.
Popper’s belief in the universality of moral ideals and values also

reflected in his use of the term “man,” as opposed to an individual
British, European, or Westerner. He often used the term “man” in the
universal, non-gender-specific sense of the term in characterizing the
open society. For example, in talking about the earliest stages of the
emergence of the open society in Athens during the era of Heraclites and
Xenophobes he writes, “The new faith of the open society, the faith in
man, in equalitarian justice, and in human reason, was perhaps begin-
ning to take shape.”56
Popper’s belief in the universality of ideals and values is also reflected
in his support of ancient Greek philosophers like Democritus, who
pursued openness and advocated “the brotherhood of all men.” For
example, he quotes with approval from Democritus, who said, “The
wise man belongs to all countries for, the home of a great soul is the
whole world.”57
The foregoing makes it clear then that Popper had a global perspective in
his moral thinking that also reflected his socio-political views. Although
a European by birth, there seems to be no trace of Eurocentrism, paro-
chialism, or racism in his writings. Those that inspire him like Pericles
and Democritus were firm defenders and advocates for inclusivity and
universality. Therefore, postmodernist ethics will be retrogressing rather
than progressing if it were to reject inclusivity or universality. Karl
Popper’s contribution in this respect – as shown above – is significant,
and deserves to be incorporated into postmodernist ethics.
The care ethics principle in Popper

One of the most important contributions to our knowledge of ethics
in the second half of the 20th century was the “discovery” or re-in-
vigoration of the feminist perspective in ethical theorizing: identified
as Feminist Ethics, Ethics of Care or Care Ethics. This perspective, the
advocates allege, had been denied, suppressed or marginalized by main-
stream male-oriented moral reasoning collectively identified as Justice
Ethics.58
The idea of feminist ethics was given birth to by Carroll Gilligan as
she conducted research into developmental ethics and moral educa-
tion. Following her lead, it has received continuous refinement from
feminist philosophers and has become so well documented that it is
now the dominant view in the academy that men and women do not
often approach ethical issues from the same perspective.59 As a result, no
viable postmodernist moral theory can ignore this aspect of moral theo-
rizing in public education. This section will argue that Popper’s ethics is
180 Joseph Osei
both consistent with, and supportive of, Care Ethics as a necessary and
useful complement to Justice Ethics.60
Popper identifies Care or compassion as another important charac-
teristic of Open Societies and cites Athens and the United States as his
paradigm cases. He quotes Democritus, one of the architects of Athenian
Democracy, saying, “We ought to do our utmost to help those who have
suffered injustice ... It is good deeds, not words that matter.”61 Democritus
justifies the Athenian sentiment for care and compassion saying, “Virtue
is based most of all upon respecting the other man.”62 This implies that it
is caring acts, like feeding the hungry and clothing the naked or housing
the homeless person, that show how well the person is respected.
That Popper would welcome Care Ethics can also be discerned from
his perspective of man as a social being: According to him, we are
social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that
one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or
unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
Popper will, therefore, welcome the ideas of Virginia Held, one of the
foremost Care Ethics Feminist Philosophers. She recommends the exten-
sion of Care Ethics at the global level and her vision reflects a view of
a globally interdependent civil society that increasingly relies upon
many and diverse NGOs committed to care and preventing or solving
socio-economic and political problems. Held believes that Care Ethics
as amoral theory has superior resources for dealing with the power and
violence that imbues all relations, including those on the global level,
and therefore argues for minimizing the business model and legalistic
approaches in international aid and so on.63
By the same token, ignoring or marginalizing the poor and the hungry
implies disrespecting the person, and is therefore a vice unbecoming of
a citizen of the open society. The similarity between this justification
for care and compassion between the views of Democritus and those of
Kant, as interpreted by Nora O’Neill, are as mutually reinforcing as they
are remarkable. She argues that ignoring the needs of the absolutely poor
or needy global neighbors implies treating them with less than dignity.
Popper also cites with approval similar sentiments expressed by
Pericles in this regard. Reflecting on the Athenian Constitution and its
excellence, Pericles states among other things, “We are taught to respect
the magistrates and the laws, and never to forget that we must attend
to the injured.” If “injury” is construed here in a broad sense to include
not only physical injury but also psychological, financial, mental, and
emotional injuries, then the scope of care or compassion expected of the

able members of the open society are admirably enormous.
Shortly after visiting the United States after the two World Wars,
Popper writes that his mood of depression about the prospects of the
open society passed away. He explains this personal transformation in
two ways: First, what he experienced during his visit to the United States
shortly after the Second World War. Second, what the Americans had
done through their active intervention to bring the Second World War
to an end. Popper was also undoubtedly aware of US President Franklin
Roosevelt proposing and advocating the establishment of the UN
Document on Human Rights, made possible by American intervention
and commitment to world peace. On the basis of these experiences and
reflections, Popper wrote about what impressed him most about the citi-
zens of the US as an open society focusing their care and compassion:
It is their unwillingness to sit back, and leave the entire responsibility

for ruling the world to human or superhuman authority, and their
readiness to share the burden of responsibility for avoidable suffering,
and to work for its avoidance.64
The United States has indeed continued to carry out this humanitarian
mission since Popper’s visit in 1950, in spite of the inherent risks to its
own military and financial resources. In recent years the US has inter-
vened in such places as Kuwait to reverse a hostile take-over by the army
of Saddam Hussein of Iraq with the support of the UN and allied forces.
The US also was in Somalia to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian
aid at the request of the UN. The US also led allied forces to Kosovo to
end the civil wars and the massacre of thousands of Albanians. Other
humanitarian missions include tsunami relief, earthquake relief, civil
war, famine and flood relief in several places, including South Asia, Haiti,
the Philippines, South Sudan and Syria. Even when attacking terrorists
in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Northern Syria and the so-called Islamic State
created by ISIS/ISUS, the US simultaneously deliver humanitarian assist-
ance to innocent citizens and victims of the terrorist wars.
With the voluntary collaboration or cooperation of nearly 50 coun-
tries, including five from the Middle East, the US is currently in mission
again to the Middle East. This time, their mission is to help stop the
most ferocious terrorist group on Earth, who pride themselves over
public beheadings of Western journalists and the public humiliation
and massacre of male Moslems who don’t share their radical ideas, while
they enslave and rape their victim’s wives, children and mothers, and
182 Joseph Osei
persecute Christian and Islamic minorities just because they don’t share
their extremist views. As if that is not enough, ISIS also threatens to
continue fighting until they conquer the whole world and turn it into a
utopia they call the Islamic Caliphate.65
In spite of the economic hardship caused by the two wars under
Presidents G.W. Bush and Obama, the US has managed to continue
America’s humanitarian missions abroad outside the Middle East. For
example, several millions of dollars were raised to alleviate poverty and
the spread of AIDS and to deliver anti-malaria mosquito nets in Africa.
Victims of the South-East Asian Tsunami also benefited from American
generosity, led by two former presidents, George Bush (senior) and Bill
Clinton. The current president Obama has also continued to support
such humanitarian efforts in spite of the extreme economic recession
he inherited from the Bush era. One clear example is the dispatch of US
medical experts in virology to intervene in the ebola crisis in West Africa
and thousands of military personnel to construct temporary medical
facilities for actual and potential victims and thereby stop the threat of
the globalization of ebola.66
From these examples, it must be evident that Popper would not only
appreciate Care Ethics but would also oppose the tendency among
some Western countries, economists, policy-makers and philosophers
to marginalize certain poor countries of Africa and the Third World
on the grounds that they are of no strategic interest to their respec-
tive advanced countries. Popper would rather support those who recom-
mend humanitarian aid, and especially development aid since it will
not only help them to survive crisis moments, but will facilitate their
transition from closed societies to open and self-dependent societies in
which people can enjoy some of the material benefits associated with
freedom and justice.
Popper on violence and tolerance
Two ethical issues are worth discussing before ending this chapter on
Popper’s ethics: 1) His attitude towards violence and the belief among
some of his critics that he was a pacifist; 2) His response to the Paradox
of Tolerating the Intolerant.
In discussing these two issues I hope to show that the mature Popper
was not a pacifist and would not hesitate to support the ongoing
bombardment of ISIS in Iraq by Britain, the US and many other Western
and Arab nations to counter the violence and brutality of ISIS forces in
the Middle East.67
Popper on violence
The spirit of Hitlerism won its greatest victory over us when, after its
defeat, we used the weapons which the threat of Nazism had induced us
to develop. Addressing the Institute of Arts in Brussels, Belgium in 1947,
Popper declared:
Not only do I hate violence, but I firmly believe that the fight against
it is not hopeless ... . I do not overlook the fact that the new age of
violence which was opened by the two World wars is by no means at
an end.68
One might think that Popper was addressing the brutality of ISIS on
display in the Middle East at the moment. No. He was reflecting on a
similar display of brutalities unleashed by Nazism and Fascism on fellow
Europeans. His concern in the postwar era was that we might wrongly
assume that violence had been defeated with the defeat of Nazism and
Fascism. “Their defeat does not mean that barbarism and brutality have
been defeated.”69 Popper stressed that it would be a mistake to assume
that violence has been thoroughly beaten and would not matter in the
future. Thinking about the long-term consequences of the violence
displayed in the war, he worried that there would be more violence in
the world in the future considering the monstrous harm Nazism and
Fascism had done to the dignity of the human person: something like a
victory in defeat:
I have to admit that Hitler succeeded in degrading the moral stand-

ards of our Western world, and that in the world of today there is
more violence and brutal force than would have been tolerated even
in the decade after the first World war.70
Popper was deeply concerned by the possibility of a nuclear war in the

postwar decades and that our civilization may ultimately be destroyed by
those new weapons which Hitlerism made it necessary for us to acquire.
Hitler had lost the war, but he admitted, “the spirit of Hitlerism won
its greatest victory over us when, after its defeat, we used the weapons
which the threat of Nazism had induced us to develop.”71
Like Bertrand Russell he was opposed to the arms race between the US
and Russia in the postwar decades. That however does not imply that
Popper was a pacifist like Russell. Although he states in his own biog-
raphy that as a youth he was a pacifist and he joined the Communist
party because he was made to believe that the Party was pacifist, he left it
184 Joseph Osei
shortly after witnessing the brutality of communists towards their oppo-

nents, as well as those they suspected of undermining their ideology or
revolution. The mature Popper was, therefore, opposed to violence in
general but was careful to not to slip into pacifism at the other extreme,
given the level of brutality and the weapons of mass destruction Hitler
had caused both the West and the East to develop. This explains why he
stated in the Address “Not only do I hate violence, but I firmly believe
that the fight against it is not hopeless.”72 The fight against violence,
he had to admit, could not necessarily be won by non-lethal means like
diplomacy, education, commerce, mutual respect and so on, but some-
times only by war in order to prevent a worst-case scenario. His attitude
toward violence is also made clear in the next section.
Popper and the paradox of toleration

One of the unresolved issues in postmodernist ethics is the paradox of
toleration. Postmodernist ethical principles of Inclusivity/Universality
as well as Human Rights, Social Justice, and Care Ethics require that
society tolerates all of its members. But then how do you deal with those
like ISIS and similar extremist Islamist terrorists roaring like lions in the
deserts of the Middle East? They refuse to tolerate people who don’t
share their extremist religious and political beliefs or ideological agenda
and are publicly decapitating innocent people, executing their captives
while raping their women. Notwithstanding these monstrous evils,
they are planning to cause more mayhem than the atrocities of Sept
11, 2001. This is the problem known in philosophy as “The Paradox of
Toleration.”
Many philosophers over the centuries have analyzed the paradox but
few have ever attempted to propose a solution; Popper is among the few
who have. Notwithstanding his status and philosophical orientation as
a liberal, a humanitarian, and a first-rate advocate and defender of toler-
ation, Popper held “Intolerance should not be tolerated.” If we allowed
intolerance (such as the monstrous evils associated with ISIS and their
ambition to transform the whole world into an Islamic caliphate) to
succeed completely, he argued, tolerance itself as a liberal ideal would
be threatened or completely destroyed. Unlimited tolerance must lead
to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even
to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant
society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be
destroyed, and tolerance with them. Popper explained that he does not
imply by this argument that, for example, we should always suppress
the utterance of intolerant philosophies. If we can counter their unusual
opinions by rational argument and keep them in check by public

opinion, resorting to mental suppression nor brute force would neither
be wise nor just.
Popper also maintained that members of open societies should claim
the right to suppress such people if necessary even by force because it
may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of
rational argument. On the contrary, they might begin by denouncing all
arguments and forbid their followers to listen to any rational argument
by claiming that such rational arguments are “deceptive,” and teach or
order them to answer the rational arguments “by the use of their fists or
pistols.” His philosophical counsel under such circumstances is:
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not

to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement
preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should
consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in
the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to
kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.73
Popper, as a British philosopher, would most likely be proud that the

British parliament voted 154 to 39 on September 27, 2014, in favor of
allowing British planes to participate in the Air Strikes against ISIS posi-
tions and assets in Iraq (though not in Syria) in collaboration with the
US, France, Saudi Arabia and many other Arab countries. For these allied
forces and their respective governments ISIS represents an intolerant and
intolerable group of people whose views and actions are logically and
morally antithetical to the values of open and democratic societies.
Conclusion
The objective in this chapter has been to argue that, while Popper
did not deliberately aim at constructing a moral theory, one can be
constructed on the bases of his theories and principles from his social
and political philosophy and indirectly from his theories in episte-
mology, science, and so on. By identifying and bringing together
Popper’s principles, that satisfy all the necessary and sufficient
conditions for constructing a moral theory – principle(s) for moral
objectivity, moral guidance, and moral motivation and transforma-
tion – it has been demonstrated that part of his philosophical ideas or
worldview constitute a moral theory. It has also been shown that his
moral theory is postmodernist in orientation by identifying the key
186 Joseph Osei
postmodernist principles within his worldview: The Transformative

Principle, The Inclusivity/Universality Principle, and The Feminist
Care Ethics Principle, as well as their actual or hypothetical applica-
tions to moral issues at the personal, national and global levels. What
name? How about “A Popperian Postmodernist Theory of Right and
Wrong,” or in short, “Popperianism?”
In the spirit of Popper, however, the Popperian moral theory should
not be considered a final product but only a tentative solution to the
problem posed in the introduction of this chapter: Whether Popper’s
philosophy makes any significant contribution to postmodernist ethics
or not. Hence, readers are welcomed to critique and to contribute
their own ideas for improving and or evolving Popper’s moral theory,
and especially in making it thoroughly postmodern and effective for
decision-making and for personal, communal, national, or global
transformations.
Notes
1. Karl R. Popper (1950), The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. I & II (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 570–571.
2. See endnote 4 below.
3. See Donald Campbell (1974), “Evolutionary Epistemology,” in P. A. Schilpp
(ed.), The Philosophy of Karl R. Popper (LaSalle, IL. Open Court), pp. 412–463.
4. www.encyclopediabritannica. Accessed December 03, 2014.
5. Karl R. Popper (1972), Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Oxford:
Oxford University Press).
6. Karl R. Popper (2001), All Life is Problem Solving (London: Routledge).
7. Karl R. Popper, All Life is Problem Solving.
8. Deconstructionists in this context refers to philosophical and literary scholars
engaged in “a form of philosophical and literary analysis,” derived mainly
from work begun in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida,
that questions the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,”
in Western philosophy through a close examination of the language and
logic NOT NECESSARY. SIMPLY UNBOLD THE WORDS of philosophical and
literary texts. www.encyclopediabritannica.
9. Robert C. Mortimer (1950), Christian Ethics (Hutchinson’s University
Library).
10. Karl R. Popper (1995), In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from
Thirty Years (London: Routledge).
11. Karl R. Popper, In Search of a Better World.
12. William Gorton, Karl Popper, “Political Philosophy,” Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy: A Peer Reviewed Academic Source. Accessed August 24, 2014. http://
www.iep.utm.edu/popp-pol/
13. Karl R. Popper (1963), Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge),
p. 361.
14. Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies I, pp. 570–571
15. Jamie Mayerfeld (1999), Suffering and Moral Responsibility (New York: Oxford
16. Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 346, 361.
17. Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies II, p. 237.
18. Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 362.
19. Ross, D. (2006), 1,001 Pearls of Wisdom (San Francisco: Chronicle Books).
20. Karl R. Popper (1976), Unended Quest; An Intellectual Autobiography (Illinois:
Open Court Books). Karl Popper, In Search of a Better World.
21. Karl R. Popper Open Society Vol. 1, p. 285.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Donald Campbell, “Evolutionary Epistemology.”
25. Karl R. Popper, Open Society Vol. 1, p. 186.
26. Ibid., pp. 185–186.
27. Ibid., p. 186.
28. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed December 08, 14, http://
plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/
29. J. Osei (2002), “Karl Popper’s Proposed Solution to the Freewill-Determinism
Paradox: Freewill or Compatibilism?” Thinking About Religion 8 (2).
30. J. Osei (1994), “Plato’s Theory of Change: A Popperian Reconstruction and
Its Significance for Traditional and Emerging Democracies,” The International
Journal of Applied Philosophy 8 (2).
31. Karl R. Popper (1990), A World of Propensities: The Lesson of this Century
(Interviewer: Giancarlo Bosetti, English translation: Patrick Camiller).
32. J. Rawls (2001), Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (New York: Oxford University
Press).
34. Ibid., p. 186.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., p. 90.
37. Aristotle’s theory of slavery is found in book I, chapters III through VII of the
Politics and in book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics.
38. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.
39. Karl R. Popper Open Society Vol. 1, VIII.
40. Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 153–190.
41. Ibid., Vol. 1, Intro.
42. See Karl R. Popper, All Life is Problem Solving.
43. Karl R. Popper, Preface to 2nd edition of Open Society Vol. 1, p. ix.
44. Ibid.
45. Karl R. Popper (1947), “Utopia and Violence,” Hibbert Journal 46,
pp. 109–116.
46. D. D. Raphael (1970), The Problems of Political Philosophy (London: Macmillan),
p. 150.
47. M. Luther King Jr. (1991) “The Challenge of a New Age,” The Essential
Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., James M. Washington (ed.)
(San Francisco: Harper), p. 140.
48. Karl R. Popper, Preface to 2nd edition of Open Society Vol. 1, p. vii.
49. Ibid.
188 Joseph Osei
50. Karl R. Popper, Open Society Vol. 1, p. 1.

51. D. Benjamin (2014), “Threat Assessment as the Fight Moves to Syria, Jihadist
should be confronted, not feared,” Time Magazine, October 5, p. 16.
52. See Tsenay Serequeberhan (1991), African Philosophy: The Essential Readings
(New York: Paragon), pp. 5–6.
53. G. W. F. Hegel (1968), Lectures on the History of Philosophy (London, 1968),
p. 3. Also in George James (1954), The Stolen Legacy (New York), p. 43.
55. Ibid., p. 186.
56. Ibid., p. 189.
57. Ibid., p. 184.
58. Maureen Sander-Staud, “Care Ethics,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Accessed September 28, 2014. http://www.iep.utm.edu/care-ethics/.
59. V. Held (2006), The Ethics of Care as Moral Theory, Introducing Ethics: A Critical
Thinking Approach (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 351–364.
60. Kurt A. Baier (1987), “Hume: The Woman’s Moral Theorist?” in Women and
Moral Theory, Kittay, Eva Feder, & Meyers, Diana (eds) (USA.: Rowman &
Littlefield).
61. Kurt A. Baier (1987), “Hume: The Woman’s Moral Theorist?” pp. 185–186.
62. Karl R. Popper, Open Society Vol. 1. See also Onora O’Neil (1993), “Ending
World Hunger,” in Tom Regan (ed.), Matters of Life and Death, 3rd edition
(New York: McGraw Hill).
63. V. Held, The Ethics of Care as Moral Theory, p, 360.
64. Karl R. Popper, Open Society Vol. 1.
65. Michael Crowley (2014), Baghdad: The Never-Ending War. Time, pp. 32–35,
September 22.
66. Times, October 20, 2014, pp. 32–34.
67. CNN Report of British Parliament Vote 10/06/2014.
68. Karl R. Popper, Utopia and Violence; and in Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and
Refutations.
69. Karl R. Popper, Utopia and Violence.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.

10
Open Standard, Open Judgment
and Value Revision in Karl Popper’s
Moral Philosophy
Peter A. Ikhane
Introduction
In this chapter, I attempt to extract an ethics of the self from the philos-
ophy of Karl Popper in the light of the ethics of subjectivity. For clarity,
a subjectivist ethics may be viewed as implying that the standards for
acting as well as judging actions are those of the individual. This may be
taken to be informed by the understanding that while, on the one hand,
ethics has to do with the moral evaluation of character and conduct,1
on the other, by “subjectivity,” reference is made to the condition of
the self’s possession of perspectives, experiences, feelings, desires – all of
which influence and inform the self’s action as well as judgments about
reality. As such, subjectivity presupposes a subject, one that experiences
all the phenomena that makes up and produces the self.2 Given the
foregoing understanding, my attempt of a construction Popper’s moral
philosophy is built on the foundation of his idea of critical rationalism,
which finds expression in his ideas of open society, anti-historicism
and falsificationism. To be sure, these ideas also form the basis of his
discourse on knowledge.
Suggestive of Popper’s moral disposition is what he referred to as “The
Myth of the Framework,” where he argues that the idea that a shared
frame of reference is needed for any fruitful dialogue is misconstrued as
it also fosters the belief that when there are no such frames of reference,
people may resort to violence.3 In the light of such disposition and the
ideas contained in his ideas of open society, anti-historicism and falsi-
fication – as well as that knowledge is conjectural – this chapter reads
Popper’s moral philosophy as suggestive of an ethics of open standard,
open judgment and value revision. This is seen for instance in his
perspective of history. Popper regards human history as a single unique
189
190 Peter A. Ikhane
event; and that knowledge of the past does not necessarily help provide
knowledge of the future. Indeed, for Popper, “The evolution of life on
earth, or of human society, is a unique historical process ... Its descrip-
tion, however, is not a law, but only a singular historical statement.”4
Thus, though the study of history may reveal trends, there is no guar-
antee that these trends will continue. In other words, they are not laws;
“a statement asserting the existence of a trend at a certain time and
place would be a singular historical statement and not a universal law.”5
As a result of this, Popper may be seen to have censured the idea that
fruitful dialogue is only possible where there are shared assumptions or
universal principles.
In this chapter, I begin by examining the basis on which a Popperian
theory of ethics can be developed. I then explain what such an ethics
will consist of, while pointing out its features of subjectivity. I conclude
by highlighting why Popper’s ethics remains true to the basic tenets of
(post)modernism.
Motivations for Popper’s moral philosophy
An interesting point to begin with is to state what is here considered

the motivations of Popper’s moral philosophy, which include the ideas
of: open society, anti-historicism and knowledge as conjectural. To be
sure, these ideas could be interpreted to have crystallized into his critical
rationalism.6 That is, they could be said to have precipitated into his crit-
ical rationalist attitude regarding the claims we make as well the conse-
quences or implications of such claims. Indeed, critical rationalism is
the name Popper gave to a modest and self-critical rationalist attitude in
contrast to the rationalist view that only what could be proved by reason
and/or experience is acceptable. Popper views the rationalist attitude as
inconsistent as it does not explain how “proof” is possible on the same
grounds that it views what it takes to be rational. In this vein, Popper
noted that the fundamental rationalist attitude results in “an irrational
faith in reason.” Popper so described this attitude because he strongly held
that neither logical argument nor experience can establish the rationalist
attitude. In any case, he shares the rationalists’ belief that reason is the
surest human authority; what he does not share with them is the hope
that reason can attain to indubitable truth. This is because, for him, truth
is beyond the ability of reason to grasp much as it is beyond human
authority. Consequently, as a rationalist of some sort, Popper avers that
reason is not employed in the attempt to justify claims so as to establish
them as indubitable truths; reason should rather be employed to cast a
Open Standard, Open Judgment and Value Revision 191
critical look on the claims we make so as to identify and eliminate, as

much as possible, errors which intrinsically characterize such claims.7
As an idea that depicts an attitude, open society indicates the freedom
of the critical powers of the modern mind, through which individuals
are able to engage the burden of decision-making on the grounds that
there are no certain and absolute claims. This represents a step away
from the tribal or “closed society,” which depicts an attitude that there
are certain and absolute claims, and as such, the attempted imposition
of a single version of reality. For Popper, the concept underscores the
notion that knowledge is provisional and fallible, implying that we
must be open to alternative points of view. The notion of open society,
in this sense, is associated with some sort of pluralism, indicating readi-
ness to make improvement since human knowledge is understood as
never being complete, but always ongoing, needing revision and refor-
mulation. It may thus be said that for Popper, open society could be
identified with a critical frame of mind of the modern subject, in the
face of communal group thinking.8
Another aspect of Popper’s philosophy that is suggestive of his moral
philosophy stems from his affirmation that “there is no historical law of
progress” as well as that “we do not know what tomorrow will be like.”9
This forms the basis of his criticism of historicism, as presented in The
Open Society and Its Enemies and The Poverty of Historicism. Popper defines
historicism as “an approach to the social sciences which assumes that
historical prediction is their principal aim ... ,” and that “it is the task of
the social sciences to lay bare the law of evolution of society in order to
foretell its future.”10 In The Poverty of Historicism, for instance, Popper
claims that the observation of one unique process cannot help us foresee
and affirm the future development of similar processes. Indeed, Popper
notes that the most careful observation of one developing caterpillar
will not help us to predict its transformation into a butterfly. As applied
to the history of human society,
There are, indeed, countless possible conditions in our search for the
true conditions of a trend, we have all the time to try and imagine
conditions under which the trend in question would disappear. But
this is just what the historicist cannot do. He firmly believes in his
favorite trend, and conditions under which it would disappear are to
him unthinkable.11
And so, for Popper, the poverty of historicism is, simply put, a poverty
of imagination. That is, though the historicist continues to reproach
192 Peter A. Ikhane
those who cannot imagine a change in their worlds, it appears that he

cannot imagine a change in the conditions of change.12 Indeed, Popper
asserts that:
There are billions of possibilities, good and bad, that no one can
foresee. I reject the prophetic goal-setting of the three interpreta-
tions of history, and I maintain that on moral grounds we should
not put anything in their place. It is wrong even to try to extrapolate
from history – for example, by inferring from present trends what
will happen tomorrow. To see history as an at least partly predictable
current is to build a theory out of an image or metaphor. The only
right way to proceed is to consider the past as completely different
from the future. We should judge past facts historically and morally,
in order to learn what is possible and what is morally right. We should
not try at all to derive trends and directions from the past in order to
make predictions about the future. For the future is open. Anything
can happen.13
In the light of the foregoing, two points become clear: moral conditions,
and by extension moral principles and codes, are not fixed; and experi-
ence may only provide us with a record of facts (what actually was the
case) and not with trends or directions so as to predict the future.
Another aspect to be considered for a construction of Popper’s moral
philosophy is his idea of knowledge as conjectural. In his analysis of
the nature of knowledge,14 Popper affirmed that all knowledge is hypo-
thetical (conjectural) and though it may survive empirical tests, it can
never be positively justified; it cannot be established as certainly true.15
In The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he writes:
Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The sole structure of its
theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected
on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but
not down to any natural or “given base,” and if we stop driving the
piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply
stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the
structure, at least for the time being.16
The above constitutes a fundamental aspect of Popper’s epistemolog-

ical program, which has been described as one that embraces an anti-
justificatory stance towards knowledge. Indeed, Popper’s epistemology
does not so much stress the fact that we can never positively justify our
knowledge claims as it denies that justification is a property of knowl-

edge; the latter, however, being a consequence of the former. In effect,
Popper held that knowledge claims need not be justified (in an attempt
to get nearer the truth), but should only be subjected to criticism, testing
and evaluation, since “the quest of certainty (or even the quest for high
probability) is a mistaken quest.”17 In effect, by denying justification
a privileged place in knowledge claims, Popper entirely reconceptual-
ized the very notion of knowledge, with special reference to its under-
standing in traditional epistemology.18 He thus exposes the errors of
any attempt at providing foundations for our knowledge and describes
science as empirical, not inductive, testable but never certain.19 For
Popper then, there is no such notion of knowledge as “justified true
belief.” Rather, knowledge possesses a nature that for propositional
claims to be considered “knowledge” they have to be refutable.20 Thus,
objectivity and rationality may be predicated of knowledge, not because
we have justified it, but because they have been subjected to rational
criticisms and have been found to suffice for the time being.21 To that
extent, the epistemic agent is advised against resting on his laurels:
against accepting any theory as final, as well as subjecting even the
clearest and best understood of his conjectures to rigorous testing. In
the light of the above, the most important function of observation and
reasoning, and even of intuition and imagination, for Popper, is to help
in the critical examination of the conjectures, which are the means by
which we probe into the unknown. This finds emphatic expression in
Popper’s view that the enterprise of science is guided by the method
of falsification. In this vein, and regarding the view that science is the
most reliable paradigm of rationality, founded on the belief that science,
which is programmatic, has a method, and that progress in science is
due to this method, Popper held that, though science is in pursuit of
truth, statements about the world are but approximations and never
certain. As such, while scientific progress is viewed (by the positivists,
especially) as the accumulation, confirmation and verification of facts,
Popper avers that science progresses by conjectures, refutations and
falsification. In fact, as a response to the question of how hypotheses,
theories and generalizations are formed in science, Popper says that “the
actual procedure of science is to operate with conjectures.”22
Popper’s theory of falsification, which is an alternative to the positivist
view of science, may be taken to be composed of two separate theses: one
on demarcation (of science from non-science) and the other on meth-
odology (of how science should be practiced). The demarcation thesis,
on the one hand, requires that for a theory to be “scientific,” it must
194 Peter A. Ikhane
be at least potentially falsifiable by empirical observation; that is, there

must, at least, be one basic empirical statement that is in conflict with
the theory. The methodology thesis, on the other, requires the practical
(not just logical) falsifiability of scientific theories.23 And so, while the
demarcation criterion only requires that it be logically possible to falsify
the theory, the methodological criterion requires that the theory be
actually falsified. Employing this, Popper challenged the sustainability
and acceptability of positivist epistemology. In this regard, he opined
that knowledge (scientific knowledge) begins when the epistemic agent
is confronted with an epistemic puzzle about the world or aspects of the
world, and boldly attempts to resolve it by the formulation of conjec-
tures or hypothesis as tentative solutions to the problem. These conjec-
tures are represented in statements that approximate the truth about the
world or aspects of the world; and when fully “developed,” these conjec-
tures have predictive implications which can be subjected to severe tests.
This is what happens when, after hypotheses are formulated to entail
testable propositions, observation and experiments are carried out in
attempt to refute such hypotheses or conjectures. As such, for Popper,
“repeated observations serve as tests of our conjectures or hypotheses,
i.e. as attempted refutations.”24 It is in this regard that Popper challenged
the more popular (positivist) view regarding the testing of hypotheses,
where testing is understood to be aimed at confirming hypotheses. In
difference, Popper opines that the aim of testing a hypothesis is falsifica-
tion or refutation and not confirmation. Thus, a statement is scientific if
it is either falsified or falsifiable. This method, as it were, was suggested
by Popper as an alternative to the “verifiability” criterion of the early
Logical positivists.
From the foregoing, it could be stated that the falsificationist method-
ology proceeds with the scientist beginning with a problem or situation
that requires scientific explanation, and then proposes a bold conjec-
ture which might offer a solution to the problem. Next, the conjec-
ture is severely tested by comparing its consequences with the relevant
empirical data. The final step in the falsificationist program depends on
how the theory has performed during testing. If the implications of the
theory are not consistent with the evidence, the conjecture is falsified
and is replaced by a new conjecture which is not to be considered ad hoc
to the previous one; that is, the new conjecture should not be contrived
solely to avoid the empirical anomaly of the previous one, but should
be an independent attempt to deal with the problem. If, however, the
conjecture is not falsified by the test, it is considered corroborated and
accepted provisionally. This is based on the fact that, given Popper’s
fallibilism, the acceptance of such conjecture is provisional forever; for

falsificationism, the method does not necessarily result in true (scien-
tific) theories, only ones that have faced a tough empirical opponent
and won.25 To this end, conjectures and refutations, formulated with
the careful aim of error elimination, are the processes that the epistemic
agent employs in his or her attempt at acquiring knowledge. From the
above, it may be understood that the growth of knowledge refers to a
tentative success of conjectures that allows us deal with problems, at
least, for the time being. “Growth,” understood here, results from the
interplay of conjecturing, testing and attempted falsification of conjec-
tures. As such, we talk of the increasing content of conjectures by refer-
ence to previous conjectures.
For Popper, if the growth of knowledge is interpreted as stating that
we operate with theories of increasing content, he concludes that it
also means that we operate with theories of decreasing probability (or
increasing improbability). To be sure, Popper’s claim that genuine scien-
tific hypotheses and theories are powerful but improbable follows from
his doctrine that the empirical content of a statement is proportionate
to its degree of falsifiability. That is, the more a statement asserts the
greater chances it has of being falsified. “Thus, if our aim is the advance-
ment of knowledge, then a high probability ... cannot possibly be our
aim as well.”26 Understood thus, and given that low probability equals
a high degree of falsifiability, the aim of science equals a high degree
of falsifiability or a high informative content.27 The point here is that
Popper identifies a relationship between advancement of knowledge
and high degree of falsifiability of our knowledge claims. Hence, theo-
ries which possess greater falsifiability as a result of a higher informative
content are good harbingers of growth or advancement in knowledge.
Essentials of Popper’s moral philosophy
It is pertinent to note at this point that Popper’s epistemology is, perhaps,

not solely built on the idea that there is/are no confirmatory reason(s)
that can certainly justify our theories. In a sense, this clearly bespeaks
of fallibilism, since it asserts that no matter the cogency or force of
argument in favor of our beliefs, our epistemic claims cannot be said
to be final as regards their veracity. His epistemology also results from
the view that we never get beyond conjectures – except, perhaps, with
trivialities – as knowledge involves the search for truth, and only abso-
lute certainty would mean knowledge.28 Put differently, though Popper
sometimes admits that it is perfectly possible that many of our theories
196 Peter A. Ikhane
are, in fact, true, he avers that we can never know this for certain. This
is because there is no criterion for truth: even when we have reached
truth, we can never be certain of it. And so, there are no such moments
of certainty; rather, uncertainty clings to all assertions, even to asser-
tions based upon observation.29 Indeed, Popper claims that “Clarity
and distinctness are not criteria of truth, but such things as obscurity
or confusion may indicate error. Similarity, coherence cannot establish
truth, but incoherence and inconsistence do establish falsehood.”30 This
represents what has been described as Popper’s verisimilitude thesis.
In extending Popper’s thesis on knowledge – occasioned by the ideas
of open society, anti-historicism and knowledge as conjectural, as
well as falsificationism – to moral theorizing, it could be inferred that
Popper’s thesis indicates a moral philosophy of open standards about
moral principles and rules for action and value judgment. In apposition
to this is the assertion that, for Popper, “there are no ultimate sources
of knowledge. Every source, every suggestion, is welcomed; and every
source, every suggestion, is open to critical examination.”31 This makes
evident an attitude of “no finality” about our claims; an attitude that
suggests that moral standards, understood and attainable as universally
applicable, is a philosophical fairy tale.
Furthermore, though Popper admits that the search for truth is at the
heart of philosophy and the scientific enterprise and that we may never
arrive at truth, he nonetheless admonishes that we continuously aim
at truth, because it is such aim that sets the purpose of our inquiry.
Interesting to note here is that the history of science and philosophy
supports Popper’s position – that we may never get at truth. In fact, the
history of ideas appears to constitute a succession of falsified theories,
where even the best corroborated theories have been replaced by others.
This may be interpreted to mean that the possibility of erring is a human
possibility and must not be discounted. Popper captured this in stating
“that to err is human” and that though we must constantly struggle
against error, we must note that even when we have taken the greatest
care, we cannot be completely certain that we have not made mistakes.32
In the light of this, Popper talks of “a new (professional) ethics,” by
which he suggests that though it is our duty to avoid mistakes when-
ever possible, it remains impossible to avoid all mistakes. The implica-
tion of this for Popper’s moral philosophy is that an insistence upon a
standard for judgments that is devoid of mistaken assumptions, would
be irrational as it clouts a reckless adherence to that “which we miss by
a wide margin.” Indeed, Popper’s moral philosophy represents a state-
ment about the impossibility of ever arriving at any moral standard for
accessing moral actions, and by extension, a disavowal that we can posit

universally true and value moral judgments that are incorrigible. Thus,
the distinguishing feature of Popper’s moral philosophy is openness to
criticism and falsification, rather than justification and verification of
moral standards and value judgments. Understood thus, the community
of men should be taken as an “open society” where ideas and theo-
ries, moral principles and rules for action, are freely proposed and are
freely criticized. This is because, as Popper noted, “all are seekers after
the truth and all recognize the extent of their ignorance and the uncer-
tainty of their knowledge.”33 It is important that the moral agent does
not consider this an unfortunate loss, one that breeds nihilism, hope-
lessness, and reckless subjectivism or relativism, about moral actions.
Rather, Popper’s moral project promotes an “abundance of being” built
on his advocacy for a “society” founded and fostered on the respect
and appreciation of the subjective experiences of selfs. As such, Popper
believed that only a philosophy, and by extension, a moral philosophy
that advocates a welcoming of the positions and suggestions of selfs to
the theater of (intersubjective) critical discussions that can enrich our
human condition.
In the light of the above stated moral attitude, Popper may be seen to
recommend that we engage in self-criticism as well as critical discussions
with others as we seek to revise our proposals and guides for action.
Popper’s recommendation stems from his belief that as long as we are
fallible beings we should be willing to learn from others; learn from
them not simply by accepting their opinions, but allowing them to criti-
cize our ideas and proposals and by criticizing theirs. This makes for the
belief that there is no one who has the monopoly of true and right judg-
ment. This portrays Popper’s awareness that criticism can help us sieve
errors from our ideas and proposals, and that the rejection or accept-
ance of an idea can never be a purely rational matter. As such, only
critical discussions can help us see an idea from the many sides to such
ideas and proposals and to judge them fairly.34 This becomes a necessary
aspect of our pursuit of truth as such efforts at reticence help us elimi-
nate as much as possible, those mistakes or errors that render shaky the
base on which our judgments rest.
Conclusion
The core features of Popper’s philosophy necessary to understanding his

moral philosophy, as pointed out in this chapter, include that knowl-
edge is not a form of justified belief, but conjectures that are provisional
198 Peter A. Ikhane
due to their having been falsified or their being falsifiable. That is, it may
be said that a central aspect of Popper’s philosophy is the intrinsically
fallible character of human knowledge. This feature, together with his
ideas of open society, anti-historicism and his theory of falsification,
forms the basis of what is presented in this chapter as Popper’s moral
philosophy of open standards. That is, as construed from his philosophy
of critical rationalism, expressed in the ideas of open society, anti-his-
toricism and knowledge as conjectural, and by extension, his theory of
falsification, Popper’s moral philosophy is one that breeds open stand-
ards about value judgment, and hence a constant revision of such judg-
ments and guides for action.
A further consideration, in this regard, is that since Popper views a
description of the whole of society as impossible because the list of char-
acteristics making up such a description would be infinite, it may be said
that a determination of a moral standard that would be universal for
such society portends an impossibility. This is probably because, “If we
wish to study a thing, we are bound to select certain aspects of it. It is not
possible for us to observe or to describe a whole piece of the world, or a
whole piece of nature; in fact, not even the smallest whole piece may be
so described, since all description is necessarily selective.”35 In the light
of this, individual human actions or reactions can never be predicted
with certainty; and neither can the future. As it were, the human factor
remains ultimately uncertain and an errant element in social life as well
as in all social institutions. Indeed, this is the element that ultimately
cannot be completely controlled by institutions; for every attempt at
controlling it completely leads to tyranny – the whims of a few men
over others.36
The foregoing represents aspects of Popper’s philosophy for which it
has come to be described as characteristically of the postmodern. To be
sure, the postmodern orientation is such that there is an appreciation
of the plasticity and constant change of reality, a stress on the purity of
concrete experience over fixed abstract principles as well as a conviction
that no single thought system should govern belief or investigation.37
It is a condition that recognizes that human knowledge is subjectively
determined by a multitude of factors; that objective essences, or things-
in-themselves, are neither accessible nor positable; and that the value
of all truths and assumptions must be continually subjected to direct
testing. Indeed, the critical search for truth is constrained to be tolerant
of ambiguity and pluralism, and its outcome will necessarily be knowl-
edge that is relative and fallible, rather than absolute and certain. And so,
the quest for knowledge must endlessly be self-revising. We must try new
ideas, learn from our mistakes, take nothing for granted, treat all claims
as provisional and assume no absolutes. Indeed, “reality is not a solid,
self-contained given but a fluid, unfolding process, an ‘open universe,’
continually affected and molded by one’s actions and belief.”38
Notes
1. Cf. Thomas Nagel (2006), “Ethics,” in Donald M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, 2nd edition, Vol. 3 (Detroit: Thomson Gale), p. 379.
2. Cf. Robert C. Solomon (2005), “Subjectivity,” in Ted Honderich (ed.), Oxford
Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 900.
3. Cf. Karl Popper (1994), “The Myth of the Framework,” in Karl Popper (ed.),
The Myth of the Framework: In Deference of Science and Rationality (London:
Routledge), p. 35.
4. Karl Popper (1957), The Poverty of Historicism, 2nd edition (London:
Routledge), p. 108.
5. Ibid., p. 115.
6. Popper’s work easily identified with this idea include; Un-ended Quest: An
Intellectual Autobiography (London: Fontana/Collins, 1976); Conjectures and
Refutations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969). The concept “critical
rationalism” is born out of the ideas in Popper’s program, represented in
the notions of “critical” and “rational” manifesting in the ideas of refuta-
tions and conjectures respectively. Put differently, the notion of conjecture,
mental constructs, belong to the faculty of the intellect, and therefore, of the
rational, whereas the notion of “critical” aligns with the notion of refutation.
Thus, “critical rationalism” translates into conjectures and refutations. It is,
however, pertinent to note that the essential difference of critical rationalism
from the rationalism of the Enlightenment is that it strongly restricts our
claims to knowledge. This means that one does not assume that at the basis
of our investigations there must be something absolutely certain; rather, one
admits that knowledge proceeds by trials, guesses, and hypothetical mental
constructs which are subject to criticism.
7. Cf. Karl Popper (1969), Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul), p. 120.
8. Cf. I. C. Jarvie et al. (eds) (1999), Popper’s Open Society after Fifty Years,
pp. 43–46.
9. Karl Popper (1999), “Against the Cynical Interpretation of History,” in Karl
Popper (ed.), All Life is Problem Solving, trans. Patrick Camiller (London:
Routledge), p. 111.
10. Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 2nd edition, pp. 105–106.
11. Ibid., p. 129.
12. Ibid., p. 129.
13. Karl Popper, All Life is Problem Solving, trans. Patrick Camiller, p. 111.
14. It is important to note that Popper was very much interested in knowledge
in science. And since knowledge is often considered the most reliable form of
knowledge, Popper’s thesis about knowledge may be extended to other forms
of knowledge.
15. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 224.
200 Peter A. Ikhane
16. Karl Popper (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson &
Co.), p. 111.
17. Karl Popper (1966), The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vols. 1 & 2 (London:
Routledge), p. 375.
18. Stefano Gattei (2009), Karl Popper’s Philosophy of Science: Rationality without
foundations (New York: Routledge), p. 1.
19. Ibid., p. 2.
20. Karl Popper (1966), The Open Society and Its Enemies, p. 13.
21. M. A. Notturno (2000), Science and the Open Society: The Future of Karl Popper’s
Philosophy (Budapest: Central European University Press), pp. 54–55.
22. K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 53.
23. Cf. D. Wade Hands (2007), “Popper and Lakatos in Economic Methodology,”
in Daniel M. Hausman (ed.), The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology, 3rd
edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 190.
24. K. R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, p. 53.
25. Cf. Uskali Mäki (1993), Rationality, Institutions, and Economic Methodology, Bo
Gustafsson and Christian Knudsen (eds) (New York: Routledge), pp. 62–63.
27. Karl Popper (1969), Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 217–220.
28. Karl Popper, “Epistemology and the Problem of Peace,” in Karl Popper (ed.),
All Life is Problem Solving, trans. Patrick Camiller (London: Routledge), p. 38.
29. Karl Popper, All Life is Problem Solving, trans. Patrick Camiller, p. 38.
31. Paul Bernays (1964), “Reflections on Karl Poppers’s Epistemology,” in Mario
Bunge (ed.), The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy (London: The Free
Press of Glencoe), p. 33.
32. Karl Popper (1994), In Search of a Better World Lecture and Essays from Thirty
Years, trans. by L. J. Bennett (London: Routledge), p. 4.
33. Anthony O’ Hear, Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, p. 35.
34. Karl Popper, In Search of a Better World Lecture and Essays from Thirty Years,
pp. 204–205.
35. Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, 2nd edition, p. 77.
36. Ibid., p. 158.
37. Cf. Richard Tarnas (1991), The Passion of the Western Mind (New York:
Ballantine Books), p. 395.
38. Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind, p. 396.

11
Navigating Feyerabend’s Moral
Philosophy from Boundaries
Without Values to Values
Without Boundaries
Isaac E. Ukpokolo
Introduction
This study attempts an inquiry into what could be identified as the

moral philosophy of Paul K. Feyerabend – a not-too-popular aspect
of his contribution to contemporary philosophy. By the expression,
“From Boundaries without Values to Values without Boundaries,” I
wish to represent not only the general philosophical temperament that
informed Feyerabend’s postulations in moral philosophy but also the
very ideals that defined its essence. From its manifest perspective, navi-
gating Feyerabend’s moral philosophy requires a transition from what
may be understood as some condition-free restriction to a restriction-free
condition,1 with regard to our thought, decision and action. Although
Feyerabend’s moral philosophy finds easiest expression in Killing Time,
the “housing” for his entire philosophy is actually provided mainly by
Against Method, Farewell to Reason, and Conquest of Abundance.
A close look at the history of ethics or moral philosophy, at least
since Socrates, would reveal that the major problem of traditional moral
philosophy is how to construct a rationally defensible theory of right
and wrong action – a theory which would constitute a framework of
reference for right action. Through the history of moral discourse, we
find representations of such orientations to include: (1) Utilitarianism,
which emphasizes human desire satisfaction; (2) Kantianism, which
argues that morality must be understood independently of all empirical
motives; (3) Intuitionism or Common-sensism, which insists that there
201
202 Isaac E. Ukpokolo
can be no unified or unifying account of our moral obligations; these,

it claims, are irreducibly plural, and the only general moral principles it
is willing to recognize are primal facie principles that are individually
defeasible and cannot be ranked in any absolute order of precedence (for
example, it is primal facie wrong to harm another person; it is primal
facie wrong to break a promise, and so on); (4) Contractualism, which
addresses substantive issues of right and wrong action as represented in
Thomas Scanlon’s “Contractualist” view of the morality of obligations.
In part, this approach derives from John Rawls’ contract theory of social
justice, with a principal focus on issues of personal morality. By this,
“an act is wrong if it would be disallowed by any principle that no one
seeking an agreement on moral principles for the general regulation of
behavior could reasonably reject”2; (5) Virtue ethics, a kind of moral
theory with origins in the schools of ancient philosophy: that right and
wrong cannot be captured by independently or basically moral rules
or principles, but are a matter rather of situational sensitivity. A major
focus for virtue ethics is “explaining how agents can perceive what is
right to do in given situations without the help of general principles
and/or showing how evaluations based in the moral agents can suffi-
ciently constrain what the agent does outside, in the world, to other
people.”3
And so, importantly, some contributions in contemporary discourse
have been tainted with certain skepticism about the possibility of moral
truth or objectivity. One fallout of this temperament is the shifting of
focus by philosophers to metaethics; addressing questions about the
meaning of terms, such as “right,” “wrong,” and “obligation.” Be that
as it may, it is not difficult to find ethicists still interested in offering,
debating, and criticizing substantive concepts of moral rightness and
wrongness.4 The present study attempts to identify and interrogate
one such contemporary conception in the contribution of Paul K.
Feyerabend.
The moral philosophy of Paul K. Feyerabend
At the core of Paul Feyerabend’s moral philosophy is what he expresses

in Killing Time, concerning the nature of moral character. For him, “ ... a
moral character cannot be created by argument, ‘education,’ or an act
of will. It cannot be created by any kind of planned action, whether
scientific, political, moral, or religious.”5 Here, Feyerabend indicates
what should not be associated with moral character or where it does
not derive from. Morality is not a product of education or any rational,
Navigating Feyerabend’s Moral Philosophy 203
intentional, planned action. What then are we to associate with

morality or from where does it derive? To such a question, Feyerabend
compares moral character with what he calls “true love,” which he
says is “a gift, not an achievement.”6 For him, the source or basis of
morality or moral character is accidental, such as parental affection
and friendship.7 These, he says, constitute the condition for some kind
of stability or balance between what he refers to as “self-confidence”
and “a concern for others.”8 According to him, it is possible for us
to create these conditions: conditions that are meant to ensure the
needed balance as we are never able to create the balance itself. It is
only when the balance is enhanced that the idea of guilt, responsibility
and obligation make real sense. But without the balance between self-
confidence and concern for others, these ideas become not just empty
words, but obstacles.9
The idea of self-confidence connotes a reliance on one’s abilities –
abilities to engage one’s experience, one’s environment and one’s reality.
The product of employing this ability is to enhance the individual’s well-
being. However, this self-confidence must flow out with respect and
concern for “the other.” It is in this outflow of self-confidence reaching
out to “the other” that Feyerabend finds the balance. And, to be sure,
the condition for this balance, the condition for intercourse between
self-confidence and concern for the other, is provided by friendship,
affection and guided by the spirit of love. And, according to him, it is
only when such a situation exists that we can talk of guilt, responsibility
and obligation. As a matter-of-fact, however, the existential condition
that we face, for Feyerabend, is that we live in an age when this balance
has not yet been achieved, and so, we are faced with situations wherein
“criminals and their henchmen, prophets and poets along with philoso-
phers” try to force others into their patterns dictated by their self-confi-
dence without consideration for others, who have no options but to live
as “collaborators or victims” or even simply as bystanders. Feyerabend
sums up the situation as a “barbaric state” – one represented in Against
Method, wherein intellectuals and all those described as self-confident
live with some conceited assurance with which they interfere with the
lives of people. Feyerabend expresses contempt for the sticky phrases
they use to embellish their misdeeds.10
Paul Feyerabend is not alone in this condemnation. For instance,
Karl Popper in All Life is Problem Solving, declares: “Intellectuals know
nothing. And their lack of modesty, their presumptuousness is perhaps
the greatest obstacle to peace on earth.”11 For Feyerabend, if we are not
collaborators or bystanders, and if we are mere victims, we are left only
to react in the barbaric way, characteristics of our present existential

condition:
We ... punish, kill, meet violence with violence, pit teachers against
students, set intellectual leaders against the public and against each
other; we ... speak about transgressions in resounding moral terms
and demand that violations of the law be prevented by force.12
And indeed, we find that this reaction abounds in different shades,

content and degrees – in socio-economic and political behaviors, intel-
lectual, physical and militant acts, ideological, educational and diplo-
matic actions and reactions, all in present-day societies. Considering all
of us as spectators or as actors in this existential condition, Feyerabend
cautions:
We should at least try to give our children a chance. We should offer

them love and security, not principles, and under no circumstances
should we burden them with the physical, juridical, and financial
consequences of our actions and with the chaos we leave behind; but
they are free of any moral, historical, national guilt.13
In the above statement, I consider the idea of “our children” as the

generation that is to inherit our legacy. This generation, Paul Feyerabend
contends, are not to be constrained with any one, singular, fixed,
universal, totalizing, grand-framework of principles and precepts, consti-
tutive of a theory of rationality. This reality is identified in this work as
boundaries without values, from which we are to transit to a condition
of values without boundaries. The generation, therefore, should be left
to be guided by restriction-free conditions, rather than condition-free
restrictions – and if there must be restrictions, they are left to choose
the terms of those restrictions. In his earlier works, Feyerabend describes
as “monomania” any such orientation that would be recommended as
“the needed” in the choice of values.
Feyerabend and the ethics of subjectivity
With subjectivity having to do with a person’s sense of self, and ethics

referring to the study of principles and precepts that guide human
conduct, this study here attempts to relate Paul K. Feyerabend’s moral
program to the ethos of the ethics of subjectivity. To be sure, Paul
Feyerabend’s moral project would not be seen to subscribe to a subjectivist
view of morality – a depiction of subjectivism. In other words, it does

not fall guilty to the accusation of the “dictatorship of relativism.”14
Rather, it presents a type of pluralism, which he calls Dadaism. By this,
Paul Feyerabend’s proposals would go for an ethics of subjectivity or a
sense of self that is informed by the principle of “let a thousand flowers
blossom together.” What this implies is that, although he has an aver-
sion towards a singular, universal standard – a standpoint from which
must flow the principles that would guide our conduct – he does not
also propose a relativism or a perspective that suggests subjectivism. The
ethics that should guide the content of our sense of self must flow from
an anarchistic understanding of reality. In other words, no principle
should be discarded as irrelevant or unnecessary and no point of view
is sacrosanct when it comes to our interaction with reality or truth. Our
personality therefore, our subjectivity thereof, must be built from the
totality of our shared experience, and must accommodate all perspec-
tives. For, reality comes to us in quantities.15
The epistemic base for Feyerabend’s moral philosophy
At this point, it is perhaps necessary to attempt a characterization of

the relationship between epistemology and ethics or moral philosophy.
Such a relationship can be understood, at least, as analogous, as it is
true that epistemology is the study of our right to the beliefs that we
hold,16 while ethics or moral philosophy has to do with the right we
have for acting the way we do. Epistemology uses some concepts, which
are usually understood as normative and evaluative. For instance, we
talk about what one should or should not believe in certain epistemic
circumstance; we evaluate beliefs with respect not only to whether
they are true, but also to whether they are justified. We also evaluate a
person’s intellectual qualities and motivations with respect to whether
one is reasonable, rational, wise, impartial and epistemically responsible
in general. It is obvious that this is analogous in a way to ethics or moral
philosophy, which attempts to evaluate a person and his action.17 Thus
understood, epistemology connects with ethics or moral philosophy in
the hope of producing an account of how a responsible cognitive agent
should behave.
Apart from this relationship of analogy between epistemology and
moral philosophy, there is also a relationship of grounding – episte-
mology providing some basis for ethics or moral philosophy. In other
words, since epistemology concerns itself with a study of the right to
hold certain beliefs, it is related to moral philosophy in the sense that
the beliefs we hold influence the way we act. To this extent, there is a
strong connection between the right to hold a given belief and the right
to place certain actions. It is in this understanding that we find the epis-
temological postulations of Paul K. Feyerabend provide the necessary
base for his moral philosophy. His epistemology, it must be stated, is,
of course, guided by a certain understanding of principles and method.
To provide a safe platform for analysis of Feyerabend’s epistemology, we
may present three related questions: (i) what is Feyerabend against? (ii)
what is he for? (iii) why is he for the one and against the other?
To the first question, it can be argued that Paul Feyerabend is basically
opposed to a certain program or tendency in philosophy and in science,
which for want of a better name is here referred to as Methodism,18
the idea of a method that contains fixed and binding principles for
conducting rational activities – the idea of a fixed theory of rationality.
Rational inquiries, it is believed can and should be run according to
given fixed universal rules. This understanding is represented in the idea
of boundaries without values – constituted of discourse of traditional
epistemology taken to have reached its zenith in positivists’ philos-
ophy of science or Karl Popper’s Critical Rationalism. From history of
discourse, the traditional task of Epistemology, the study of the right to
hold the beliefs that we do hold, finds maturation in the conclusions
of Positivist’s science that scientific inquiry and its method provide the
most suitable cognitive scheme pursued in the search for knowledge.
In other words, Scientific Knowledge, which consists of scientific state-
ments, hypothesis, thesis, theories and laws, represent the model of
knowledge. By extension, the method of science constitutes the most
reliable method required by Epistemologists to arrive at reliable knowl-
edge. There is therefore, only one, singular, fixed, sets of principles and
methods forming a grand-framework of discourse by which we must
attain truth, knowledge, rationality, and access to reality. Positivist
science and Critical Rationalism here agree that Science is the paradigm
of knowledge and rationality, and constitute the most worthwhile cogni-
tive scheme. They disagree, however, as to the nature of the method:
whereas positivist science argues that scientific statements are definite
in terms of their truth value, critical rationalism argues that scientific
statements are approximations of the truth about the world – they are at
best conjectures or serious guesses. In the same vein, whereas Positivists
science believes in the method of verification and confirmation, Critical
Rationalism of Karl Popper privileges falsification, conjectures, and refu-
tations. However, they both agree that Science is the model of Rationality
and that its aim is the realization of truth. Feyerabend is against this
structure of reasoning he referred to as Monomania and characteristics

of the structure of modernism.
The second question is “what is Feyerabend for?” Feyerabend proposes
a non-restrictive pluralism. As Harvey Siegel puts it:
Feyerabend advocates a thorough-going (cultural) pluralism in which

alternative cultures are free to plot their own future courses in which
the culture of Western Science/reason is exposed as only one among
alternatives rather than as the essence of a universal culture.19
He calls his own program “epistemological or methodological anar-

chism,” the central message of which is to restore to both the scientist
and the general public freedom of decision in matters of knowledge.20
By the “anarchistic theory of knowledge,” Feyerabend prescribes that
there is no “the” rule or “the” method in terms of which we can prop-
erly speak of “the” rational.
It is important to note that the epistemological program of Paul
Feyerabend has as its ancestral image, the philosophy of Nietzche. The
following assertions of Nietzsche concerning scientific knowledge antic-
ipated Feyerabend:
... there is no scientific method which is uniquely capable of yielding

knowledge: We must proceed experimentally with things: now being
wicked, now good and showing justice, passion and coldness in
succession. Now with sympathy, now with rape, shall we bring some-
thing from them. We explorers have, like all conquerors, discoverers,
seafarers, adventurers, a daredevil morality, and we must put up with
being generally held to be wicked.21
We see these claims of Nietzsche predating those of Paul Feyerabend in

a significant sense. In his work, Feyerabend says of science:
... great science ... is an intellectual adventure that knows of no limits,

and recognizes no rules, not even the rule of logic.22
In stating his position in a more definite form, Paul Feyerabend holds

that:
there is only one principle that can be defended under all circum-
stance, and in all stages of human development. It is the principle:
“anything goes.”23
Feyerabend has also referred to his position (and he says, more appro-
priately) as “Dadaism” which, according to him, proposes among other
things, that we remove from our language the profound but already
putrid expressions it has accumulated over time: expressions such as
“search for truth,” “defence of justice,” and so on.24 And, it was Hans
Richter who, in his work, Dada: Art and Anti-art (London, 1965) put
the Dadaism thesis thus: “a Dadaist not only has no programme, he is
against all programmes.” In identifying with these features, as stated by
Hans Richter, Feyerabend identifies with Dadaism.
For the sake of a clear understanding as well as fair appreciation of
Feyerabend’s thesis, it is necessary to clarify a point with regards to the
connection between the ideas of epistemological anarchism and polit-
ical anarchism. According to Feyerabend, the hallmark of political anar-
chism is its opposition to the established order of things: to the state, its
institutions, the ideologies that support and glorify these institutions.
For the political anarchist, the established order must be destroyed so
that “human spontaneity may come to the fore, exercise the right for
freely initiating actions.” This form of anarchism, for Feyerabend, denies
not only social laws, but moral and physical laws as well. Here, violence
plays an important role, for, it becomes necessary to “overcome the
implements” erected by a “well-organized” society.
Epistemological anarchism, on the other hand is not unconditionally
against anything. As an epistemological anarchist, Feyerabend says:
I do not just object to rules, standards or arguments. I only object

to rules, standards or arguments of a certain kind. I object to rules,
standards or arguments that are general and are independent of situ-
ations in which they are applied.25
A further remarkable feature of (the post-enlightenment) political

anarchism identified by Paul Feyerabend is its respect for science. This
respect, according to him, is based on a genuine conviction that pure
unadulterated science gives a true account of man and the world, and
produces powerful ideological weapons in the fight against “the sham
orders of the day.”26 But as it stands today, in the opinion of Feyerabend,
this conviction is endangered by at least two developments. The first
of this development is the rise of new kinds of attitudes and institu-
tions. Science, he says, has become “a powerful business,” shaping the
mentality of its practitioner, bringing the level of humanitarian consid-
erations to a minimum, and making the achievements of the past an
instrument, not of enlightenment, but of intimidation.27
However, Feyerabend wonders if it is ever possible to come up with a

universal set of principles for thought, decision and action. “But now
we have to ask ourselves if there is such a thing as a uniformed way of
thinking and living that reaches from Harvard University to Peruvian
peasants.”28 As he stands opposed to any one framework of reason,
he is opposed to any given set of moral principles, scientific theories
and rationality. Indeed, at the heart of his epistemological program is
his opposition to the dominant image of natural science, especially as
conceived in the Anglo-American world:
One of the most important properties of modern science, at least,

according to some of its admirers, is universality: any question can
be approached in a scientific way, leading either to an unambiguous
answer or else to an explanation of why the answer cannot be had.29
To be sure, universality is one of the features of modern science that

presents itself as the paradigm of reliable epistemology. Apart from
universality, you have communalism, disinterested and organized skep-
ticism. Feyerabend presents an aversion towards a general understanding
of the received view of rationality, as a matrix of relation between truth,
objectivity, universality and reality.
The third question is why is he for the one and against the other? In
his submission, he argues that appeal to a fixed theory of rationality
or method would discourage innovation; theoretical anarchism is more
humanitarian and more likely to encourage progress than it law and
order alternatives.30 He advocates freedom from the pangs of reason-
ing.31 Feyerabend has no everlasting to, and no everlasting aversion
against, any institution or any ideology.32 There is no view he refuses
to consider, and no method he regarded as indispensable. The only
thing he opposes absolutely is universal standard, universal laws, and
universal ideas. He however notes that, for those who crave for intel-
lectual security provided by having a principle which holds under all
circumstances, that is, “if you want universal standards, if you cannot
live without principles that hold independently of situation – shape of
the world, exigencies of research – then I can give such a principle. But it
would be empty, useless and pretty ridiculous. It would be the principle,
anything goes.”33 Yet, according to him, the assertion, “anything goes”
is not a principle he defends; it is a principle first of the rationalist, who
loves principles but also finds that he must take history seriously. To
this extent, Feyerabend is not postulating a new theory of rationality.
Rather, he proposes that, if the search for such a theory is a reasonable
one (and he thinks it is not) what we need to advance the search will not
come from reason, it will come from participation.34 The central idea
in Feyerabend position seems to reflect the view that if knowledge is to
grow, we have to be more flexible, imaginative, and innovative.35 Thus,
Feyerabend’s position is a theory of rationality which is put forward to
justify a refusal to legislate in advance for each and every situation. It
offers to liberate the participants in concrete situations, from the need
to behave in a rule-governed and predictable way, if they were to be
rational.36 In summary, the epistemological program of Feyerabend
emphazises the limitation of all rules and standards. This does not mean
that all rules and standards are worthless, as he argues:
Although I argue that there is no comprehensive rationality, I do not

argue that we should proceed without rules and standards ... I suggest
a new relation between rule and practices. It is this relation and not
any particular rule content that characterises the position I defend.37
In all, the basic theoretical problem that Feyerabend claims to identify

in the history of culture is the relation between reason and practice.
The entire edifice of Feyerabend philosophy – his discourse in epis-
temology, science and morality – rests on what could be referred to as
the postmodern sub-culture. PostModernism shares something with the
critiques of Enlightenment values and truth claims mounted by thinkers
of a “liberal communitarian” persuasion. Also, with neo-Protagorians
like Richard Rorty, who welcome the end of Philosophy’s presump-
tive role as a privileged truth-telling discourse.38 Feyerabend’s brand
of neo-Protagorian relativism stands as a challenge to the traditional
epistemology and positivist view of science. For obvious reasons, these
alternative programs are most properly described as post-positivist or
postmodernist. “Post” refers not only to the period of initiation, but also
to its negative tendencies towards all positivist ideals. In this case, “post”
means “against” or “anti.” The defining tendency of postmodernism is
to be found in the claim that the discipline of traditional epistemology
as well as natural science cannot provide any single, fixed, over-arching
cognitive scheme – a framework of reason – to which all must appeal
to guide thought and action. This position is grounded in the result
of a certain program of inquiry conducted in modern philosophy and
science. These include W.V. Quine’s discourse on the dogmas of empiri-
cism, W. Seller’s discourse on the givenness of experience, and Thomas
Kuhn’s criticism of Hempel’s view of the nature of scientific change. We
have also Richard Rorty’s rejection of epistemological foundationalism,
Peter Winch and his objection to the interpretation alien culture on the
basis of the Western scientific paradigm, and Habermas’ criticism of the
positivists’ image of science.
Postmodern knowledge comprises of an extensive array of compe-
tence-building measures which are derived from “cultures and customs,”
and any attempt at legislation must be socio-political and ethnocentric,
thus epistemology becomes sociology.39 “And in the end, all we can do
is gaze in wonderment at the diversity of discursive species, just as we do
at the diversity of plant and animal species.”40 And so, “while it may be
a regrettable necessity to place some constraint on liberty in the name of
social order, one must not actively seek to bind together the multiplicity
of thought and practices into a single moral organism”41 or significant
whole.42 Thus, the works of Lyotard, Foucault, Rorty, and Feyerabend
present postmodernism as a tendency definable with reference to and in
reaction against modernity. They are united in their opposition to the
Enlightenment demand that whatever exists must justify itself before a
timeless “tribunal of reason.” For them, justification is always local and
context relative – a view presented as more attractive rival of Platonism.
In this way, postmodernism is characterized by the claim that Platonism
is not tenable and denies a transcendent truth against which the social,
political, cultural, and philosophic achievements of the human race
to date could be accessed. This sort of skepticism yielded the tendency
associated with postmodernism, post-empiricism and post-positivism.
Conclusion
It is in the light of the above that we are to understand and navigate the
moral philosophy of Paul K. Feyerabend. He proposes a living condition,
wherein attention is given to security of lives and property since life
has the absolute value, love, which implies freedom and friendship. The
presence of love in a relationship is not compatible with restrain and
restrictions; it necessarily calls for freedom. To love someone and deny
their freedom, holding them to specified bearings, is anything but love.
In the light of the foregoing, we are not called to teach principles that
encourage homogeneity, universality and permanence, but to privilege
heterogeneity and difference and respect for the other. When this condi-
tion prevails, men and women, young and old, contemporaries and
generations to come, will live in peace and enjoy balance – a delicate
balance between self-confidence and concern for others. What I there-
fore observe in navigating the moral space of Feyerabend’s philosophy is
a call for the development of the totality of the human personality that
will flow from pluralism of values, caution in the demand for consist-
ency, receptiveness to change, a rejection of exclusive materialism and
allowing a thousand flowers to blossom with regards to the reconstruc-
tion of values that must guide our thoughts, decisions and actions.
Finally, I wish to re-echo here the position expressed several decades
ago when Borden Parker Bowne43 argued that moral life does not begin
by laying down general principles of conduct but by forming codes of
concrete duty: duties to parents, children, neighbors, and so on, have
always been the concrete forms in which moral nature first manifested
itself, and in which it still finds its chief expression. And so, the moral
life is to be seen as the analogue of the mental life. The mental life
did not begin with abstract speculative principles, or with theories of
knowledge, but with specific acts of knowing. In both, the knowledge of
principles was second and not first; and in both, principles were implicit
from the beginning.
Notes
1. By “condition-free restriction,” it is to be understood undue confinement
or limitations that we must do without. While the idea of “restriction-free
condition,” it is to be understood, state of being, not guided by what can
be referred to as “the” set of principles. The former finds expression in the
principles of Modernism, while the latter is represented by the Post-Modern
condition.
2. Cf. Michael Slote (2005), “Moral Philosophy, Problems of,” in Ted Honderich
(ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (New Edition) (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), pp. 629, 627–630.
3. Cf. Michael Slote, “Moral Philosophy, Problems of,” p. 628.
4. Ibid.
5. Paul K. Feyerabend (1995), Killing Time (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press), p. 174.
6. Paul K. Feyerabend, Killing Time, p. 174.
7. Cf. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Cf. Ibid.
10. Paul K. Feyerabend (1975), Against Method (London: Verso), p. 5
11. Karl Popper (1999), All Life is Problem Solving, trans. Patrick Camiller (London:
Routledge), p. 44.
12. Paul K. Feyerabend, Killing Time, p. 175.
13. Ibid.
14. See Gediminas T. Jankunas (2011), The Dictatorship of Relativism (New York:
Society of St Paul/Alba House).
15. This represents the thesis of Quantum Physics.
16. Cf. Jonathan Dancy (2005), “Epistemology, Problems of,” in Ted Honderich
(ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (New Edition) (Oxford: Oxford
University Press), pp. 263, 263–265.
17. Cf. Dalibor Renic (2010), “The Debate on Epistemic and Ethical Normativity,”
Disputatio Philosophica: International Journal on Philosophy and Religion, p. 93.
18. This expression has also been used by J. Curthoys and W. Suchting (1977)
in their review article of Feyerabend’s Against Method, titled “Feyerabend’s
Discourse Against Method: A Marxist Critique,” Inquiry 20–40, pp. 243–297.
19. H. Siegel (1993), “Farewell to Feyerabend,” Inquiry 32 (3), pp. 344. This picture
of science and culture developed by Feyerabend in his latest work, Farewell to
Reason, has been presented by him many times before, as in Science in a Free
Society (London: Verso, 1978).
20. H. Alastair (1988), “Politics and Feyerabend’s Anarchism in Knowledge and
Politics,” Boulder Westview 24, pp. 241–263.
21. M. Roth (trans.), “Explorers and Tempters,” except from J. Curthoys and
W. Suchting, “Feyerabend’s Discourse Against Method: A Marxist Critique,”
p. 250.
22. P. K. Feyerabend, Against Method, p. 28.
23. Ibid., p. 182
24. Ibid., p. 187
25. P. K. Feyerabend (1976), “Logic, Literature, and Professor Gelner,” British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27 (16), pp. 387.
27. Ibid.
28. P. K. Feyerabend (1999), Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction versus the
Richness of Being (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), p. 8.
29. P. K. Feyerabend (1993), Farewell to Reason (London: Verso), p. 27.
31. See P. K. Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason.
33. Ibid.
34. P. K. Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason, pp. 283–284.
35. J. Krige (1980), Science, Revolution and Discontinuity (New Jersey: Harvester
Press), p. 120.
36. J. Krige, Science, Revolution and Discontinuity, p. 120.
37. P. K. Feyerabend (1978), Science in a Free Society (London: verso), pp. 32–33.
38. Thomas Docherty (2005), “Postmodernism,” in Ted Honderich (ed.), The
Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 745.
39. J. F. Lyotard (1984), The Post Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
(Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 73–74.
40. J. F. Lyotard, The Post Modern Condition, p. 74.
41. F. H Bradley (1962), Ethical Studies (Oxford University Press), p. 177.
42. H. H. Joachim (1969), The Nature of Truth (Westport: Greenhood Press),
p. 68.
43. Borden P. Bowne (1906), The Principles of Ethics (New York: American Book
Company), p. 1.

12
Outlines of Jacques Lacan’s
Ethics of Subjectivity
Gregory B. Sadler
Introduction
What does Lacanian psychoanalysis contribute to the well-established,

but ever-renewed, discipline of ethics? Does he provide us with a new
moral theory? Is it critical rejection of previous or possible moral theo-
ries? Or, is it something in between these two extremes? If Lacan is right,
ethics becomes both unavoidable and irremediably incomplete, if the
desire inhabiting it is supposed to culminate in a moral perspective and
practice that is both unproblematic and unambiguously prescriptive.
“[P]sychoanalysis might seem at first to be of an ethical order,” he
remarks, in his seminar devoted to “The Ethics of Psychoanalysis.”1
There are several reasons why this makes good sense, and they provide
a fitting place to begin this chapter.
First, like any human practice, developing its own discourse and disci-
pline, psychoanalysis seem to be oriented towards some sort of good,
to have some sort of point or purpose (as well as standards) to it, to
move within some registers of right and wrong, good and bad. Second,
Freudian psychoanalysis, as one of the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” calls
into question certitudes and grounding concepts of ethics or morality. If,
for instance, the altruistic service towards others I display and construe
as love, is possibly an expression of sublimated desires, stemming from
narcissistic self-love on my part, or if my sense of duty and associated
guilt is really an internalized composite assuming a space inside my
psyche as the superego, does this not undermine any universal validity
for most types of ethics or moralities? Third, psychoanalytic models
seems to establish themselves as something like rival moral theories,
providing explanations and evaluations of human action, decisions,
purposes, and fulfillments.
214
Outlines of Jacques Lacan’s Ethics of Subjectivity 215
One might expect then that if Lacan would articulate something readily
identifiable as an ethics, similar to systematic treatments reflected in
moral theories, it would be articulated in his Seminar 7, where he does
speak of an “ethics of psychoanalysis.”2 But while he critically exam-
ines moral phenomena ranging from those of highly articulated moral
theories, to revealing experiments ranging from those of courtly love
to those of De Sade, to the “concrete ethics of generations,”3 placing
these into the illuminating framework of his neo-Freudian psycho-
analytic theory and practice, one looks in vain for any systematic and
comprehensive ethics elaborated within that Seminar. Three mutually
supporting reasons can be given for this.
One is that Lacan does not simply engage in unmasking, demythol-
ogizing, or genealogical critique. Where Freudian perspective reveals
truths, other ethical perspectives failed to realize or had repressed the
ethical perspectives, making no contribution in return to rethinking
psychoanalytic conceptions or the very purposes of psychoanalysis.
Instead, a dialectic develops between them, particularly since those
ethical conceptions, problems, and projects form part of a significant
history within which the human subject develops and orients itself. They
are brought into the structured, inter-subjective Lacanian unconscious
as necessary “reference points”4 so that even the psychoanalyst remains
“submerged in, strictly speaking, moral problems.”5 He grants that study
of “ethical systems” as “theoretical reflection on moral experience” indi-
cates “the central significance of problems that have been posed since
the beginning.”6 That would not itself, however, render a Lacanian ethics
unsystematic, even fragmentary, in development and presentation.
Another relevant feature of Lacan’s explorations of ethics is that they
are, and are intended to be, precisely that, explorations. The goal that he
sets for himself is not to articulate a new ethical system, nor one incorpo-
rating or grafted onto older ones. He credits Freud with “contribut[ing]
something unmatched in significance, something that has changed the
problems of the ethical perspective for us to a degree that we are not yet
aware of.”7 In speaking of “the Freudian experience as an ethics,” he sees
this experience “at its most essential level,” reasoning that “it directs
us towards a therapeutic form of action ... included in the register or in
terms of an ethics.”8 But this remains an experience and experiment, tied
to and developed within the interplay between subjects. Lacan focuses
on the “ethical dimension,” carrying out an “inquiry into ethics,”9 on
showing “the novelty of what Freud brings to the domain of ethics.”10
(This means that “[o]ne uses him. One moves around within him. One
takes one’s bearings from the direction he points in.”11)
216 Gregory B. Sadler
Yet another reason why Lacan does not provide a clear-cut, systema-
tized ethics is that ethical matters, experiences, the entire dimension
or register he picks out and focuses upon resist being separated out
from other aspects of human subjects, history, and society. Different
moral theories, with their varying concerns, insights, practices, and
valuations, share, but also compete for, the same inter-subjective space,
in which human subjects are located and anchored. Lacanian moral
inquiry reveals, not only that there is more going on than one first
assumes or asserts, but also that multiple dynamics assert themselves at
the same time. To put it another way, all moral phenomena are by their
very nature overdetermined, not only susceptible of multiple, rival inter-
pretations, but involved at the same time with intersecting structures or
constellations.
Given this privation of a systematic perspective upon, but also a
consistent preoccupation with matters and theories of ethics in Lacan’s
work, this chapter does not try to articulate a “Lacanian ethics.” There
are already several available works admirably attempting to produce such
a product. This essay does not aim at summarizing their achievements.
Instead, what I intend to do is to selectively present Lacan’s perspectives
on matters of ethics, orienting my discussion more to readers conversant
with concepts and themes of classic moral theory than those focused
on (or formed by) contemporary continental philosophy, assuming
little previous exposure to Lacan’s writings but some background with
Freudian psychoanalytic concepts. As much as possible, I intend to allow
Lacan to speak for himself, in his own words.
The first section of this chapter examines his criticisms of the ethical
perspectives and projects involved in other psychoanalytic (and thera-
peutic) approaches. The second (and longest) section turns to his exami-
nations and evaluations of several main perspectives, problematics, and
concepts in the history of ethics. The third section focuses on Lacan’s
(re)interpretion of several core ideas from Freudian psychoanalysis and
their implications for ethics.
Psychoanalysis as a moral project
As a therapeutic technique and as a discipline, psychoanalysis, from its

origins moved within similar ranges of ethical concerns, and was struc-
tured by aims, ideals, and desires central to other moral projects and
perspectives. Lacan recognizes this, noting that analytical ideals have
roots in “a certain register of moral thought, that we propose to our
patients, and around which we organize the assessments of their progress
and the transformation of their way into a path.”12 Psychoanalysis also

assumed a critical function in relation to moral theories and experi-
ences, investigating and providing interpretations of moral matters,
such as the sense and force of obligation, for example, or whether seem-
ingly altruistic choices aim at the good of another or satisfaction for the
self. Such a critically interpretative function is not unique, of course,
since at the least, representatives of moral theories, like Aristotle, Kant,
or Bentham, likewise engaged in reinterpretation of rival theories or
perspectives within their own framework.
Psychoanalytic approaches thus participate within a common human
moral problematic, working out and offering (or imposing) answers to
it for human subjects. This entails that, even if only implicitly, they
articulate conceptions about what we are, could be, or should be, some
ordering bearing on goods that are most valuable or desirable and those
only apparent or derivative, certain cautions about what is impossible,
illusory, or unrealistic, some reference to what we ought to do, the realm
of duty, law, obligation, the nature and value of the relationships possible
for us, the origins, extents, legitimacy, and objects of our desires, and the
risks, choices, or disciplines relevant to our moral progress.
In his writings and seminars, Lacan criticizes nearly every other major
psychoanalytic school, theorist, or framework of his time, staking out
a stance uncompromisingly critical of models that convert Freud’s
insights and method into oversimplifying, insufficiently self-aware, and
moralized standpoints. One of Freud’s most central contributions is his
insistence on the unconscious. In Lacan’s view, Freud does not entirely
develop the full implications of his discovery, particularly in its connec-
tions with language, alterity, and desire. Many of his followers distort
or even ignore these, substituting other conceptions and preoccupa-
tions in their place. A return to Freud means working out those implica-
tions more fully, restoring their centrality to psychoanalytic theory and
practice.
Lacan stresses the importance of a symbolic register exceeding and
situating the other registers through which the unconscious articulates
itself, arguing: “[t]o ignore the symbolic order is to condemn Freud’s
discovery to forgetting and analytic experience to ruin.”13 Psychoanalysis
as a tradition begins through examination of the interplay between “the
imaginary and reality [réel] in the mechanisms of the unconscious.” Freud
followed out the “symbolic determination to which the imaginary func-
tion is subordinated,” whereas many of his followers fell into a dilemma,
either “mak[ing] the imaginary into another reality” or “find[ing] in
the imaginary the norm of reality.”14 Lacan insists that psychoanalysis’
“technique cannot be understood, nor therefore correctly applied, if

one misunderstands the concepts on which it is based.” This in turn
requires attentiveness to language, since “these concepts take on their
full meaning only when oriented in a field of language and ordered in
relation to the function of speech.”15
The Freudian unconscious, as Lacan has repeated so many times,
is structured like a language, transcending and anchoring the human
subjects who locate themselves within it, in relation to each other, in
relation to themselves, in relation to desires, drives, and objects. It is
a fundamental mistake then to ignore or downplay the dimension of
language, basing psychoanalytic work upon some other matter, taken as
primary and fundamental. Lacan enumerates a number of candidates:
… affect, lived experience, attitude, discharge, need for love, latent

aggressiveness, character armour, and the system of defences ... exhaus-
tion of fantasies, instinctual regression, outwitting of defence,
mopping up of anxiety, freeing up of aggression, identification
with the analysts’ strong ego, incorporation of his attributes, the
dynamic… in which the object-relation is reconstructed and ... the hic
et nunc couple [of an ideal “genital stage”].16
Relying upon these, analysts drew upon information uncovered through

application of Freudian techniques and insights. Where they went wrong
was not in “taking their bearings from them,” since at least certain of
them represent relative advances, but in abstracting from the symbolic
order, the structures of language, the unconscious, and the relations to
the other. For these thematics themselves are “metaphors,”17 played out
within the same dialectical space of the unconscious misrepresented or
truncated by them. Analysts relying upon them thereby mislead them-
selves about the nature and objects of their activity. As a result, they also
mislead themselves about possibilities of their practice, the goods that
can be attained, and the evils that can be alleviated through it. They
end up endorsing mistaken conceptions of the purposes and goals of
psychoanalysis.
Specific criticisms Lacan levies against different movements within
psychoanalysis and psychology vary and diverge. He faults behaviorism,
for example, not only for its reductionism, but also for failing to lead to
“any radical change in ethics, in other words, in mental habits, in the
fundamental habit.” Within its perspective, the human subject, reduced
to merely “an object, serves an end,” but this could be entirely arbitrary,
not just the survival or dominance most contemporary behaviorists
focused upon.18 Existentialist psychology relies upon a “myth of imme-

diate experience,” and against this Lacan argues: “Freudian experience
is in no way preconceptual. It’s not a pure experience, but one ... struc-
tured by something artificial, the analytic relation.”19 Reich and others
following along his path similarly postulate “ineffable organic expression
beyond speech.”20 Jungian recourse to archetypes ignores the historical,
contingent status of the symbolic order. Object-relations theory like-
wise fails to situate the developmental relation between the real and the
imaginary, the internalization of significant others as objects, into the
landscape of the symbolic that provides them anchors for distinctively
human meaning, desire, and action.
Lacan’s two most constant targets for criticism are advocacy of a tele-
ology of “genital love” and an ego psychology he at times identifies
with “the American way.” The former is oriented by a developmental
focus on attaining a “genital stage” of maturity (after working through
earlier anal and oral stages), where the subject could then treat the other
person in a sexual relationship not just as an object, but as a full subject,
alike to but different from oneself. This would involve an overcoming of
narcissism or sadism, and ideally a full reciprocity between female and
male partners, stabilized in a relationship in which sexuality and love
are combined.
Lacan regards this as a fantasy of an “approximative and vague char-
acter, so tainted with an optimistic moralism ... love as hygiene,”21
ignoring the complexities, lacks, and instabilities of the overdetermined
human (sexual) condition. He tells us, for instance, that “the genital
drive,” articulated differently than other drives does not coincide with,
but does intersect with the ambiguous, problematic “field of love.”22
He notes that the genital act – that is, sex as activity “must find its
place in desire’s unconscious articulation,”23 and that “it doesn’t secure
anything.”24 Not only does “[g]enital love turns out to be absolutely
unassimilable to a unity” in which male and female would be recipro-
cally interchangeable, so that it must instead be conceived of as dual,
the only possibility for a unity lies in a “third party, of speech, of god.”25
He quips: “Goodness only knows how obscure such a pretension as
the achievement of genital objecthood (l’objectalitégenitale) remains,
along with what is so imprudently linked to it, namely, adjustment to
reality.”26
Such adjustment is also adopted as the ideal of ego-centered psycho-
therapy, particularly in the United States where it was “inflected towards
the adaptation of the individual to the social environment, the search
for behavior patterns, and the objectification involved in the notion of
‘human relations.’”27 In Lacan’s view, Freud’s tripartite topography of

id, ego, and superego must be relocated within his broader metapsy-
chology, involving the symbolic register. Without this, understanding
of Freud’s key formula Woeswar, sollichwerden becomes deformed, so that
“the subject, transformed into an it, has to conform to an ego which
the analyst has no trouble recognizing as his ally, since it is, in fact,
the analysts’ own ego.”28 Lacan rejects such an “appeal to some healthy
part of the subject thought to be there in the real, capable of judging
with the analyst what is happening in the transference,” or making an
“alliance with the healthy part of the subject’s ego ... appeal[ing] to his
common sense.”29
He calls the goal of “promoting the restoration of the primacy of the
ego ... a complete misrecognition of Freud’s teaching. The total person-
ality is precisely what Freud intends to characterize as fundamentally
foreign to the function of the ego as it has been regarded by psycholo-
gists until now.” This stems from the doubled aspect of otherness, of
“alienation,” missed by ego-focused theory. On the one hand, there is
the (lower case-o) other, “the other as imaginary …. There is no way that
the unity of the subject can be brought about in this direction.” On the
other hand, “[t]here is also the other who speaks from my place, appar-
ently, this other who is within me. This is an other of a totally different
nature from the other, my counterpart.”30 He cautions against misrec-
ognizing these two, the other and the Other, saying that this “lies at the
origin of all the false problems.… The solution to this difficulty can only
be found by distinguishing between the imaginary other insofar as he
is structurally the originary form of the field in which a multiplicity of
objects is structured for the human newborn, and the absolute Other,
the Other with a big O.”31
What does Lacan propose instead, in place of these other models of
psychoanalysis? He advises a need for analysts in training and in practice
to be “intelligent and sensitive,” attentive to the subject of the analysis
and, rather than simply the demands imposed by a theory or technique.
This is facilitated particularly by realizing, or rather keeping in mind,
that one is similarly a subject. “There are certain ways of using categories
such as the unconscious, the drive, the pre-oedipal relation, and defence
that consists in drawing none of the authentic consequences that they
imply and considering that this is an affair that concerns others but does
not go to the heart of your own relations with the world.”32 In order to
be effective and to not be deceived about our own ethical stance, one
must ask, rather than set aside, the question: “What must there be in
the analysts desire for it to operate in a correct way?”33 Put in another
way, when we theorize about the human condition, when we apply this
to determinate human subjects, when we engage in the type of ethical
inquiry and intervention made possible through psychoanalysis, “we
cannot confine ourselves to giving a new truth its rightful place, for the
point is to take up our place in it.”34
The history of ethical experiences and reflections
Why does Lacan engage in recurring discussion on thinkers and move-

ments within the history of moral theory? One reason is that certain
moral theories articulate central problematic also addressed by psychoa-
nalysis, which moves within a moral domain and is motivated by some
goods or goals. So, we can expect that moral theory and psychoanalysis
would share a common or at least (partially overlapping) space of action,
desire, thought, and narrative. Like it or not, the psychoanalytic theorist
or practitioner is involved in ethics. “There’s no reason not to put oneself
to the test,” Lacan advises, “not to see how others before Freud saw the
terrain in which he constituted his field.” He adds: “It’s another way of
experiencing what is involved, namely that this terrain is unthinkable
without the help of the instruments by which we operate ….”35
This introduces a second reason, namely that a psychoanalytic perspec-
tive is needed in order to progress past ethics’ recurring impasses. This
provides more than just a necessary complement to other moral theo-
ries, otherwise on the right track. Lacan’s Freudian perspective critically
examines moral theories as historical manifestations of problematics
of human subjects who need and strive to make sense of their messy,
enigmatic, often seemingly contradictory moral experience. He counsels
or teaches suspicion towards too-easy resolutions offering themselves
as definitive and permanent such as Aristotle’s focus on happiness, for
example, or Kant’s equally intense focus upon disinterested fulfillment
of duty. His intention is to explore and provide a more adequate under-
standing of bases underlying moral theories, their key motifs, and the
moral projects they offer to or impose upon the human subject. What
Lacan is doing, in effect, is working out a complex, non-linear narra-
tive framework within which key developments and high points of the
history of ethics can be placed, setting them in relation to each other, in
connection with Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic contributions
and concepts, and ultimately into the practical purview of contempo-
rary moral subjects.
Socrates inaugurates an ambiguous role, by exemplifying an imagi-
nary investment into the power and potential of dialogue, in productive
interplay of subjects communicating out their problems, conflicts, or

puzzles, expressing a “hope in dialogue to make reason triumph.”36
Without realizing it, Socrates works from the position of a master.37 He
stumbles across, and fails to resolve a split, an aporia, between knowl-
edge and moral value, “inaugurat[ing] this new being-in-the-world
which I here call subjectivity ... “realiz[ing] that science will not be able
to transmit the means to achieve the most previous thing, the arête,
the excellence of the human being.” This produces a “decentering,” as
the enquiry into virtue(s) also provokes desire for knowledge, but “this
very virtue, with respect to its transmission, its tradition, its formation,
remains outside of the domain.”38 Successful practitioners of virtue act
by an ortho-doxy, a “right” or “true opinion.”39 And because of this,
Lacan credits Socrates with the realization that great statesmen, if they
were “great men, it was because they were good psychoanalysts.”40
Yet, Socrates (and still more Plato) fails to respect such a process’
contingency, employing philosophy to reveal to other masters their
own inconstancies, the contradictory statuses of their own desires. What
does he offer in place of that condition? An “excessive optimism” about
human subjects’ capacities to adequately grasp and respond to another
“ortho-” an ortho-logos – a “proper ordering,” or “right discourse.”41
Socrates suggests “recognition of the conditions for the good in itself
would have something irresistible for man.” The problem is that we
experience that “the most perfect recognition of the conditions of the
good will never prevent anyone from dashing into its opposite.” He
also blurs together several distinct moral problems and values. “Since
Socrates, pleasure has been the search for one’s good. Whatever we
may think, we are pursuing our pleasure, seeking our good.” The main
problem then becomes identifying that good, rightly evaluating, and
choosing the most appropriate means, all of this operating under the
assumption that “a human animal ... is intelligent enough to compre-
hend what is truly its good.”42
Lacan singles out Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as an “exemplary
work,” and “one of the most eminent forms of ethical thought,43 recom-
mending its perusal to his students and returning to him frequently
throughout his works. This text articulates a right order of discourse,
presented as knowledge bearing upon desires, reasoning, and formation
and modification of habit. In particular, Aristotle deepens the problem
Socrates failed to resolve, that of akrasia, being led by our desires against
what we reason or resolve. In certain respects, Aristotle is consistently
on track, “full of resonances and lessons,” posing “schemas” that are
“not useless,” for the Freudian. Lacan credits Aristotle, for example, with
being “intelligent enough to isolate in the intellect-agent what is at stake

in the symbolic function,” and excuses his failure to grasp “that speech
(une parole), even his own.… concerns jouissance, the latter neverthe-
less being designated metaphorically throughout his work,” by noting
that the ancient Greek had not benefitted from contact with Christian
revelation.44
And yet, Lacan is decidedly not advocating a psychoanalytic neo-Aris-
totelianism, for several reasons. First, a partiality colors or truncates his
perspective. Aristotle does not want to see, or think about, or “meet” up
with “perverts.”45 There remains “a whole register of desire,” that of the
“monstrous” or “brutal” (theriotes, in Aristotle’s Greek) “literally situated
by him outside of the field of morality,” in which, however, other moral
theories and psychoanalysis is deeply interested, with the result that we
see “how subversive our experience is, since it serves to render his theory
surprising, primitive, paradoxical, and in truth, incomprehensible.”46
Aristotle’s ethics is in fact one idealized from the standpoint of the
master, “localized, I would almost say limited to a social type, to a privi-
leged representative of leisure.”47
Second, Aristotle’s ethics is founded upon a representative cosmology,
essentially foreign to our own (post-)Christian worldview.48 The most
significant part of this is where metaphysics and morals come together,
in a “Sovereign Good, a point of insertion, attachment, or convergence,
in which a particular order is unified with a more universal knowledge,
in which ethics becomes politics, and beyond that with an imitation of
the cosmic order.”49 A problem emerges in conceptualizing and realizing
(rather than idealizing) this Sovereign Good, which for Aristotle is figured
as eudaimonia, “happiness:” that which human beings most fundamen-
tally desire (but typically misconstrue). But, it is also bound up with the
workings of pleasure. That is the third critical point Lacan makes about
Aristotle. On the one hand, “the discussion of the Nicomachean Ethics is
designed to restore the true function of pleasure to its proper place,” and
it is an advance that “it is given a value that is not merely passive.”50 The
problem is that, even in Aristotle, pleasure inevitably draws ethics into
its confining orbit:
[F]rom the origin of moral philosophy, from the moment when the
term ethics acquired the meaning of man’s reflection on the condi-
tion and calculation of the proper paths to follow, all meditation on
man’s good has taken place as a function of the index of pleasure.
And I mean all, since Plato, and certainly since Aristotle, and down
through the Stoics, the Epicureans, and even through Christian
thought itself in Saint Thomas Aquinas. As far as the determination

of different goods is concerned, things have clearly developed along
the paths of an essentially hedonist problematic.51
What are the issues Lacan raises with such a problematic? Matters are
not quite so simple as there being just one straight line from Aristotle
all the way through hedonists, culminating in Bentham’s Utilitarianism.
We can understand this more fully by attending to what he makes of
a distinction articulated in a systematic way first by Aristotle, who
consistently distinguishes different modalities or orders of goodness,
introjecting this even into human rationality and speech (logos), which
make both family and political communities (koinoniai) possible, into
the different uses, occasions, and goals of rhetoric, and into the nature
of individual relationships (philiai). Aristotle notes that “good,” as an
analogical term, can legitimately refer to the pleasurable, the useful or
profitable, the just, and to that difficult to pin down category of the
kalon (the “noble,” “fine,” “beautiful,” “honorable”). Lacan will follow
out each of these dimensions or dynamics of the good:
Insofar as we distinguish in the sphere of ethics between two levels

that are already there in classical thinkers.… the question is whether
the summumbonum should be articulated according to honestas, that
is the style of the honnêttehomme – and which must, therefore, be
articulated as a certain form of organization, a certain life style that is
located in relation to the initial sublimation – or according to utilitas,
a concept that is at the basis of utilitarianism…52
Following out the pleasurable path leads us through the prudent

management endorsed by the Epicurean tradition, the excesses and
evasions of the libertines, the sublimated object of the medieval inno-
vations of courtly love, and into several other places, which turn out
to be impasses, not only for the realization of desire, but also for its
understanding. It culminates in an optimistic form Lacan calls “the
naturalist liberation of desire,” a project which has failed. “The more the
theory, the more the work of social criticism, the more the sieve of that
experience ... have raised in us the hope of relativizing the imperative,
the contrary, or in a word, conflictual character of moral experience,
the more we have ... witnessed a growth in the incidence of genuine
pathologies.”53 As it turns out, the moral imperative, the commanding
law, guilt and duty, do not coincide with what will best maximize
pleasure and minimize pain.
Lacan points out the oscillation, the not-quite-coincidence but ines-

capable connection, between pleasure and the conception of the good
in many moral theories. “Insofar as pleasure controls subjective activity,
it is the good, the idea of the good that sustains it. That is why ethical
thinkers have at all times not been able to avoid trying to identify these
two terms, which are, after all antithetical, namely, pleasure and the
good.”54 In fact, “the traditional moralist always falls back into the
rut of persuading us that pleasure is a good, that the path leading to
good is blazed by pleasure.”55 Appeal to, or orientation by, the register
of good picked out as the kalonor honestum is always one step away to
slipping into identification of the good with the pleasant (perhaps a
higher pleasure, to be sure). Put in another way, eudaimonist traditions
in ethics always risk lapsing into hedonism. Lacan notes that this consti-
tutes a problem not because hedonists “have emphasized the beneficial
effects of pleasure,” but rather “because they haven’t stated what the
good consists of.”56 They eclipse, and cannot frame for us, the deeper
questions of desire, goods, and jouissance.
Perhaps then the path to take is that of utility, the “profitable,” the
“useful,” an order of goodness that tended in classical moral theory to
be placed lower, not only than the kalon/honestum but also beneath
pleasure. In modern moral thought a clear tradition exploring, reas-
sessing, and valorizing utility develops, running from Hobbes to Hume,
and passing through the French lumières, and gets drawn into a tightly
knotted braid by Jeremy Bentham, the father and formulator of modern
Utilitarianism. Lacan views this moral theory, movement, and approach
as introducing something new into discourse on the good. This involves
“a radical revolution in antiquity’s point of view on the good insofar
as it can be deduced from the paths of pleasure,”57 but also “a kind
of slippage ... that did not constitute progress but rather a skirting
of the problem, slipping from Aristotle’s view of being to Bentham’s
utilitarianism ….”58
Examining the “the ethical register of utilitarianism,” Lacan views
it as relatively right, but in broader and deeper senses mistaken, not
only about the good, but even about its own projects. In his view,
“Freud ... articulates what is basically valid in it and that which at the
same time bounds it, and points to its limits.”59 What are these limits
then? These might be framed by asking: What does the utilitarian take
to be the good and What does reconciling general happiness with individual
desire produce? Utilitarianism is often faulted by its critics for ignoring
the irreducibility of goods and desires higher than those of pleasure or
utility simply to those modalities of good. Lacan’s concern is somewhat
different, since he turns a suspicious ear towards discourses about the

final good, the supreme good, or even the kalon (or honestas). Bentham
does in effect demystify these classic conceptions, and resituates ethics
“on the level of the economy of goods,” a “concatenation of circula-
tion of goods.” But this refocus will play itself and us back into what
Lacan calls “the service of goods,” entailing a deferment of the subject’s
desire in favor of work, organized by power in society. Utilitarianism,
just as much as Aristotelianism, exhorts a “cleaning up of desire,” whose
measure is “founded on the order of things ... the order of power, of a
human – far too human power.”60
Lacan develops another line of criticism, starting with a line of practical
reasoning: “It is of the nature of the useful to be utilized. If I can do some-
thing in less time and with less trouble than someone near me, I would
instinctively do it in his place.” And yet, so often, we find ourselves not
wanting to do this, indeed setting ourselves higher in priority than the
other. What is lacking in such a case? “[I]f anything, tenderness, namely,
what may be called the difficult way, love for one’s neighbour:” that is,
effective altruism, the “benevolence” advocated as a motive by Bentham.
Surprisingly, on this issue, Lacan actually credits utilitarians with being
“right,” writing: “They are countered with something that in effect, only
makes the task of countering them much more difficult.”61
One can object that “my good is not the same as another’s good, and
your principle of the greatest good for the greatest number comes up
against the demands of my egoism.” Why does such an objection make
the very task of resisting utilitarianism more difficult? One might recall
Bentham’s own anticipatory responses to such objections, or one might
even in the act of setting this objection into the light, find guilt or shame
evoked in oneself in unmasking one’s own selfishness. Lacan follows out
a different line. We really don’t have such difficulty with utilitarianism
or sacrificing for the other, as we might pretend. “My egoism is quite
content with a certain altruism, altruism of the kind that is situated on
the level of the useful.” In effect, Bentham’s ideal of universal benevo-
lence sanctions my wanting, my desiring, my making a motive “the
good of others provided in the image of my own,” or even “provided
that it depend on my efforts.”62
At one point, asking why Freud was not able to configure moral agency
through utilitarianism, Lacan refines his critique to a critical point. On
the one hand:
The attraction of utility is irresistible, so much that we see people

damning themselves for the pleasure of giving their modern
conveniences to other people, who, they’ve got it in their heads,

cannot live without their help… [W]hat is essential is that the fact
that the useful [utile] object irresistibly leads to the idea of sharing it
with the greatest number, because it is truly the need for the greatest
number that gave them the idea [in the first place.
And yet:
There is only one difficulty here, which is that, whatever the benefit
of utility and the extension of its reign, it has nothing to do with
morality. The latters consists primarily… in the frustration of a jouis-
sance that is posited by an apparently greedy law.63
“Jouissance” is a Lacanian term ranging in meaning between “enjoy-

ment,” “satisfaction,” and even the excess experienced in orgasm. It
represents a direction or object of desire exceeding the register of happi-
ness or pleasure, which actually restricts jouissance. He points out that
“it is not the Law itself that bars the subject’s access to jouissance – it
simply makes a barred subject out of an almost natural barrier. For it is
pleasure that sets limits to jouissance.”64
In Lacan’s view, any discourse centering entirely or even primarily on
pleasure, despite relative advances in understanding those matters such
a discourse generates, nevertheless renders itself inadequate. Even when
reorienting hedonism by adding in a sovereign or final good, sublima-
tion, social utility, or happiness, important dimensions of our own and
others’ moral experience end up being overlooked. Without taking those
into account, the prospects for understanding and being more than prey
to our own desires become dim. Making sense of our modern moral
condition requires attentiveness to the significances of guilt, obligation,
and the (moral) law, and Lacan carries this out not only by exploring
Kant’s radical moral contributions and its shadow in de Sade’s, but also
by working through what he takes to be key contributions from Judaism
and Christianity.
In turning to the thematic of the Law, it is important to point out
that Lacan does not accord the Freudian conception of the superego
the same scope and agency as Freud did. He emphasizes one of its key
characteristics, the implacability of the demands it places upon the
subject, “operating according to an economy such that the more one
sacrifices to it, the more it demands.”65 It is important not to fall into
the error of strictly identifying the superego and its agency with the
Law. Lacan notes: “[A]t the heart of everything that Freud taught, one
finds the following: the energy of the so-called superego derives from
the aggression that the subject turns back on himself.”66 In fact, it is
the Law that limits this escalating process of the superego, precisely
as “external,” as something within which the subject is located. He
stresses:
[T]heinteriorization of the Law has nothing to do with the Law

…. It is possible that the superego serves as support for the moral
conscience, but everybody knows that it has nothing to do with the
moral conscience as far as its most obligatory demands are concerned.
What the superego demands has nothing to do with that which we
would be right in making the universal rule of our actions.”67
Lacan credits Kant with bringing ethics to a critical point in several

ways. He reformulates the question of the highest, most architectonic
good. Against other ethics:
Kant objects to it that the sovereign good can in no way be conceived

as one small good carried to infinity. For there is no possible law to
be given of what might be the good in objects. The sovereign good, if
this confusing term must be retained, can be found again only at the
level of the law ….68
Kant also disconnects ethics from any affection or interest, seemingly

sundering desire from duty, at least in theory eliminating any “patho-
logical” motive from one’s will.69 He carries out, or at least imagines,
a purification from desire, leaving only the Law in its place, not only
outside of or before the subject, but even inhabiting and speaking
within him or her. This voice “articulating in the form of a maxim
in conscience, proposes the order of a purely practical reason or will
there,” and this in turn demands “the maxim may be considered
universal.”
Several blind spots obscure the Kantian project. The desire of the
subject, even labeled as “pathological,” is not so easily sublimated into
seemingly contentless universality. If that universality characteristic of
the Law does attract and compel us, does it not already involve, not only
constraint, but also some desire? There also turn out to be difficulties in
deriving and determining precisely which maxims fit these demands,
and ought to be followed, and which do not. This in turn opens the
door to De Sade’s proposals, which turn out to be in certain respects just
as rational, universalizable, and “pure” as Kant’s own.
If you adopt the opposite of all the laws of the Decalogue, you will
end up with the coherent exposition of something which in the last
instance may be articulated as follows: “Let us take as the universal
maxim of our conduct the right to enjoy any other person whatso-
ever as the instrument of our pleasure.”70
Although Lacan observes that any reasonable being would find “both
the maxim and the consent ... at best an instance of black humour,” and
suggests this is not so much “rational” as “the sort of reasonable that is
no more than resorting in a confused fashion to the pathological,”71 he
grants it articulates a coherent moral perspective resistant to critiques
from other standpoints. It signals one of several possibilities Kant’s own
viewpoint opens. In fact, de Sade takes matters further and illuminates
our condition more fully than does Kant, as he “imperceptibly displaces
for each of us the ancient axis of ethics, which is but the egoism of
happiness.”72 He takes us beyond an imagined opposition between Law
on the one hand, pleasure and happiness, on the other, and thereby
leads us into the dynamics of desire and jouissance.
This in turn leads us further back, into more classical and differently
revolutionary formulations of the law – in religion, in Judaism and
its successor Christianity. We cannot pretend to do justice to Lacan’s
complex and seemingly paradoxical stance on religion here. Instead, let
us focus on three key elements of his Freudian reinterpretation of Judeo-
Christian ethics: the Law’s formulations and effects; the Name-of-the-
Father and the death of God: and what exceeds the scope of the Law.
One of the main functions of the Law is not simply to command, but
to forbid or prohibit. What object or nature desire is it that it blocks?
It is desire not simply for pleasure, but for the jouissance exceeding the
field of pleasure, or even happiness. Lacan returns repeatedly to Saint
Paul’s reference to the relationship between Law and concupiscence
or desire, at one point drawing the lesson: “[W]ithout a transgression
there is no access to jouissance, and ... that is precisely the function of
the Law. Transgression in the direction of jouissance takes place only if
supported by the forms of the Law.”73 The Law allows there to be some-
thing beyond pleasure, opening up and maintaining possibilities for
deeper desire directed towards something eclipsing pleasure’s promises
or satisfactions. Lacan names this ultimate object of desire the Thing,
and outlines the connection between the Law and the Thing:
Is the Law the Thing? Certainly not. Yet I can only know the thing by
means of the Law. In effect, I would not have had the idea to covet it
if the Law hadn’t said: “Thou shalt not covet it.” But the Thing finds
a way by producing in me all kinds of covetousness thanks to the
commandment.…74
Centered within the experience of the Law and desire is a primal but
also reproduced disorder or fault, figured in Totem and Taboo’s Freudian
mythology of the murder of the father, the pact of the sons, and the
surprising endurance, even intensification of prohibition of jouissance,
crystallizing into the Law and its dialectical relations with desire.
Lacan emphasizes connections other interpreters of Freud have over-
looked or suppressed, “the function, role and figure of the Name-of-the
Father” and “his entire ethical reference revolving around the properly
Judeo-Christian tradition.75 The “Name” or “No” (nom/non in French) of
the Father represents the capacity, and the exercised actuality, of prohi-
bition, the function of the father articulating the Law and its structures.
For Lacan, this figure becomes an inescapable structure of the uncon-
scious, exercising effects upon us. It “sustains the structure of desire with
the structure of the law,” but as he notes, “the inheritance of the father
is that which Kierkegaard designates for us, namely, his sin.”76 The Law
is not, as Kant attempted to figure it, purified rationality, but rather
encompasses paradoxes and primal faults, including the very death of
the father – that is, God, who is able to maintain and impose prohibi-
tion, even jealous demands, precisely because he is lacking in reality, but
rules the symbolic order in which we rational animals locate ourselves.
What does God’s death signify for Lacan? One might assume that
signals a liberation of desire. In reality, it intensifies the Law’s imposing
demands, all the more as secularization becomes more explicit and
widespread. He points out:
To the concupiscence gleaming in old man Karamazov’s eyes when

he questioned his son – “God is dead, thus all is permitted” –
modern man, the very one who dreams of the nihilistic suicide of
Dostoyevsky’s hero or forces himself to blow up Nietzsche’s inflat-
able superman, replies with all his ills and his deeds: “God is dead,
nothing is permitted anymore.”77
Lacan asserts not only is God dead, but “God himself doesn’t know
that ... he will never know it because he has always been dead.” This
realization leads to “something that changes the bases of the ethical
problem, namely that jouissance still remains forbidden as it was before,
before we knew God was dead.”78
The Law and its bearing on desire reveals the human condition to be
one “ravaged by the Word.”79 Is there anything that leads us beyond this
Law, except for the unfigurable Freudian Thing we will turn to in the
next section? Interestingly, Lacan points out two comportments that
fall within the scope of our own agency to some extent. The first in the
fear of God “on which a tradition that goes back to Solomon is based:”
one distinct from the fear of gods from which thinkers from Lucretius to
Hume sought to liberate us. He names this “the principle of wisdom and
foundation of the love of God,” and notes that this affectivity “trans-
forms ... all fears into perfect courage. All fears ... are exchanged for what
is called the fear of God, which, however constraining it may be, is the
opposite of a fear.”80
Christianity recasts the Law, by reemphasizing two commandments.
One of these picks up this requirement to love, “the commandment which
commands that he, the father, be loved,” enunciated through “the man
who made incarnate the death of God,” who Lacan tells us, “still exists
with the commandment which orders him to love God.”81And this is
extended in turn to the difficult and dangerous second commandment
of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, which he calls a “narrow passage
where Freud himself stops and retreats in understandable horror.”82
The Freudian unconscious and ethics
As we have seen in the previous two sections, Lacan criticizes other

psychoanalytic theories, and critiques a number of moral theories. His
main goal with respect to the latter is not to refute them, to liberate us
from them, or to unmask them from a neo-Freudian perspective, but
rather to attain clarity about where and how they work, what portions of
the human experience they bear upon and orient, and where they come
up short in providing us with the answers they promise. The problem-
atic of hedonism, happiness, and pleasure, for example, is not strictly
speaking wrong or false, when understood as providing structure to a
part of the larger problematic within which the human subject remains
caught up. Likewise the problematic of the Law, jouissance, and the
death of God, reveals a deeper set of concerns destabilizing the dynamic
of pleasure, does not itself provide a complete viewpoint.
In Lacan’s view, Freud leads us further into adequate self-understanding
of the subject, or in broader terms, making sense of the human condi-
tion. In Lacan’s hands, central Freudian concepts or insights are reworked
into an integrative architectonic providing a fuller context and under-
standing to moral theories, experiences, and problematic. What are the
central features of this problematic? Lacan returns to “the moral experi-

ence involved in psychoanalysis ... summed up in the original impera-
tive proposed in what might be called the Freudian ascetic experience,
namely the WoEs war, sollIchwerden.83 This formula signifies an aim “of
reintegration and harmony ... even of reconciliation,” but one progress
towards which Lacan cautions can only occur if we do not lose sight
of “the self’s radical eccentricity with respect to itself,” a condition of
desire, and so rethinking ethics centers upon this. In part desire is the
subject’s, and so Lacan calls analysis “an invitation to the revelation of
his desire.”84 Discerning the necessary means for this leads us further
into desire’s structuring environment.
“In order to free the subject’s speech, we introduce him to the language
of his desire,”85 Lacan points out. This is a key turning point, because
language, and all that it brings with it (valorization, structure, ordering)
exceeds the subject. Psychoanalysis reveals “there is – since there is the
unconscious – something transcendent, truly transcendent, which is but
what the species inhabits, namely, language.”86 Because the unconscious
is structured as a language, it is just as much the field of the other’s
(and the Lacanian Other’s) desires as those of the subject. The condi-
tion of being anchored in language provides the connection to a triple
concern for analysis. “Its means are those of speech insofar as speech
confers a meaning on the functions of the individual; its domain is that
of concrete discourse qua field of the subject’s transindividual reality;
and its operations are those of history, insofar as history constitutes the
emergence of truth in reality [réel].”87
This insight allows us to better understand the significance of the
distinction Lacan not only makes over and over, but even calls atten-
tion to that fact, between the three registers of the real, the imagi-
nary, and the symbolic. The condition of the real is a convoluted and
controversial subject. Suffice it to say here that the real is not iden-
tical with what we typically term “reality,” since that actually straddles
the imaginary or the symbolic as well. The objects and concerns of
both ethics and psychoanalysis engage the real, but always through
the intermediary of the other two registers. In fact, they contribute to,
expand, complicate the real, in several ways. For one, “moral action
is, in effect, grafted onto the real. It introduces something new into
the real and thereby opens a path in which the point of our presence
is legitimated.”88 Lacan also points out that “we make reality out of
pleasure.”89 Even the broader category of praxis itself, “concerted
human action,” has as its characteristic that it “places man in a posi-
tion to treat the real by the symbolic,” encountering the imaginary
in the process.90 So, it is the imaginary and the symbolic to which we

must turn.
The imaginary is the dimension of affectively charged images, identi-
fications of the subject with imagos of other persons, objects and partial
objects of desire. It is also the register in which the subject’s ego is devel-
oped, existing in relation to its ego ideals (one’s construal of others
populating one’s imaginary register) and the ideal ego (one’s construal
of what one is and desires to be). The ego and the imaginary register
are oriented by typically unacknowledged but operative narcissism and
by an aggressivity whose “intentional pressure” can become evident
to others, particularly through analysis. The famous “mirror stage” of
Lacanian theory is useful for grasping this dynamic. “It brings to light
the nature of this aggressive relation and what it signifies,” namely that
between the ego and its other, the ego “sets itself up in a duality internal
to the subject.” It also reveals that “drives and the ego are in conflict
and that there is a choice that has to be made,”91 a choice by the subject
non-identical with the ego.
Desire as structured by the imaginary involves the other from the
start:
What makes the human world a world covered with objects derives
from the fact that the object of human interest is the object of the
other’s desire.… It’s possible because the human ego is the other
because in the beginning the subject is closer to the form of the
other than to the emergence of his own tendency. He is originally an
inchoate collection of desires… and the initial synthesis of the ego is
essentially an alter ego, it is alienated. The desiring human subject is
constructed around a center which is the other insofar as he gives the
subject his unity, and the first encounter with the object is with the
object as object of the other’s desire.92
Rendering this still more complex, “man’s desire finds its meaning in
the other’s desire, not so much because the other holds keys to the
desired object, but because his first object(ive) is to be recognized by the
other.”93
In the subject’s experience and desire, the imaginary and the real
intersect with the register of the symbolic, something distinct to
human beings, lacking which “no animal life would be possible for this
misshapen subject that man is.”94 Lacan notes that the imaginary can
be “linked to ethnology, to animal psychology,” but the symbolic resitu-
ates it, rendering it different, less straightforward in its potentialities
and problematic. He tells us that “the symbolic is what yields us the

entire world system,” and that “this is what makes an infinitely greater
number of objects enter the field of human desire than enter animal
experience.”95 In fact, the point of the mirror stage is that development
requires an infant’s entrance into and incorporation of the symbolic
register, “inaugurat[ing] ... the dialectic that will henceforth link the I to
socially elaborated situations.”96 In fact, “development only takes place
insofar as the subject integrates himself into the symbolic system, acts
within it, asserts himself in it through the use of genuine speech. It isn’t
even essential,” Lacan points out, “that this speech be his own.”97
He stresses in multiple ways that the symbolic exists as a totality
preceding and exceeding the subject. “It isn’t constituted bit by bit.
As soon as the symbol arrives, there is a universe of symbols.”98 For
the young child, “the symbol is already there ... it is enormous and
englobes him from all sides ... language exists, fills libraries to the point
of overflowing, and surrounds, guided, and rouses all your actions.”99
It pre-exists because the subject enters into a world already humanized,
populated by and inherited from others, marked and shaped by their
desires. This implies:
… reason, discourse, signifying articulation as such, is there from the

beginning ... in an unconscious form before the birth of anything as
far as human experience is concerned. It is there buried, unknown,
not mastered, not available to him who is its support. And it is rela-
tive to a situation that is structured in this way that man at a subse-
quent moment has to situate his needs.100
It is within the symbolic order that the human subject undergoes the
effects, or encounters the structures of the Lacanian unconscious. The
function of castration and the phallus, the Name-of-the-Father, the
prohibitions imposed by a God who does not realize he is dead, the Law
forbidding jouissance, all of these and more exert their effects within the
linguistically ordered landscape of the symbolic register, structuring and
providing space, not only for the subject’s desire, nor for the desire of a
“little-o” other who is the imaginary correlate of the subject, but for the
Lacanian “big-O” Other.
This Other is a structure of the unconscious assuming or approxi-
mating multiple forms depending on its function, but it is always a third
agency added to the dyad of subject and other; or rather, grounding
their very possibilities of communication, rivalry, antagonism, relation-
ship, and desire. As real, Lacan says, the Other is “reduced to death, a
borderline figure who answers the question about one’s existence.”101

In the symbolic, however, the Other is an agency which guarantees, or
makes possible as such, the other key structures and their functions –
giving the Law, threatening a castration that never comes, for example.
Most importantly here, the Other governs, offers, and evokes desire. The
range of possible relations between subject and Other, let alone the forms
the Other may be masked within, is too manifold to chart out here, but
one common feature is that “man’s desire is desire of the Other,”102 a
formula whose implications Lacan plays out at several points. One key
realization stemming from this is that examination and evaluation of
the subject’s own desires reveals that they are not original to his or her
own being, but already reflect, depend upon, and relate to what the
Other desires.
Desire of the Other is also desire for the Other, and this in turn is
reflected in what Freud calls “the Thing,” an orientation of our desire,
always beyond representation or signification, promising though never
realizing jouissance. Lacan tells us “there is good and bad, and then there
is the Thing,” beyond and supporting both of these valorizations. For
Lacan, this Thing indicates the connection between ethics, desire, and
the Law. He points out “I can only know of the Thing by means of
the Law”103 and clarifies that “the moral law is articulated with relation
to the real ... insofar as it can be the guarantee of the Thing.”104 This
has important implications for ethics, one of which is that “if he is to
follow the path of his pleasure, man must go around [the Thing].” The
hedonist problematic leads into impasses. “[W]hat governs us on the
path of pleasure is no Sovereign Good.”105
Does that mean we ought to reject or rework hedonism in favor of
identifying and striving for a final, architectonic good? Freud radically
denies “the good as such,”106 according to Lacan. “[T]he step taken
by Freud ... is to show us that there is no Sovereign Good – that the
Sovereign Good, which is das Ding ... is a forbidden good, and that there
is no other good.”107 And yet, as we have seen, while recognizing the
significance, indeed the indelible persistence in the symbolic, of the Law
and its relation to desire in forbidding jouissance, Lacan does not advo-
cate conformity to duty, fulfilling the commandments, obeying the law
any more than he endorses a lifting of those strictures, let alone trans-
gression for its own sake, since it will not actually produce the jouissance
desired.
Lacan does suggest that “there is another register of morality that
takes its direction from that which is to be found on the level of das
Ding; it is the register that makes the subject hesitate when he is at
the point of bearing false witness against das Ding, that is to say, the
place of desire.”108 Central to the “reconsideration of ethics to which
psychoanalysis leads” is not a moral imperative to fulfill one’s desires (or
those of others, or those of the Other), but to progressively understand
one’s desires. Within the context of analysis, a “form of ethical judge-
ment” becomes possible in an emphatic form, articulated as a question,
“Have you acted in conformity with the desire that is in you?”109 Notice,
however, that this is no endorsement of simply following one’s desires.
The question is posed in order not only to guide the subject into the
complex, ongoing, iterative task of attaining clarity about the nature,
objects, and origins of one’s own desires, but also to provoke a person to
determine which of those desires are worth following or favoring, which
to endorse and own, and which to reject or defer.
To bring these outlines of Lacan’s perspective on ethics to a close, I’d
like to summarize several key points bearing on his perspective. Ethics in
one form or another is unavoidable for any human subject. Moral theo-
ries, practices, reflections, and experiments are integral to the human
condition. At the same time, Lacanian psychoanalysis reveals that
ethics and human experience remain over determined. There is always
too much going on and involved for any single moral theory, valua-
tion, or perspective to adequately understand and allow us to success-
fully negotiate our way through the problematic inherent in the human
condition, whether those imposed upon us by history or produced by
our own situations and choices. One major advance Lacan contributes
to understanding that problematic human condition is his insistence
and exploration of the symbolic register, an insight taken over from
Freud but considerably further developed through Lacanian psychoa-
nalysis. Accordingly, a critical stance is warranted towards moral projects
purporting to provide complete resolution or entirely clear under-
standing of the full range of moral matters, whether articulated by a
moral theory or orienting a psychotherapeutic perspective. Put another
way, in a Lacanian perspective, for any given human subject, ethics is
never entirely finished.
Conclusion
Lacan reveals to us that we human subjects are radically incomplete

in our development, both freer and more constrained or conditioned
than we realize, necessarily existing in relation to others, desirous not
only of the objects of our own formed desires, but also those of others,
and of the very desire of the Other. He also shows us that, although we
can pretend to evade the domain – the disciplines, the discourses of

ethics – we cannot actually escape this dimension of human existence.
He situates Freudian psychoanalytic experience and insight in relation
to the range of theories, practices, and problematics of ethics laboriously
worked out in human history by subjects who were in the end strug-
gling with some of the same difficulties we ourselves do in the present.
None of these “ethics” turn out to be entirely sufficient, any more than
does reconfiguration of Freudian analysis into a new form of ethics, but
from each of them, there is something to learn, something to reflect
upon, and perhaps something to incorporate in the ongoing project of
situating ourselves in relation to our own others, our own desires and
theirs, and our ethical commitments, decisions, and valuations.
Notes
1. J. Lacan (1992) Seminar 7: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, D. Potter, trans. (New
York: W. W. Norton), p. 88.
2. J. Lacan (1992), p. 207.
3. Ibid., p. 71.
4. Ibid., p. 36.
5. Ibid., p. 2.
6. Ibid., p. 36.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., p. 133.
9. Ibid., p. 207.
10. Ibid., p. 216.
11. Ibid., p. 206.
12. Ibid., p. 8.
13. J. Lacan (2002), Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English, B. Fink, trans.
(New York: W.W. Norton), p. 227.
14. J. Lacan (2002), p. 388.
15. Ibid., p. 205.
16. Ibid., p. 387.
17. Ibid.
18. J. Lacan (1998b), Seminar 20: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and
Knowledge, B. Fink, trans. (New York: W.W. Norton), p. 105.
19. J. Lacan (1993), Seminar 3: The Psychoses, R. Grigg, trans. (New York: W.W.
Norton), p. 8.
20. J. Lacan (2002), p. 260.
21. J. Lacan (1992), p. 8.
22. J. Lacan (1998a), pp. 189 and 192–193.
23. J. Lacan (2002), p. 529.
24. J. Lacan (1991b), Seminar 2: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of
Psychoanalysis, S. Tomasselli, trans. (New York: W.W. Norton), p. 263.
25. J. Lacan (1991b), p. 263.
26. J. Lacan (1992), p. 293.
27. J. Lacan (2002), p. 204.

28. Ibid., p. 251.
29. J. Lacan (1998a), Seminar 11: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,
A. Sheridan, trans. (New York: W.W. Norton), p. 131.
30. J. Lacan (1993), p. 241.
31. Ibid., pp. 252–253.
32. Ibid., p. 85.
33. J. Lacan (1998a), pp. 9–10.
34. J. Lacan (2002), p. 433.
35. J. Lacan (1998b), p. 53.
36. J. Lacan (2002), p. 86.
37. J. Lacan (1991b), p. 18.
38. Ibid., p. 5.
39. Ibid., p. 16.
40. Ibid., p. 20.
41. J. Lacan (1992), pp. 22–23.
42. J. Lacan (1991b), p. 9.
43. J. Lacan(1992), p. 10.
44. J. Lacan (1998b), p. 112.
45. Ibid., p. 87.
46. J. Lacan (1992), p. 52.
47. Ibid., p. 23.
48. Ibid., p. 121.
49. Ibid., p. 22.
50. Ibid., p. 27.
51. Ibid., p. 221.
52. Ibid., p. 160.
53. Ibid., pp. 3–4.
54. Ibid., p. 34.
55. Ibid., p. 185.
56. Ibid., p. 184.
57. Ibid., p. 216.
58. J. Lacan (1998b), p. 3.
59. J. Lacan (1992), p. 216.
60. Ibid., p. 314.
61. Ibid., p. 187.
62. Ibid.
63. J. Lacan (2013), The Triumph of Religion, preceded by The Discourse to Catholics,
B. Fink, trans. (Malden, MA. Polity Press), pp. 20–21.
64. J. Lacan (2002), p. 696.
65. J. Lacan (1992), p. 302.
66. Ibid., p. 194.
67. Ibid., p. 310.
68. J. Lacan (1998a), p. 242.
69. J. Lacan (1992), pp. 76–77.
70. Ibid., p. 79.
71. J. Lacan (2002), p. 648
72. Ibid., p. 663.
73. J. Lacan (1992), p. 177.
74. Ibid., p. 83.

75. J. Lacan (2013), p. 22.
76. J. Lacan (1998a), p. 34.
77. J. Lacan (2002), p. 106.
78. J. Lacan (1992), p. 184.
79. J. Lacan (2013), p. 74.
80. J. Lacan (1993), pp. 266–267.
81. J. Lacan (1992), p. 177.
82. Ibid., p. 193.
83. Ibid., p. 7.
84. Ibid., p. 221.
85. J. Lacan (2002), p. 243.
86. J. Lacan (1998b), p. 96.
87. J. Lacan (2002), p. 214.
88. J. Lacan (1992), p. 21.
89. Ibid., p. 225.
90. J. Lacan (1998a), p. 6.
91. J. Lacan (1993), p. 93
92. Ibid., p. 39.
93. J. Lacan (2002), p. 222.
94. J. Lacan (1993), p. 96.
95. Ibid., pp. 177–178.
96. J. Lacan (2002), p. 79.
97. J. Lacan (1991a), Seminar 1: Freud’s Papers on Technique, J. Forrester, trans.
(New York: W.W. Norton), p. 86.
98. J. Lacan (1991b), p. 29.
99. J. Lacan (1993), p. 81.
100. J. Lacan (1992), p. 209.
101. J. Lacan (2002), p. 378.
102. J. Lacan (1998a), p. 38.
103. J. Lacan (1992), p. 83.
104. Ibid., p. 76.
105. Ibid., p. 95.
106. Ibid., p. 96.
107. Ibid., p. 70.
108. Ibid., pp. 109–110.
109. Ibid., p. 314.

13
Ayn Rand’s Ethics of Rational
Selfishness
Precious O. Ighoroje
Introduction
Postmodernism could be described as the period that human thought

entered after the Second World War; it embodied a set of attitudes,
values, beliefs and theories about what it meant to be living in the late
20th century.1 Lyotard,2 a leading figure in the postmodernist move-
ment appealed that the “grand narratives” (Universal theories) of
Western culture should be rejected because they had lost all credibility,
regardless of what mode of unification they use, whether a speculative
narrative or a narrative of emancipation.3 Traditionally, grand narratives
have helped to direct cultural practices, thereby standing as authorities
in guiding human thought.
Postmodernism as a philosophical movement is a form of skepticism
about authority, received wisdom, cultural and political norms.4 It raised
questions about the efficacy of the objectivity of the Enlightenment
heritage, based on the idea of progress, for providing guidance in
science, politics, culture and religion. The movement maintains a skep-
tical attitude towards the grand narratives implied by major philoso-
phies like those of Kant, Freud, Marx, Hegel and Christian ethics. This
led to a total rejection of claims of any kind of overall, totalizing expla-
nation of reality.5 Postmodern thought advocates a pulling down of, or
abandoning of grand narratives, philosophical systems and foundations
because they were holistic, totalitarian and absolute.
The wave of postmodernism altered traditional standards of morality
embedded in religions and philosophies. Traditional morality, as epito-
mized in Christian ethics, extolled altruism and saw egoism as a vice.
Postmodern theorists stress that morality should be based on self-in-
terest, as well as the subjective nature of the individual. Morality should
240
Ayn Rand’s Ethics of Rational Selfishness 241
not be dictated by any higher authority other than the human person.
Postmodernist ethics has been tagged an ethics of subjectivity which
works from the basic belief that morality is not grounded in reasoning,
and a person’s feelings or beliefs are the only possible means for morally
justifying an action.6 An immoral action is one that is inconsistent with
the personal beliefs and convictions of a moral agent.
Among theorists such as Gadamer, Derrida, Foucault, Ricoeur, Dilthey,
Rorty, Lyotard and Delueze, Ayn Rand also makes an original contribu-
tion to the postmodernist ethics of subjectivity. This chapter attempts a
concise and critical presentation of Rand’s contribution to the ethics of
the self. The chapter expresses the incompatibility between rationalism
and egoism (selfishness) and points out a contradiction in Rand’s Ethics.
The chapter concludes that Rand’s rational egoism qualifies as an ethics
of the self notwithstanding its inclusion of rationality.
Rand’s preliminary remarks on morality
Rand defines morality as a “code of values to guide man’s choices and

actions – the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the
course of his/her life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and
defining such a code.”7 Challenging the foundations of human morality,
she raises questions such as; do humans need a code of values? If they
do, why? Are the moral values of good and evil based on feelings and
emotions? Are moral codes mere human interventions detached and
unrelated to reality? Are they ought to be based on mystical revela-
tions or human reason? Is ethics a subjective luxury or an objective
necessity?8 In her view, moral theories throughout history have been
based on whims and other irrational foundations. Major justifications
for morality have failed to answer the question: “Why do humans need
morality?” Most moral theories have only stipulated what the moral life
should look like and what principles should be pursued. Most theories
have not justified the need for moral codes.
Philosophers have provided justifications for morality based on divine
command and on social grounds. As espoused in Christian ethics, the
divine command theory holds that morality is based on the “will of
God.” “On a divine command conception, actions forbidden by God are
morally wrong because they are thus forbidden, actions not forbidden
by God are morally right because they are not thus forbidden, and
actions commanded by God are morally obligatory because they are thus
commanded.”9 This view is also known as supernaturalism, which holds
that ethics is based on Religion and God’s will creates the moral order.10
242 Precious O. Ighoroje
Theorists such as John Duns Scotus, William Ockham, John Locke, and
Berkeley held this view. They explain that humans can know the will of
God from the Bible or other holy books, the church, prayer, revelation
and reason. The challenge however is that supernaturalism implies that
it is impossible for atheists to make moral judgments.11
Justifications of morality on social grounds merely exchange the idea
of “God” with “society” and “culture,” leading to the view of cultural
relativism which holds that the “good” is what is “socially approved”
by the majority in a given culture.12 They conclude that there are no
objective values as values differ from culture to culture. Cultural relativ-
ists view themselves as tolerant; they see other cultures, not as “wrong,”
but as “different.”13 The question that arises is: in a case of moral disa-
greement between two different cultures, based on whose values should
issues be resolved? Proponents of this view argue that moral actions are
those that aim at “the good of society:” Who is society? What is “the
good?” Rand explains that “the good” is whatever society wills or chooses
to do because it chooses to do it… society is only a number of individual
men– this meant that some men (the majority or any gang that claims
to be its spokesman) are ethically entitled to pursue any whims (or any
atrocities) they desire to pursue, while other people are ethically obliged
to spend their lives in the service of that gang’s desires.14 To say that
society and popular culture determines morality stipulates Utilitarian
inclinations.
Classical utilitarianism posits that the rightness or wrongness of an
action is hinged on the value of its consequence, such that rightness
depends on goodness. Utilitarianism holds that “the maximization of
everyone’s happiness and the minimization of unhappiness are humane
and reasonably rational grounds for ethics.”15 Instead of ascertaining
why or if humans need a code of morality at all, moral philosophers
have been occupied with stipulating what the best moral life entails. To
fill in this gap in ethical theory, Rand bases her ethics on three meta-
physical and epistemological axioms.
Metaphysical and epistemological foundations of

Rand’s ethics
In Rand’s view, there are some fundamentals of human nature that

provide the bridge from metaphysics and Epistemology to ethics. In her
metaphysical theory, Rand asserts that existence and consciousness are
“the proper starting point of philosophy.”16 These two she describes as
axioms in the Aristotelian tradition because they are undeniable and
self-evident truths. “An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of

knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge,
a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular
speaker chooses to identify it or not.”17
All knowledge starts from realizing the primacy of existence; that
something exists. However, if one can understand the primacy of
existence, it means that the person is conscious. One’s “possession
of consciousness – the faculty of perceiving what exists – is a second
self-evident and undeniable fact.”18 “Existence exists – and the act of
grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something
exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing conscious-
ness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.”19
Something must exist in consciousness, because consciousness with
nothing to be conscious of is contradictory. Therefore, consciousness
is always consciousness of something. In Rand’s thought, existence
proceeds consciousness and consciousness necessarily implies existence.
One cannot make claims to consciousness without being in existence.
These axioms of existence and consciousness are inescapable and funda-
mental to all human knowledge.
Identity is the third axiom that follows from existence and conscious-
ness. To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of
non-existence. It is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific
attributes. The law of Identity states that A is A: a thing is itself and cannot
be another thing at the same time. A leaf cannot be a stone at the same
time; it cannot be all red and all green at the same time.20 Rand explains
that Existence is Identity and Consciousness is Identification. Existence,
Consciousness, Identity are the basic facts (and concepts) at the root of all
knowledge, according to Ayn Rand. For there to be knowledge, there must
be something to know (Existence), someone to know it (Consciousness),
and something to know about it (Identity). These are the three philo-
sophic axioms upon which Rand’s moral theory is based.21
The ethics of rational selfishness
To facilitate an understanding of the objectivist ethics of rational self-

ishness, Rand outlined a couple of principles. Starting from an analysis
of value, Rand explains the relationship between reason and choice.
Thereafter, Rand focuses on the importance of productive work, purpose
and self-esteem to humans. Rand further explains the cardinal virtues
which rational egoism centers on as well as the connection between
happiness and life.
Human life as the standard of moral value

Ethics deals with the values and codes that guide human conduct.
Values and the pursuit of goals are important to human existence. “The
concept of value is thus, for Rand, the fundamental concept of ethics.”22
What then is value? Why do humans need a code of values?:
“Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept
“value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question:
of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of
acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alter-
native exists, no goals and no values are possible.23
Value makes sense to living things because they have interests to pursue,
to protect, gain or lose. It is unintelligible to non-living things because
they have nothing at stake to loose or gain. The fact that the concept
of value makes sense to living things alone is based on the first axiom
of Rand’s metaphysics, which is existence. The concept of value presup-
poses alternatives to choose from which may imply life or death. It is
against this background of alternatives that one can meaningfully distin-
guish things as good or bad.24 Humans need a code of values because the
concept of values is essential to being alive. Rand’s analysis of value
shows that “morality is man’s means of achieving the values that his
life depends on. Ethical codes are meant to help steer human beings to
the achievement of the more concrete values that fuel an individual’s
existence.”25
However, it is through the physical sensation of pleasure and pain that
living things begin to discover and understand the concept of value.
This physical sensation of pleasure or pain is the first step in the devel-
opment of consciousness in plants, lower animals and humans.
The pleasure–pain mechanism in the body of man – and in the bodies

of all the living organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness –
serves as an automatic guardian of the organism’s life. The physical
sensation of pleasure is a signal indicating that the organism is
pursuing the right course of action. The physical sensation of pain is
a warning signal of danger, indicating that the organism is pursuing
the wrong course of action.26
Consciousness (sensation of pain and pleasure) is the basic means of

survival for living organisms. Plants and lower animals are geneti-
cally coded to act automatically in self-sustaining ways (for example,
to absorb water, to convert sunlight into energy, to hunt).27 Through

sensation, animals have an automatic code of values, an automatic
knowledge of what is good and evil, what benefits or endangers their
lives. Animals depend on this automatic code of values because they
lack the power of choice. For animals it is this simple; but, as humans
are more complex, they require more than mere sensation to determine
good and evil. Sensation can suggest hunger and thirst to a person, but it
does not tell where and how to obtain food. Humans have no automatic
code of conduct or set of values and they require more than pain and
pleasure to ascertain the right code of values. Rand asserts that through
reason humans can determine or ascertain good and evil. Sensation
cannot provide for one’s physical needs without a process of thought.
Humans need a process of thought to discover how to plant and grow
food or how to make weapons for hunting.28 For Rand, human life is
the standard of moral value: that which furthers life is to the good; that
which threatens life is evil.29 Humans come to know that which furthers
or threatens their lives through the faculty of reason. In answer to the
question: why do humans need a moral code? (which most moral theo-
rists have evaded or ignored) Rand explains that ensuring survival is the
basic reason.
Rands analysis of value dismisses the notion of intrinsic value. “Value
is not found ready-made in the external world, a free-standing feature
nestled within certain things.”30 Something could be said to have value
according to the positive effect it has on the life of an organism. A
value has to be good to somebody for a specific end. Value is discovered
through reason.
Rand further explains that value is objective, dismissing the idea of
subjectivity. This is because what is regarded to be valuable is based on
reason, not on personal beliefs, tastes, attitudes and desires. Objective
value contributes to the flourishing of one’s life, and such values need
to be discovered.
Reason and choice

Every day, humans face issues that imply the choice of live or death. One
must make decisions and take actions that are life-sustaining through
the use of reason. Reason according to Rand is the basic tool of survival
for humans. Unlike animals that have an automatic code, “the exercise
of human reason is volitional. Humans exercise this faculty based on
choice. Man must choose to think. He must choose to value his life. He
must choose to discover the values his life requires. He must define these
values conceptually, and choose to act on them.”31 Through choice and
deliberate effort, humans come to discover those codes and values that
can sustain them alive.
Humans have to initiate, sustain and bear the responsibility for the
use of rationality. “Nature gives no automatic guarantee of the efficacy
of his mental efforts… Everything he needs has to be learned, discov-
ered and produced by him- by his own choice, by his own effort, by
his own mind.”32 The second metaphysical axiom, which is conscious-
ness, shows up in human rationality: it is the ability to know, think out
what values are profitable for survival. Since only living things can be
conscious, the metaphysical axioms of existence and consciousness are
tied together in understanding human values and moral codes.
Humans must use reason, must depend on the workings of the mind to
survive. Survival cannot be achieved by arbitrary means nor by random
motions nor by blind urges nor by chance nor by whim.33 If ever one
decides to abandon reason or decides not to use the human mind, one
becomes a sub-creature and this sure leads to destruction.
Thinking and productive work

Since reason is the basic means of survival and all ethical codes ought
to be geared towards sustaining life, human life according to Rand is the
standard of moral value or that which is required for man’s survival qua
man.34 All values on which human life depend are created or arrived
at through reason. The human mind is therefore man’s basic tool of
survival:
Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth

unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force.
Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle.
He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of
thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons – a
process of thought.35
Everything that humans require to survive must be discovered by the

mind (reason). This can be done only through deliberate effort to
discover: that is, to use the mind. For example, Fleming’s penicillin, the
Wright brothers’ airplane, Thomas Edison’s electric bulb among other
discoveries are creations of the rational faculty. Knowledge of these
scientific breakthroughs did not come innately; rather, they were arrived
at through deliberate efforts to put human rationality to work.
Whether or not some persons choose to use their minds to make
decisions and discoveries, the human mind remains the basic tool of
survival. Invariably, those who abandon the use of mind and reason
end up depending on the rationality of others who choose to use theirs.
Evading the responsibility of thought and rationality are those whom
Rand tag “mental parasites.” Mental parasites – such as, looters, robbers,
cheats, thugs as well as those who use force or fraud to get whatever they
wish – survive on the mental capacity of the victims. Mental parasites
employ the method which animals live by and this is unbecoming. For
instance, a student who cheats in an examination is a mental parasite
who has decided not to read (to use their mind) but to depend on the
mental capacity of others.
Rand contends that “men cannot survive by attempting the method
of animals – by rejecting reason and counting on productive men to
serve as their prey ... because this will ultimately lead to destruction of
the victims and themselves.”36 Humans cannot survive as animals, only
as humans.
Reason, purpose and self-esteem

Reason, purpose and self-esteem are the three fundamental values of the
objectivist ethic, with the respective virtues of: rationality, productive-
ness and pride. Rand holds that these values are the means of realization
of one’s life because life is a process of self-sustaining actions. For, to live
a flourishing life, one has to be consistently guided by reason in every
action and decision taken. Humans must live a life of purpose and this
requires that one pursues those goals and values that will further one’s
life. Humans are to make deliberate efforts to discover and passionately
pursue those actions that will better one’s life. Self-esteem is the overall
result of one’s commitment to reason, purpose and productive work.
Humans need to develop self-esteem because it is the confidence in
one’s efficacy and worth.
The cardinal virtues

Rand explicates that there are seven cardinal virtues that an egotis-
tical morality demands, namely: rationality, independence, integrity,
honesty, justice, productivity and pride.
i. Rationality: This is the basic virtue on which all others are built.
Irrationality, which is the suspension of the use of the mind, is the
greatest vice. “Rationality is the acceptance of reason as one’s only
source of knowledge and fundamental guide to action.”37 One is
said to be rational by deliberately grounding one’s thinking in the
way things are, as best as one can discern through the exercise of
the individual’s perpetual and conceptual capacities.38 The virtue of

rationality implies “a total commitment to a state of full, conscious
awareness, maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, all
choices, in all of one’s waking hours.”39 There is no substitute for
reason; neither faith, nor revelation, nor emotions or other shortcut
to knowledge. Therefore, all of one’s beliefs, values, goals, convic-
tions and desires must be based on reason.
ii. Independence: This is the acceptance of the responsibility of forming
one’s judgments and living by the work of one’s own mind.40 One
must think for one’s self and act for one’s self and be ready to
take up the responsibility that thought and action imposes on the
individual.
iii. Integrity: This virtue requires that “one must never sacrifice one’s
convictions to the opinions or wishes of others.”41 It is hinged
on the fundamental harmony between the mind and body. The
human person is an indivisible entity made up of consciousness
and matter. The virtue of integrity requires that one should not
fake consciousness; what you believe is what you believe and your
convictions should not be abandoned to that of the other.
iv. Honesty: It demands that “one must never attempt to fake reality
in any manner.”42 “Honesty for Ayn Rand, is a profoundly selfish
virtue, which keeps you in full contact with reality, allows you
control over your existence and allows you to benefit from the
rationality of others, rather than setting it and them against you.”43
One must never attempt to gain a value (whether fame, money,
love and so on) by false means.
v. Justice: Justice as a virtue requires that a person should never seek
the undeserved or unearned. One must reject all forms of contra-
dictions, such as having one’s cake and eating it.
vi. Productiveness: This virtue consists of “the recognition of the fact
that productive work is the process by which the human mind
sustains one’s life.”44 Rand notes that, through productive work,
one can consciously control one’s existence and reshape the earth
in the image of one’s values. Productive work depends on the
highest attributes of a person’s character like: ambitiousness, self-
assertiveness, creative ability, and so on. Productive work is not just
any type of work that one does to pass the time; rather, it is that
which demands the fullest and most purposeful use of one’s mind.
vii. Pride: Pride is “moral ambitiousness” in Rand’s view. “It means that
one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest value
by achieving one’s own moral perfection – which one achieves by
never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to prac-

tice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be
rational.”45 It is “the proud rejection of the role of a sacrificial
animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation
as a moral virtue or duty.”46
Happiness and life

Rand follows the same line of thought as Immanuel Kant when she
contends that man should never be used as a means to an end but as
an end in himself. “Not the means to the end of the welfare of others-
and therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing
himself or others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own
sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest
moral principle.”47 Happiness, as the highest moral principle, is a state
of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.
Happiness is a state of “non-contradictory joy.” It can be reached only
by pursuing non-contradictory goals. Contradictory goals are those
that clash with human values/interests and can lead to destruction.
Therefore, only the rational person can attain happiness because it
comes from pursuing rational values, goals and actions which are in
one’s best interest. The pursuit of happiness and maintenance of life,
Rand further explains, are the same thing:
To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happi-
ness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achieve-
ment. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the
activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward
and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness.48
The pursuit of a flourishing life and happiness are two aspects of the
same thing that require the use of reason to discover the supporting
values. The ultimate purpose of all morality is to ensure that one
leads a flourishing life and attains happiness. Therefore, reason is the
“happiness-creating faculty.” This simply means that, for a person to
be happy, one must take rational decisions and actions. For instance,
in choosing a marriage partner, one has to employ reason. First of all,
get to understand one’s values, desires and motivations for choosing a
life partner. Thereafter, outline the values, traits and characters desired
in a partner. If one does not plan for the future by reasoning such
details out, a person can end up choosing blindly, a partner that might
bring one to sadness and ruin. It also applies to choosing a career,
building a house or embarking on any project that is of value to the

human person.
The use of reason is necessary to ensure happiness in all of life’s
endeavors. Contrary to the common opinion that love and relation-
ships ought to be based solely on emotion, Rand insists that reason
cannot be jettisoned when it comes to relationships. Through reason
each moral agent ought to seek the friendship of individuals who are
virtuous and have strength of character. The principle of trade (which
will be discussed later) should govern human relationships. In romantic
love, though there is room for emotions, reason is the ultimate guide
since the potential for joy or heartbreak is very great: an individual must
be careful regarding to whom he/she gives his/her heart.49
Rational selfishness
Rand advocates the ethics of rational self-interest, otherwise known as
rational egoism, which is the basic principle of the objectivist ethics.
Ethical egoism opines that a person should act to promote their self-
interest. It stresses that one’s primary obligation is to achieve well-being
and not sacrifice it for the well-being of others.50 Rand’s version of egoism
is entirely different from Hedonism, which takes pleasure – or whatever
makes one happy – as the standard of morality. To be guided by pleasure
or whatever makes one happy is to be guided by emotions. Rand holds
that happiness or pleasure could be the purpose of morality but not the
standard. In hedonism, it is morally acceptable when the pleasure or
happiness of one person brings about injury to others. If the greatest
pleasure for the greatest number is the moral standard, the pleasure of
the minority could be conveniently sacrificed. Hedonism assumes that
one must sacrifice others to attain pleasure or happiness. Rand does not
agree: it is possible to achieve happiness without sacrificing others’.
Rational selfishness is different from Hedonism because rationality is
the standard for morality, unlike the pleasure of hedonism.
The ethics of rational selfishness demands that one holds one’s life
as the standard of moral value so as to achieve happiness and the flour-
ishing life, though guided by reason. Anyone who desires to stay alive
must take life preservation to be the highest moral value: focusing on
the opposite leads to destruction. The pursuit of self-interest and well-
being are therefore necessary for survival. It is through reason that you
can ascertain those codes and moral values that ensure your well-being.
Therefore, Rand opines that egoism is the only proper moral code for
humans to live by. However, Rand asserts that this sort of egoism is
rational because it is based on reason. How can egoism or self-interest be
rational? The idea of a “self” presupposes some associated subjectivities.

To what extent can selfishness be guided by reason?
“Human beings,” Ayn Rand argues, “… should seek their own happi-
ness. They are not obligated to serve the need of their family, to offer
selfless service to God, or to sacrifice themselves for society. They
should not renounce personal values. Rather, they should live and act
selfishly.”51 In Rand’s view, selfishness involves a commitment to one’s
self (the things one considers most important – including one’s mind).
“Selfishness means to hold and pursue meaningful and enhancing
values.”52 The pursuit of a selfless, altruistic life ultimately leads to
resentment. For instance, if one abandons one’s marriage, career, other
positive goals and aspirations in order to take care of a sick mother, one
will be regarded as a selfless and good person. But, in the long run, one
will be filled with resentment and the dissatisfaction of living an unful-
filled life:
The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require
human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone
to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash –
that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire
the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal
with one another as traders, giving value for value.53
Clashes and disagreements are a necessary part of human relations; so,

to say that the interests of rational persons do not clash is unaccept-
able. Human reason cannot exist in a vacuum, it is contextual. The
rational choice of a particular value is based on one’s self-interest at
a given time, within a particular circumstance. Rand insists that the
rational choices of people do not clash at any time: there is no conflict
of interests among people who do not desire the unearned, who do not
make sacrifices or accept them – who deal with one another as traders,
giving value for value. Theoretically, this seems plausible, but in prac-
tice, there is nowhere in the world where some people will not desire
the unearned – it is part of human nature. The ideas of egalitarianism,
favor and opportunity make this impossible. How do we reconcile these
two ideas (rationality and selfishness)? The ethics of rational selfishness
upholds the principle of trade. This is the justice principle, which guides
all human relationships:
A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take
the undeserved. He does not treat men as masters or slaves, but as
independent equals. He deals with men by means of a free, voluntary,

unforced, uncoerced exchange – an exchange which benefits both
parties by their own independent judgment.54
Under the principle of trade, a trader does not expect what is not
deserved. Also, one should be ready to accept the burdens and respon-
sibility of one’s failure – not to be loved for one’s weakness but for one’s
virtues, and love only the virtues of others. It is only a rationally selfish
person that can truly love because this person values his/her self and can
value another. This is because only such a person is capable of holding
firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values.55 On the basis of
rational selfishness, people can fit in and live together in a free, pros-
perous and peaceful society.
Critical analysis
There seems to be a contradiction in Rand’s ethics of rational egoism:

How can egoism be rational? Can a moral agent be said to be selfish and
rational at the same time? Egoism is believed to epitomize recklessness,
self-indulgence, whim worship: the selfish person is said to be thought-
less, unprincipled and inconsiderate of others.56 However, the contradic-
tion lies in the fact that Rand presents a form of egoism which demands
a disciplined adherence to a moral code based on reason. How is this
possible? The term “egoism” negates any kind of reason: it is simply
based on whim and emotion. Another contradiction is based on the idea
that rational egoism is not an ethics of subjectivity. Ideally, it is assumed
that any form of selfishness should fall under the ethics of subjectivity,
but Rand says no; classifying rational egoism as an objectivist ethics.
Rand seems to believe that selfishness could be guided by reason; but
the fact is, selfishness rules out reason.
Sometimes, what humans classify as reason may fall under one of these
subjective categories: pleasure, emotion, whim, faith and other factors.
What is assumed to be reason could be society’s dictates for humans.
For instance, one might decide to marry, not based on personal prefer-
ence but for societal acceptance. Some societies in Africa consciously or
unconsciously stipulate that one has to be married to be recognized for
a particular position and responsibility. Rational self-interest and values
are contextual; they cannot be devoid of personal conviction, belief, as
well as other subjectivities.
Rand has argued that reason is the basic tool of survival for humans.
Human reasoning cannot be entirely devoid of personal effects and
influences, such as location, gender, education, race, economic status

and so on. It follows that all humans will not necessarily arrive at the
same ethical codes in guiding their lives.
Conclusion
Rand presents a unique form of enlightened self-interest, offering egoism

in its strongest form. Rand attempts to give egoism a new meaning,
different from those implied by hedonism, materialism and predation
(which is based on the assumption that promotion of one’s own well-
being must come at the expense of others). The pursuit of self-interest
should not be driven by emotion, in Rand’s view, but by reason, and
reason demands the consistent practice of the seven principal virtues.57
The presence and acceptance of egoism or self-interest in Rand’s ethics
qualifies it as an ethics of the self. The argument for self-interest backed
by reason is untenable because reason and egoism are contradictory
values that can hardly go together.
Notes
1. D. Robinson (1999), Postmodern Encounters: Nietzsche and Postmodernism (New
York: Totem Books), p. 35.
2. J. Lyotard (1979), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (United
Kingdom: Manchester University Press).
3. Robinson, Postmodern Encounters, p. 37.
4. S. Sim (2001), “Postmodernism and Philosophy,” in S. Sim (ed.), The Routledge
Companion to Postmodernism (New York: Taylor and Francis group), pp. 3,
3–14.
5. C. Butler (2002), Post-Modernism: A very short Introduction (New York: Oxford
6. R. F. Card (2004), Critically Thinking About Medical Ethics (Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall), p. 6.
7. A. Rand (1961), The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (New York:
Penguin Books), p. 10.
8. Rand, VOS, p. 11.
9. R. Audi (1999), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd edition (New
York: Cambridge University Press), p. 421.
10. Gensler H. J. (2004), “Moral Philosophy,” in H. J. Gensler, E. W. Spurgin, & J.
C. Swindal (eds), Ethics – Contemporary Readings (New York: Routledge), p. 3.
11. Gensler, ECR, p. 3.
12. Ibid., p. 2.
13. Ibid., p. 3.
14. Rand, VOS, p. 11.
15. J. Mendola (2006), Goodness and Justice: A Consequentialist Moral Theory (New
York: Cambridge), p. 2.
16. A. Gotthelf (2000), On Ayn Rand. (United States: Wadsworth/Thomson

Learning, Inc.), p. 36.
17. A. Rand (1957), Atlas Shrugged (New York: Random House), p. 937.
18. Gotthelf, OAR, p. 38.
19. Rand, AS, p. 919.
20. Ibid., p. 940.
21. A. Bernstein (2008), Objectivism in One Lesson: An Introduction to the Philosophy
of Ayn Rand (United Kingdom: Hamilton Books), p. 38.
23. Rand, VOS, p. 12.
24. T. Smith (2006), Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist (United
Kingdom: Cambridge University Press), p. 21.
25. Smith, ARNE, p. 23.
26. Rand, VOS, p. 14.
28. Rand, VOS, p. 18.
29. Ibid., p. 13.
32. Rand, VOS, p. 18.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 19.
35. A. Rand (1971), The Fountainhead (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company),
p. 602.
36. Rand, VOS, p. 21.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., p. 22.
40. Ibid., p. 23.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
44. Rand, VOS, p. 24.
45. Ibid., p. 23.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid., p. 25.
48. Ibid., p. 2.
49. Bernstein, OIOL, p. 30.
51. Bernstein, OIOL, p. 13.
52. Ibid.
53. Rand, VOS, p. 29.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., p. 30.
57. Ibid., p. 4.

14
Habermas’ Ethics of
Intersubjectivity
Elvis Imafidon
Introduction
The dawn of enlightenment, the modern age, was expected to bring with
it the potentials needed to guarantee the individual’s liberation and eman-
cipation from the pre-modern – in the guise of myths, religious ideolo-
gies, objectification of reality and authoritative domination. However, the
primary potential that enlightenment had in the pursuit of such emanci-
pation – reason – in no time became a further tool for the entrapment and
domination of the subject, chiefly through the advances in science, tech-
nology and economic capitalism. This contradiction of enlightenment is
one major factor for the theorization of the Frankfurt school in general
and Jurgen Habermas in particular. With particular reference to moral
discourse, the question for Habermas is: How can moral norms be vali-
dated and justified in the modern age without recourse to already disen-
chanted pre-modern authorities? As he puts it the questions include,
… whether the cognitive content of a morality of equal respect and

solidaristic responsibility for everybody can still be justified after the
collapse of its religious foundation. ... how much of the original intui-
tions a discourse ethics salvages in the disenchanted universe of post-
metaphysical justification and in what sense one can still speak of
the cognitive validity of moral judgments and positions. ... whether
the content of a morality that results from the rational reconstruc-
tion of traditional, religious intuition remains bound, in spite of its
procedural character, to its original context.1
Habermas intends to develop and defend the thesis that modern

subjects can, through certain universal presuppositions of discourse,
255
256 Elvis Imafidon
language and communication, consciously improve aspects of their

lives, whether political, moral or otherwise. Hence, he says that “the
liberated subjects no longer bound by traditional rules have to create
binding obligations by dint of their own communicative efforts.”2 And
the “fundamental intuition underlying the move to discourse is the
ideal of a moral community, one whose norms and practices are fully
acceptable to those subject to them; a society based not on imposition,
but on the agreement of free and equal persons.”3 Habermas’ intention
is to locate the rational standards by which moral norms are tested
for their validity in the conditions under which speakers and actors
can reach inter-subjective agreement in discourse about the meaning of
their moral utterances.4
In this chapter I examine Habermas’ dialogical program of discourse
ethics. I show that Habermas makes a good case for the turn to modern
subjects and discourse in an attempt to enrich moral norms in (post-)
modern societies. I also pay attention to some of the issues raised against
Habermas’ discourse ethics, particularly the perceived gap between
its theoretical and practical contents, showing that the many public
spheres of discourse in contemporary societies vindicate Habermas’
program and, since it is practically impossible to return to past ways of
doing things or pre-modern moral systems, Habermas has done well in
drawing the modern subject’s attention to the important intersubjective
responsibility of remaking the world.
Habermas on the emergence of secular morality
Habermas has discussed extensively the emergence of secular morality

or the “emergence of modern structures of consciousness” from the
“disenchantment of religious-metaphysical worldviews”5 or the “ligu-
istification of the authority of the sacred”6 during the modernization
process. He devotes quite substantial sections of the two volumes of The
Theory of Communicative Action to an exposition of how Weber, Mead,
and Durkheim treat the same issue, showing where he agrees or disagrees
with them; he again devotes extensive space to the criticism of mysti-
cism and messianism in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, and
the criticism of traditional world views in some sections of Legitimation
Crisis. We shall attempt to highlight his main points on the emergence
of secular morality, particularly as it affects his program of discourse
ethics.
For Habermas, morality in pre-modern Western societies was founded
on a monotheistic or monolithic Judeo-Christian tradition whose
Habermas’ Ethics of Intersubjectivity 257
values and norms presuppose the existence of an objectively good and

just way of life and essentially influenced the pre-modern man’s choice
of conduct. That way of life is recommended by God, who is both the
omnipotent creator of an ordered cosmos and the absolutely just and
good omniscient savior of humankind. In this tradition, each human
being has a dual role, as a member of a religious community of neigh-
bors, and as an individual whose salvation depends on God’s judgment.
This duality is reflected in two aspects of morality: (i) universal respect
for others and accountability to all others, and (ii) the fixated nature,
absoluteness and unconditionality of moral requirement.7 Thus, it
follows that ideas about the good that emanates from religion are
pre-given dogmas and are not subject to rational deliberation. Hence
Habermas refers to religion as a non-rational domain of life that is
manipulative and a coercive interpretive force. With particular refer-
ence to Catholicism, papal claims since the Middle Ages are taken as
supreme, universal and beyond questioning or deliberation. This was
reinforced with the formalization of papal infallibility at Vatican I, and
in recent times with didacticism of the doctrinal positions expressed
by Pope John Paul II. These are clear indications of the invocation
of dogma and tradition over and above reasoned communication or
discursive deliberation.8
Before the onset of modernity, agents supposedly acted under the
assumption that there is a single objective moral good for man, to which
true moral utterances correspond and false moral utterances do not. This
is what is referred to by Horkheimer and Adorno as an ideology and, by
Habermas, as an illusion: moral goodness is not an objective part of the
world. Moral ideology in pre-modern Western society, therefore, masked
the ideal (non-objective) nature of moral goodness through the existence
of culturally homogenous communities with a shared set of unalterable
moral concepts and value conceptions that were religiously garnished in
such a manner that they effectively prevented moral agents from discov-
ering that the moral world depends on their attitude. However, with the
advent of modernity, the illusion of the objectivity of moral goodness,
“the veil of ignorance,” was unmasked.
Modernity experienced the shattering of ideologies (moral or other-
wise) and the emergence of secular morality or the transition to a
modern conception of morality. The demise of the traditional concep-
tion of morality is attributed by Habermas to the massive increase in
knowledge in the late 17th and early 18th century, particularly in the
natural sciences, and an increase in practical/technical knowledge. As
Habermas explains in Legitimation Crisis,
258 Elvis Imafidon
With increased control over outer nature, secular knowledge became

independent of worldviews, which were increasingly restricted to
functions of social integration. The sciences eventually established
a monopoly on the interpretation of outer nature; they devalued
inherited global interpretations and transformed the mode of faith
into a scientistic attitude that permits only faith in the objectivating
sciences. In this domain, contingencies are recognized and, to a large
extent, technically mastered and their consequences made bear-
able. Natural catastrophes are defined as world-wide social events
[Sozialfälle].9
The massive increase in scientific knowledge, Habermas says, has led

to the separation of the three major spheres of values: the scientif-
ic-technical, legal-moral, and aesthetic-expressive. This separation is
thus associated with the transfer of epistemic and practical authority
from unquestioned religious tradition to validity, of which Habermas
differentiates three types – truth, rightness and truthfulness – which
correlate with the three types of discourse – theoretical, moral and
aesthetic.
Therefore, secular morality arose at the dawn of modernity for a
number of reasons. First, the decline of the religious tradition and the
pluralization of conceptions of value under conditions of multicultur-
alism, resulting in the separation of the good from a particular concrete
conception of the good: that is, the ethos of the Christian community.
Second, the demise of the metaphysical conception of essence and the
gradual transferral of epistemic authority to natural science, fundamen-
tally altering the meaning of morality. Third is the rise of individual
autonomy, or what Hegel calls “subjective freedom,” and the differ-
entiation of spheres of rationality: that is, the increasing autonomy of
aesthetic, ethical-legal and scientific rationality.10
The above reveals Habermas’ emphasis on post-metaphysical thinking
that holds reason over and above any form of religion or metaphysics.
However, Eduardo Mendieta asserts that this is not enough reason to
classify Habermas as an atheist seeking to nullify religious beliefs. In a
collection of Habermas’ essays with religious themes entitled Religion and
Rationality: Essays on Reason, God and Modernity,11 Mendieta, the editor,
strives to show that Habermas recognizes the importance of religion but
only advocates a rational transformation of its belief systems in order
that they do not gradually go into oblivion or become anachronistic. For
example, he quotes Habermas as saying,
I do not believe that we, as Europeans, can seriously understand

concepts like morality and ethical life, persons and individuality,
freedom and emancipation, without appropriating the substance
of the Judeo-Christian understanding of history in terms of salva-
tion. And these concepts are, perhaps, nearer to our hearts than the
conceptual resources of Platonic thought centering on order and
revolving around the cathartic intuition of ideas… But without the
transmission through socialization and the transformation through
philosophy of any one of the great world religions, this semantic
potential could one day become inaccessible.12
It is thus glaring that Habermas does not seek to “destroy” religion as he

recognizes the role it plays in the life of an individual, particularly in the
way and manner it has come to determine the European’s consciousness.
His problem is the dogmatic and the pre-given nature of religious beliefs
as if they were not once the product of man’s ontological wonder: his
interest is the rationalization and transformation of the beliefs inherent
in religion.
According to Habermas, the emergence of secular morality and the
demise of religious authority had both positive and negative effects. On
the positive side, the sphere of freedom of the subject is greatly increased.
The power of the state, once uncoupled from religion and tradition,
is held in check by publicly accessible criteria of legitimation. Thus,
modernity offers an opportunity for modern subjects to renew patterns
of meaning and social interaction on a basis that promises stability,
transparency and accountability. On the negative side, these increases in
subjective freedom and in the accountability of supra-subjective struc-
tures of authority are bought at a high price: the social deracination
of individual subjects and their increasing vulnerability to the discipli-
nary effects of impersonal systems of administration and to the vagaries
of an ever more powerful capitalist economy. Habermas diagnoses the
negative outcome of modernization, the social pathologies of moder-
nity in the extent to which systems of instrumental action corrode the
repository of communicative action in the life-world, which is the basis
of cultural reproduction, socialization and social integration.13 Besides,
since the collapse of religious views in the wake of rationalization and
since the increase in our knowledge about nature, there has been an
increasing gap between what we know and how we live.
What then is the way forward, since going back is practically impos-
sible? “The liberated subjects, no longer bound by traditional rules,
260 Elvis Imafidon
have to create binding obligations by dint of their own communica-

tive efforts.”14 In Habermas’ view, the task of the stabilization and inte-
gration of society falls primarily to practical (moral) discourse. Under
modern conditions, processes of social integration are increasingly
decoupled from apparently natural traditions while on the institutional
level, universal moral principles and procedures of law-making replace
traditional values and norms. In other words, “the authority of the holy
is gradually replaced by the authority of an achieved consensus.”15 As
Marian Hillar puts it,
In pre-modern societies religious ideas are the glue for solidarity

and are excluded from rational critique. In modern societies tradi-
tional worldviews are not immune to critical discourse: “when one
enters into full communicative action, it is difficult to retain one’s
pre-modern, conventional, parochial view of the world.” Traditional
cohesion is threatened, group members must “agree to disagree,”
mythical traditions undergo destruction. Traditional groups may
view it as a threat to their identity. But demythologizing of a culture
is a necessary process for producing rational morality.16
From this background, Habermas develops his communicative ethics:
Moreover, to the extent that world-views are impoverished, morality

too is formalized and detached from substantive interpretations.
Practical reason can no longer be founded in the transcendental
subject. Communicative ethics appeals now only to fundamental
norms of rational speech, an ultimate “fact of reason.”17
We now turn to an analysis of the main ideas inherent in Habermas’

Discourse Ethics program.
The program of discourse ethics
To be sure, Kant lays the foundation for, or provides the preliminary

sketch of, a modern conception of (secular) morality18 and Habermas’
primary aim in the area of communicative ethics (in practical/moral
discourse) is the nourishing of the Kantian foundation. No wonder
Habermas says that “with Kant, the modern age is inaugurated.”19 The
pace Kant sets for a modern conception of morality is vividly seen in his
first formulation of the categorical imperative, which states that:
Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will
without contradiction to be a general law, to what all can will in
agreement to be a universal law.20
It locates the source of normativity not in the substantive values embodied

in concrete maxims of actions but in the criteria of universalizability in
virtue of which those maxims are incorporated into the subject’s will.
Kant’s ethics makes clear that the legitimacy of moral norms derives
from their rational structure, not their substantive content.21
However, Habermas asserts that Kant assumes in error that the proce-
dure by which moral norms are selected takes place somehow inside
each solitary individual subject. He is blind to the intersubjective or
social nature of reason. Unlike Kant, Habermas’ modern conception of
morality, discourse ethics, is intended to locate the rational standards
by which moral norms are tested for their validity in the conditions
under which speakers and actors can reach intersubjective agreement in
discourse about the meaning of their moral utterances.22 As he says in
The Inclusion of the Other,
It is no accident that the categorical imperative is directed to the

second person singular and that it creates the impression that each
individual could undertake the required test of norms for himself
in foro interno. But in fact the reflexive application of the univer-
salization test calls for a form of deliberation in which each partici-
pant is compelled to adopt the perspective of all others in other to
examine whether a norm could be willed by all from the perspective
of each person. This is the situation of a rational discourse oriented
to reaching understanding in which all those concerned participate.
This idea of a discursively produced understanding also imposes a
greater burden of justification on the isolated judging subject than
would a monologically applied universalization test.23
He adds elsewhere that,
Rather than ascribing as valid to all others any maxim that I can
will to be a universal law, I must submit my maxim to all others
for the purpose of discursively testing its claim to universality. The
emphasis shifts from what each one can will without contradiction
to be a general law, to what all can will in agreement to be a universal
norm.24
262 Elvis Imafidon
Habermas therefore proposes a shift from solitary reflection to inter-

subjective agreement on moral norms. On this basis, in fact, Habermas
explicates the moral “dignity” of our ability to universalize (i.e., to
reason impartially), not in terms of a “noumenal” Kingdom (as we find
in Kant), but rather in the phenomenal terms of the intersubjective and,
hence, materially or socially constituted nature of psychic integrity. In
contrast to Kantian morality, then, discourse ethics attempts to treat
the reality of moral pluralism in a post-traditional world, and it does so
precisely through a shift from monologic to dialogic modes of norma-
tive legitimation.25 It is a “Post-Metaphysical transformation of Kantian
ethics.”26
This monological/dialogical distinction between Kant and Habermas
is also the distinction drawn between Rawls’ and Habermas’ concep-
tions of morality. Roughly, a monological theory is one that allows for
the possibility that a single individual, reasoning carefully, could arrive
at a correct understanding of the requirements of morality. A dialogical
theory, by contrast, regards the identification of the correct principles
of morality as a project that must be carried out collectively by all those
potentially affected by their adoption.27 Habermas’ aim is thus to formu-
late a dialogical ethics with the aims of restoring solidarity in a disrupted
totality.28
The development of discourse ethics as a program of philosophical
justification, it should be noted, is not peculiarly Habermas’. And not
acknowledging this will be ignoring the contribution of scholars like
R.S. Peters and Karl-Otto Apel29 to the development of the meta-ethical
program. Apel, for example, is known to have co-developed Discourse
Ethics with his friend colleague and collaborator, Jurgen Habermas.
Apel’s starting point for grounding morality in discourse is the commu-
nity of language and discourse in which the human being is embedded.
In reflecting on the transcendental conditions of the language commu-
nity, he distinguishes, as Habermas does, four universal validity claims:
meaning, truthfulness, truth and normative correctness. The specific
transcendental condition of normative correctness forms the basis of
morality. Anyone who argues or speaks seeks, in principle, the valida-
tion of the community of persons. This can only be achieved when the
views and positions of others are considered.30
Hence, Apel’s discourse ethics takes as its starting point the linguistic
community, which determines our thoughts, reasoning, argumentation,
and purposeful actions. In reference to the four universal validity claims
of Habermas, Apel identifies four transcendental conditions of possibility
of the linguistic community. First, anyone who speaks or discusses must
necessarily presume the norms for meaningful discourse by speaking in

such a way that he or she makes sense; second, the person needs to make
a truth claim; third, the person needs to be truthful; and fourth, what
has been said has to be normatively correct in the sense that it must
be worthy of consensus among all reasonable discussion participants.
Although all communication is grounded in a particular language, the
universal validity claims are not culturally bound. They can be seen as
necessary implications for argumentation in any language community;
they are thus its transcendental conditions of possibility. To this extent,
discourse ethics remains purely formal and procedural. It proposes no
claim on how to act good. Rather, it requires a dialogue with the indi-
viduals involved to find out what decision would be in respect of their
justified interests.31
Habermas does not radically depart from the above formulation of
discourse ethics as a program of philosophical justification. In fact, his
theory, as we shall see, shares a number of similarities with that of Apel.
What he says distinguishes him from Apel is that he presents a version
of transcendental-pragmatic argument or the transcendental conditions
of the possibility of discourse – the rules of argumentation – that stands
up to the familiar objections against that of Apel.32
Habermas’ Discourse Ethics is also based on the three levels (and six
stages) of the development of moral consciousness as offered by the
cognitive psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg.33 Habermas develops his
theory and defends the importance of the necessary shift to discourse
ethics and the development of communicative competence on the basis
of Kohlberg’s theory.
For Kohlberg, moral development means that a child or adolescent
rebuilds and differentiates the cognitive structures he already has so as
to be better able to solve the same sort of problems he has always faced:
namely, how to solve relevant moral dilemmas in a consensual manner.
The young person himself sees this moral development as a learning
process in that at the higher stage he must be able to explain whether
and in what way the moral judgments he had considered right at the
previous stage were wrong. Kohlberg interprets this learning process as
a constructive achievement on the part of the learner, as would Piaget.
The cognitive structures underlying the capacity of moral judgment are
to be explained neither primarily in terms of environmental influences
nor in terms of inborn programs and maturational processes. They are
viewed instead as outcomes of a creative reorganization of an existing
cognitive inventory that is inadequate to the task of handling certain
persistent problems.34
264 Elvis Imafidon
Habermas expresses the importance of the moral stages for discourse

ethics when he says that,
Discourse ethics is compatible with this constructivist notion of

learning in that it conceives discursive will formation (and argu-
mentation in general) as a reflective form of communicative action
and also in that it postulates a change of attitude for the transition
from action to discourse. A child growing up, and caught up, in the
communicative practice of everyday life is not able at the start to
effect this attitude change.35
Discourse ethics is primarily concerned with the justification of moral

norms of action because it holds that an action is right just in case
it conforms to a justified norm. Hence, practical discourses of justifica-
tion do not seek to justify actions directly, but seek to justify norms
of action, according to which actions are in turn morally evaluated.
But how are norms to be justified? Habermas answers this question by
introducing to discourse ethics the principle of universalization (U).36
(U) states that:
For a norm to be valid, the consequences and side effects that its
general observance can be expected to have for the satisfaction of
the particular interests of each person affected must be such that all
affected can accept them freely.37
As Arash Abizader explains, (U) is the theory of what a norm must

fulfil for it to be justified or validated.38 But there is still the question of
what appropriate procedure should be followed in testing the validity
of a norm. To be sure, for Habermas, the procedure involves discourse.
Hence he introduces the discourse ethics principle (D)39 Habermas states
(D) as:
(D) Every valid norm would meet with the approval of all concerned
if they could take part in a practical discourse.40
Or, as he states it elsewhere:
(D) Only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet)
with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a
practical discourse.41
A practical discourse, for Habermas, is a discourse in which interlocutors

use language communicatively, with the overriding aim of “reaching an
understanding.” As specified by (D), participants test for the validity of
a proposed moral norm in a practical discourse; but they must do so by
relating their needs, wants and so on to the meaning of validity, as speci-
fied by the rule of argumentation in (U).42 Thus, while (U) provides a rule
of argumentation that constitutes the meaning of normative validity,
(D) is the procedure for testing the validity of substantive norms.43
Habermas justifies (U) by “specifying the role that the transcenden-
tal-pragmatic argument can play in this process.”44 A transcendental-
pragmatic argument seeks to show in this case of (U) that something
cannot be rejected and must be accepted as true because the very process
of rejecting it depends on something else – the activity of argumenta-
tion – and that argumentation could not exist without the principle of
universalizability. For this transcendental-pragmatic argument to work,
two things must be true: (i) argumentation must be something unavoid-
able; and (ii) universalizability must indeed be necessary for the very
possibility of argumentation.45 Habermas is convinced that these two
conditions have been met; hence he says that,
Every person who accepts the universal and necessary communica-

tive presuppositions of argumentative speech and who knows what it
means to justify a norm of action implicitly presupposes as valid the
principle of universalization, whether in the form I gave it above or
in an equivalent form.46
Habermas explains the transcendental-pragmatic argumentation in two

senses: in procedural and process terms. In procedural terms, arguments
are processes of reaching understanding that are ordered in such a way
that proponents and opponents, having assumed a hypothetical atti-
tude and being relieved of the pressures of action and experience, can
test validity claims that have become problematic. In process terms,
argumentative speech is a process of communication that, in light of its
goal of reaching a rationally motivated agreement, must satisfy improb-
able conditions.47 On this basis, he recognizes three levels of conditions,
or rules of argumentation, that participants in a discourse must meet for
it to be successful:
Level 1 (rules for the logical-semantic level):
1.1. No speaker may contradict himself.

266 Elvis Imafidon
1.2. Every speaker who applies predicate F to object A must be prepared

to apply F to all other objects resembling A in all relevant aspects.
1.3. Different speakers may not use the same expression with different
meanings.
Level 2 (Pragmatic presuppositions – rules for the search for truth/proce-

dural rules):
2.1. Every speaker may assert only what he really believes.

2.2. A person who disputes a proposition or norm not under discus-
sion must provide a reason for wanting to do so.
Level 3 (rules of discourse/process rules):
3.1. Every subject with the competence to speak and act is allowed to
take part in a discourse.
3.2. a. Everyone is allowed to question any assertion whatever.
b. Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into
the discourse.
c. Everyone is allowed to express his attitudes, desires, and
needs.
3.3. No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion,
from exercising his rights as laid down in (3.1) and (3.2).
Summarily therefore, Habermas holds that argumentation or discourse

is unavoidable, that argumentation cannot exist unless universaliz-
ability is true, and that universalizability is expressed in the rules of
discourse. Anyone who argues against these rules (that have been justi-
fied by following the rules) is guilty of a performative self-contradiction
and is thus rationally defeated.48
What makes discourse ethics attractive to the ethicist is that the
notion of discourse already harbors a stock of normative rules and
commitments that can serve as a premise of a normative moral theory
which is not already morally weighed. Habermas claims that, by
rationally reconstructing the pragmatic conditions of discourse, it
is possible to isolate a set of ideal conditions that every competent
speaker who is oriented toward reaching a reasoned consensus must
suppose to be satisfied. These rules of discourse formalize the intui-
tive know-how of participants in discourse. Analysis of these rules
shows that, among other things, argumentation in principle excludes
no one, renders no assertion immune from question and criticism,
and prohibits the use of all coercion except the unforced force of the
better argument.49
Discourse ethics has thus been assessed by many as formalistic (and
procedural), fallibilistic (anti-foundationalist), and anti-realist. It is
formalistic because it does not presuppose substantive moral contents:
any norm must be in accordance with the procedures of discourse for it
to be accepted and the quality of the argument for a norm during argu-
mentation determines which norm prevails.50 Discourse ethics has an
anti-foundationalist (fallibilistic) view of justification and an anti-realist
view of beliefs: in discourse, no belief or normative norm is held sacro-
sanct, unalterable, beyond criticism or as a “given.” Rather, discourse
is expected to be dialogical, fallible or defeasible in the justification of
beliefs, empirical or normative. Habermas holds that what makes a belief
count as justified is not a property of the belief itself, but the regulative
principles that govern the process of justification leading to that belief.
The Habermasian theory proposes a discursive, not a criterial, standard
for belief-justification: It does not specify properties that beliefs must
have in order to count as justified, but it specifies the formal properties
that public practices of justification must have in order for the resulting
beliefs to count as justified. What lies at the end of the chain of reasons,
then, is not some privileged foundationalist set of basic beliefs that need
no inferential justification, but a local set of temporarily taken-for-granted
beliefs that provide the necessary background context against which
justification can proceed. Habermas’ view is that any discursive justifi-
cation must take some beliefs for granted in order to proceed.51
As Abizader explains, the fact that any justification will come to rest
at some set of taken-for-granted assumptions does not mean that every
rationally motivated agreement or belief is ultimately arbitrary but that
every rationally motivated agreement is fallible (defeasible) and a better
argument can always change it. It means, by implication, that nothing
is held sacrosanct: there is always room for improvement and revi-
sion.52 Habermas therefore stays true to the original aim of the Frankfurt
School’s critical theory by ensuring that nothing is held as transcending
the transcendental pragmatic properties of discourse. Every assertion or
agreement in the discursive process is subject to further deliberation or
revision if the need arises.
Gerard Delanty says therefore that it is the antifoundationalist feature
of Habermas’ discourse ethics that makes it better than the traditional
metaphysical thinking about morality, as well as the conventional liberal
and communitarian models. He adds that discourse ethics breaks from a
purely moral view of the world, as reflected in the dogmatic beliefs and
268 Elvis Imafidon
ideological assumptions of everyday life, and the unreflected contents

of cultural traditions. According to discourse ethics, only norms which
could in principle meet with the approval of those potentially affected
can be considered valid. Discourse ethics is also sensitive to the social
conditions of discourse and stipulates that consensual decision-making
must guarantee the participation of each affected individual. While
drawing from the everyday experiences of the lifeworld, the procedural
universalism of discourse ethics offers a moment of reflection that is
otherwise not to be found in everyday discourse. It operates at a height-
ened level of awareness, which is argumentative by nature and oriented
towards reaching a consensual agreement.53 John Mingers therefore adds
that discourse ethics “is different from other approaches to ethics as it
is grounded in actual debate between those affected by decisions and
proposals.”54 It seeks to develop a society that enables power-free open
debates among equal citizens as a pre-condition for just practices and
a way of taking into account the current practices of the actors within
a given society or community without necessarily accepting relativism
between moral values.55
However, a number of objections have been raised against Habermas’
discourse ethics. In what follows, I examine some of these objections
and attempt a reply.
Some objections to discourse ethics
Some scholars argue that the strong dialogical nature of discourse ethics
carries with it an untenable ideal of moral judgment which cannot be
defended.56 Others opine that the theory dangerously rests upon some
strong claims of universalistic rationality and harbors imperative pres-
sures that privilege consensus as a regulating principle.57 Similarly, some
have complained about the utopic or idealistic nature of the theory: that
is, that there is a gap between the ideal and reality in Habermas’ theory.
And many criticize it for its inability of the theory to address cultural
problems, or for completely ignoring the cultural basis of moral beliefs,
clearly seen in the distinction it makes between the “moral” and the
“ethical” point of view (discourse ethics is mainly concerned with the
former). We shall focus primarily on the last two criticisms because they
present very fundamental challenges to the theory and often form the
basis of other criticisms.
To be sure, an ideal speech situation that allows for real discourse
is central to Habermas’ theory. Critics, however, contend that such a
notion of a real discourse is too idealistic and utopian and far placed
from real life situations:58 a discourse free from dogmas and inequality,
open to all, sincere, and with the absence of any kind of power play and
coercion surely bears little resemblance to real life. As Weinberger says,
… the notion of ideal discourse is not a good idealization. The criteria

of ideal discourse – defined as power free, endless and open to all
people concerned – represent an unrealistic ideal, as they do not
provide an optimal treatment of the problems under consideration.
There are no power free social relations… Ideal discourses are contrary
to fact, they do not and cannot exist.59
Thus, some critics do not only argue that the best practical discourse is
not easy to achieve but that it is impossible.60
Certainly, although the aim of discourse and its necessary presupposi-
tions are ideal, it is also apparent that real dialogue situations are limited
in time and depend on the participant’s finite capacity for reasoning,
and thus can only appropriate these ideals. But participants in real
discourse must, if only implicitly, take themselves to be aiming at the
consensus that would be reached by participants in an ideal condition.
If their actual conduct falls short of this aim and they flout the rules
of discourse (for example, if they exclude some participants, refuse to
listen to their interlocutors, or threaten them with force), then, in so
far as they are oriented towards reaching reasoned consensus, they are
committing a performative contradiction by violating the very rules
they implicitly enjoin.61 As Gordon Finlayson says,
For present purposes, we need only bear in mind the main idea: that
there is a normative core to the conception of discourse. “The ideas of
justice and solidarity are already implicit in the idealizing presuppo-
sitions of communicative action, above all in the reciprocal recogni-
tion of persons capable of orienting their actions to validity claims”…
One consequence of this is that Habermas’ modest conception of
normative moral theory is partly premised, as he readily concedes,
on the “outrageously strong” empirical claim that a “universal core
of moral intuition” is germane to al forms of life in which action is
co-ordinated by communication…62
Another strong criticism that is raised against Habermas’ theory is not

far from the one just discussed above. It is that Habermas’ discourse
ethics largely ignores cultural relativism, particularly with regard to
moral values: it fails to acknowledge conflicts in interests and values
270 Elvis Imafidon
and goes on as if the entire human race shares similar moral interests
at all times. This point of criticism has, in fact, become very widespread
among scholars who have been critical of Habermas’ theory. Thomas
McCarthy, for example, asserts that the basic differences between value
orientations cannot be easily accommodated in Habermas’ model of
moral universalism.63 Jean Cohen has contended also that Habermas’
discourse ethics can best be defended as a political ethics: that is, along
the lines of democratic legitimacy but not as a theory of basic moral
problems.64 Phil Ross therefore asserts that discourse ethics “adopts a
narrowly circumscribed conception of morality that focuses on ques-
tions of justice….”65 Seyla Benhabib is therefore worried that, due to
the narrow nature of discourse ethics, it cannot easily be universalized
and applied to non-Western cultures without concessions to a more
non-evaluative mode of hermeneutical understanding than his theory
allows.66 It is for this reason that the theory has been accused of being
tied essentially to Occidental rationalism, an issue we shall be returning
to shortly.67
That the criticism we are now examining is called for is clearly seen
in the sharp distinction Habermas makes between the “moral point
of view” and the “ethical point of view.”68 The ethical point of view
concerns what is good for me (or us) in the long run – that is, (collective)
goals relative to a particular subjective history, culture, tradition, or way
of life – whereas the moral point of view concerns what is equally good
for all, and as such, not relative to a particular subject. Moral reasons
trump ethical ones, and so the emphasis is on moral and rational self-
legislation rather than ethical self-expression. Moral inclusion is egali-
tarian and potentially universal, and it is possible to reach a rational
consensus on moral questions, at least in theory, whereas there is a limit
to the public use of ethical reasons, which are always and at least in
part relative to a particular subject, whether an individual or a collective
whole. Ethical reasons are good reasons for me or for us.
The moral point of view is not neutral, however. It has normative
implications, because it is internally related to a concept of autonomy as
rational self-legislation. Yet, since this concept of autonomy is mediated
by the public use of reason – as rational self-legislation – it is not just one
(ethical) value among others but neutral in relation to different ethical
values.69 Thus the ethical point of view is referred to by Habermas as
“the other” in a discourse. Habermas’ disregard for the ethical point
of view is once again seen vividly in his emphasis on “generalizable
interests” in discourse ethics. Argumentation in discourse is expected
to test the generalizability of interests, instead of being resigned to an
impenetrable pluralism of interests. It is not the fact of pluralism that

is here disputed but the assertion that it is impossible to separate by
argumentation generalizable interests from those that are, and remain,
particular. Therefore, Habermas’ theory tends not to have any place for
interests that are not generalizable.
Of course, Habermas’ position brings to our attention the fact that
we are all humans, and part of a universal community of selves sharing
similar interests and needs. Any genuine moral interest can be defended
or redeemed publicly and discursively, so long as it does not harbor
indefensible assumptions that are peculiar to a particular form of life.
But it is unrealistic to deny that there are many different value orienta-
tions in the world today and people and cultures hold quite different
views of what is good or right, and what best course of action to take in
particular situations. However, the above analysis of Habermas’ theory
tends to create the idea that he is unaware of this fact.
In The Inclusion of the Other, Habermas tries to show that he is not
unaware and unappreciative of the ethical point of view of “the other”
but that what is now available to us in modernity – what is now at our
disposal and imposes itself on us – is not some objective moral order,
assumed to exist independently of our descriptions, but the moral point
of view that imbibes the structure and procedure of a process of argu-
mentation that facilitates both the production and the discovery of
the norms of well-ordered interpersonal relations.70 But this does not
mean that particular interests or relative/cultural value orientations will
disappear. The “other” viewpoint continues to enter into the process of
rational deliberation. But if the practice of deliberation is regarded as
the only possible resource for a standpoint of impartial justification of
moral questions, then the appeal to moral content must be replaced by
the self-referential appeal to the form of this practice. In other words,
one must be willing to subject one’s personal/cultural value orientation
to the process of deliberation for it to be valid.71 This is what is concisely
captured in (D):
(D) Only those norms can claim validity that could meet with the
acceptance of all concerned in practical discourse.
Habermas’ sincere desire to include “the other” in discourse ethics is

clearly captured in his reformulation of (U) in The Inclusion of the Other:
(U) A norm is valid when the foreseeable consequences and side

effects of its general observance for the interests and value orientations
272 Elvis Imafidon
of each individual could be jointly accepted by all concerned without

coercion.72
Three aspects of this formulation, Habermas says, need clarification:
The phrase “interests and value orientations” points to the role

played by the pragmatic and ethical reasons of the individual partici-
pants in practical discourse. These inputs are designed to prevent the
marginalization of the self-understanding and worldviews of partic-
ular individuals or groups and, in general, to foster a hermeneutic
sensitivity to a sufficiently broad spectrum of contributions. Second,
generalized reciprocal perspective-taking (“of each”, “jointly by all”)
requires not just empathy for, but also interpretive intervention
into, the self-understanding of participants who must be willing to
revise their descriptions of themselves and others (and the language
in which they are formulated). Finally, the goal of “uncoarsed joint
acceptance” specifies the respect in which the reasons presented in
discourse cast off their agent-relative meaning and take on an epis-
temic meaning from the standpoint of symmetrical consideration.73
Vital for this process of deliberation, therefore, is a notion of tolerance of

different ethical viewpoints that Habermas charts in The Inclusion of the
Other: what Arash Abizader, in line with Thomas McCarthy’s viewpoint,
calls a reasonable accommodation. A reasonable accommodation is a
compromise – not among strategically acting persons or utility maxi-
mizers, but among community-minded individuals who want to live
together in harmony even when they disagree about the common good.
Rationally motivated agreement as a moral-political alternative to coer-
cion may well involve elements of conciliation, compromise, consent,
accommodation, and the like. This conception is necessary because,
owing to differences in evaluative and interpretive perspective, well-
intentioned and competent participants may disagree about the common
good. Such disagreements may be about competing particular interests,
or even what constitutes the general interest.74 However, Habermas
insists that, in all, argumentation or discourse continues to take primacy
because, if not for any other reason, it is found in all cultures and socie-
ties – if not in institutionalized form at least as an informal practice.
We turn now to a related issue for which Habermas has been criti-
cised – the charge of Occidental rationality in Habermas’ discourse
ethics. A number of scholars have criticized Habermas based on the
fact that there is an inherent Enlightenment bias in his writings,
“… a tension between viewing modernity as peculiarly Occidental and as

genuinely universal or cosmopolitan.”75 Put differently, Habermas tends
to treat modernity as if it is a peculiarly Western experience, rather than
universal. This tendency towards Eurocentrism raises the question aptly
expressed by Anthony Giddens: “How far is modernity distinctively
Western?”76 It also undermines the (moral) universalism that Habermas’
theory aspires towards, vividly made obvious in his distinction between
the moral and ethical points of view.
Habermas’ writings show that he obviously has a high regard for
European culture; Gerard Delanty sees this as “rooted in his abhor-
rence of European nationalism and German national identity more
specifically. Yet it does not consider that there might be a contradiction
between the cosmopolitan ideal and Europeanness.”77 In praise for, and
faith in, Occidental rationality, Habermas says that
Occidental rationality…, while it promotes the homogenizing

dissemination of a global industrial culture, Occidental rationality
also generates from itself a new pluralization of forms of life, a new
individualization of lifestyle, and a multicultural diversity extending
to new and entrenched forms of fundamentalism.78
Thus, although Habermas’ aim is to provide the basis for universal

morality through discourse ethics, he seems to entrench this in an
Occidental rationalism. And a universal morality, according to Delanty,
ought to be cosmopolitan rather than Occidental.79
That Habermas ties the idea of universal morality to Occidental
rationality does not, however, imply that he is completely unaware
of the plurality of values across cultures and the difficulties they can
present to universal morality. His awareness of this leads him to argue
for the commensurability of cultures: different cultures are commensu-
rable because, if not for any other reason, they embody universalistic
principles of discourse that make discourse ethics possible, and cultures
are naturally fluid and cultural concepts negotiable. To substantiate,
Habermas shows that there are universal cognitive structures found in
every society and culture, as opposed to the normative ones in those
societies, which have crossed the threshold to modernity. Thus, the
principle of commensurability makes possible the normative claim that
it is possible to transcend culture. There must be a common basis on
which mutual understanding among alien cultures, belief systems, para-
digms, and life-forms is possible: that is, a translation between different
evaluative languages and not merely communication among members
274 Elvis Imafidon
of the same language group relying on reciprocal observation of alien

cultures. Once we intuitively accept context-transcending assump-
tions concerning rationality that first make possible translations from
one context into another, commensurability between cultures becomes
possible.
However, according to Delanty, Habermas does not provide enough
evidence from contemporary societies (other than western European
ones) to substantiate his case. Delanty explains that Habermas’ argu-
ment for commensurability between cultures is
… an important one, and one which I believe can be supported. But

the problem is that Habermas has tied the idea of universal morality
to Occidental modernity. By conceiving of universal morality in
terms of an evolutionary theory culminating in the discourse of
Occidental rationalism, Habermas has failed to see how universal
morality may be embodied in different forms in other cultures, both
historically speaking as well as in the contemporary perspective. His
defense of cultural commensurability suggests an alternative model
which is not explored. As a result, learning processes are conceived
only in terms of one cultural model, namely Occidental modernity.
This historicizing of universal morality is an unnecessary limitation
on the global relevance of the theory.80
I may venture here to defend Habermas’ attitude of hinging his theory

of universal morality on Occidental rationalism or Western modernity
simply as an innocent consequence of thinking or theorizing from a milieu.
When, as an individual, we occupy a here – a region of being, or an
ontologically and socio-culturally defined condition or situation – it
is barely avoidable that we define and interpret the world and human
experiences from our point of view. Our social milieu often forms a basis
for our theorization of the world. This has been obvious since the time
of Thales’ cosmologico-ontological theory of water as the primary stuff
of the universe. However, in Habermas’ case, such a defence could be
misleading and could boomerang, specifically because Habermas has
sought a universal conception of morality that can transcend cultural
boundaries, and also because an undue reliance on and defence of
Occidental rationality, that draws from the Kantian and Weberian
traditions,81 suffuses his writings. He says, for example, in the first
volume of The Theory of Communicative Action that “We are implicitly
connecting a claim to universality with our Occidental understanding
of the world.”82
For moral universalism to become truly cosmopolitan rather than

Occidental, it must take cognizance not only of the universal spheres
of values or domain delimitations found in every culture, but also of
the pluralistic nature of values and cultural diversity. Besides, enlighten-
ment, whether Occidental or otherwise, does not dissolve the problem
of cultural diversity; in fact, as Habermas agrees above, it results in a
“pluralisation of forms of life.” As Delanty rightly explains, conflicts
of values, fragmentation of the lifeworld, deeply divided societies, and
cross-cultural conflicts are part of our modern consciousness.83
Modernity itself is not peculiarly Western but a consciousness that has
swept through and keeps sweeping through Africa, Asia and the most
distant parts of the Earth. One may, however, reason with Habermas that
the world’s experience of enlightenment or modernity was primarily
determined by Western factors and agents of colonialism, imperialism,
globalization, democracy and industrialization/civilization. As he says
above, Occidental rationality “promotes the homogenizing dissemina-
tion of a global industrial culture.” But, to describe today’s experience of
modernity solely around Occidental rationalism is clearly myopic.
Therefore moral universalism, beyond seeking for a universal basis for
the justification of moral norms (which is what Habermas’ theory is
primarily concerned with) must also take cognizance of the context of
discourse – the particular lifeworld in which such moral norms apply – as
well as the possibility of competing ethical points of view in a practical
discourse. Here, beyond the quest for consensus, concepts like rational
deliberation, mutual understanding and tolerance become meaningful
and essential. As Delanty says, “universal morality must be conceptual-
ized less as consensual agreement than as cultural understanding; or
rather, discourse theory must be modified to allow for a two-level modal
of universalization: the articulation of problems and the resolution. In
this way, Occidental rationalism can be supplanted by a cosmopolitan
discourse of multicultural citizenship.”84
Conclusion
Habermas draws our attention, and rightly so, to an obvious fact: If there
is any hope of remedying the ills of contemporary societies it lies with
the subjects deliberately and consciously making efforts as a commu-
nity of selves to do so. Habermas reveals the problems with pre-modern
structures – as well as with the act of putting faith in a solitary subject,
as Kant does – which make them unsuitable for the task of bettering
our world. The fact remains that the subject occupies the center of any
276 Elvis Imafidon
way forward, but only in his recognition of the need to collaborate with
others. Solidarity and cooperation are thus promoted in Habermas’
philosophy and discourse ethics in particular. After all, no subject can
thrive in isolation from other subjects; humanity must be promoted and
protected.
Notes
1. Habermas, J. (1998), The inclusion of the other: studies in political theory
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press), p. 1
2. Habermas, J. Quoted by Finlayson, J. G. (2000), “Modernity and morality in
Habermas’ discourse ethics.” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy
43(2), pp. 319–340.
3. Moon, D. (1995), “Practical discourse and communicative ethics” in The
Cambridge companion to Habermas. Ed. S. K. White (Cambridge: Cambridge
4. Finlayson, J. G., “Modernity and morality in Habermas’ discourse ethics.”
5. See Habermas, J. (1984), The theory of communicative action: reason and the
rationalization of society (Boston: Beacon Press), pp. 186–242.
6. See Habermas, J. (1987), The theory of communicative action: lifeworld and
systems: a critique of functionalist reason (Boston: Beacon Press), pp. 43–112.
7. Finlayson, J. G. “Modernity and morality in Habermas’ discourse ethics”
8. Dillon, M. (1999), “The authority of the holy revisited: Habermas, religion
and emancipatory possibilities.” Sociological Theory 17(3), pp. 291–292.
9. Habermas, J. (1980), Legitimation crisis (London: Heinemann), p. 119.
10. See Finlayson, J. G., “Modernity and morality in Habermas’ discourse
ethics.”
11. See Habermas, J. (2002), Religion and rationality: essays on reason, God, and moder-
nity (Cambridge: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishing).
12. Mendieta, E. (ed.) (2002), “Introduction to Habermas” in Religion and ration-
ality: essays on reason, god, and modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press in associa-
tion with Blackwell Publishing), p. 12.
13. See Finlayson, J. G., “Modernity and morality in Habermas’ discourse
ethics.”
14. Jurgen Habermas, as quoted by J. G. Finlayson, “Modernity and morality in
Habermas’ discourse ethics.”
15. Habermas, J., The theory of communicative action, p. 77.
16. Hillar, M. (2003), “Jurgen Habermas: a practical sense sociologist and a Kantian
moralist in a nutshell.” Roots of Humanist Ethics: A Historical Perspective, Centre
for Philosophy and Socinian Studies Online. Retrieved June 10, 2010 from www.
socinian.org/files/Habermas.pdf, p. 15.
17. Habermas, J., Legitimation crisis, p. 120.
18. See Flyvbjerg, B. (1998), “Habermas and Foucault: thinkers for civil society.”
The British Journal of Sociology 49(2), p. 211; Gaon, S. (1998), “Pluralizing
Universal ‘Man’: the legacy of transcendentalism and teleology in Habermas’
discourse ethics.” The Review of Politics 60(4), pp. 687–688.
19. Habermas, J. (1998), Philosophical discourse on modernity (Cambridge: Polity
Pres), p. 260.
20. Kant, I. (1988), Foundations of the metaphysics of morals and what is enlighten-
ment (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company), p. 39.
21. Finlayson, J. G., “Modernity and morality in Habermas’ discourse ethics.”
22. Ibid.
23. See Habermas, J. (1998), The inclusion of the other: studies in political studies
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press), chap. 1.
24. Habermas, J. (1990), Moral consciousness and communicative action (Cambridge:
Polity Press), p. 67.
25. Gaon, S., “Pluralizing universal ‘man’.” pp. 687–688.
26. Enrique, D. (1999), The underside of modernity: Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty, Taylor, and the
philosophy of liberation. Ed. E. Mendieta (New York: Humanities Press), p. 163.
27. McMahon, C. (2000), “Discourse and morality.” Ethics 110(3), p. 514.
28. Coles, B. (1992), “Communicative action and dialogical ethics: Habermas
and Foucault.” Polity 25(1), p. 77.
29. See Habermas, J., Moral consciousness and communicative action, p. 82.
30. Goossens, T. (ND), “The foundation of morals in Apel’s discourse ethics.”
Short Paper for Capita Selecta Ethics. Retrieved on December 11, 2010 from
http://www.tiborgoossens.nl/Documents/Foundation%20of%20Morals%20
in%20Apel%27s%20Discourse%20Ethics.pdf, p. 2.
31. Goossens, T., “The foundation of morals in Apel’s discourse ethics.” pp. 3–4.
32. Habermas, J., Moral consciousness and communicative action, pp. 82, 86–94.
33. See Kohlberg, L. (1971) “From is to ought” in Cognitive development and epis-
temology. Ed. T. Mischel (New York: Academic Press).
34. Habermas, J., Moral consciousness and communicative action, p. 125.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Abizader, A. “In defence of the universalization principle in discourse ethics.”
pp.198–199.
39. Ibid., p. 199.
41. Ibid.
42. Abizader, A. (2005), “In defence of the universalization principle in discourse
ethics.” The Philosophical Forum XXXVI (2), p. 199.
43. Abizader, A., “In defence of the universalization principle in discourse ethics.”
p. 199.
45. Rasmussen, D. R. (1985), “Morality and modernity: a critique of Jurgen
Habermas’ neo-Marxist theory of justice” in Critical theory and public life. Ed.
J. Forester (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp. 3–4.
47. Ibid., pp. 87–88.
48. Rasmussen, D. R., “Morality and modernity.” p. 5.
49. Finlayson, J. G. (1999), “Does Hegel’s critique of Kant’s moral theory apply to
discourse ethics?” Habermas: a critical reader. Ed. P. Dews (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing), p. 32.
50. Goossens, T., “The foundation of morals in Apel’s discourse ethics.” p. 4.
pp. 195–196.
278 Elvis Imafidon
52. Ibid., pp. 196–197.

53. Delanty, G. (1997), “Habermas and occidental rationalism: the politics of
identity, social learning, and the cultural limits of moral universalism.”
Sociological Theory 15(1), p. 32.
54. Mingers, J. (2010), Toward ethical information systems: the contribution of
discourse ethics. A seminar presented at the Department of Information
Systems and Operations Management, University of Auckland, United
Kingdom, p. 1.
55. Beschorner, T. (2006), “Ethical theory and business practice: the case of
discourse ethics.” The Journal of Business Ethics 66(1), p. 128.
56. See, for example, C. McMahon, “Discourse and morality.” pp. 514–536.
57. See, for example, R. Coles, “Communicative action and dialogical ethics.”
pp. 71–94.
58. See, for example, B. Flyvbjerg, “Habermas and Foucault: thinkers for civil
society.” p. 215; and B. Pomeroy (ND), “Habermas’ discourse ethics as the
foundation of legitimate laws.” Roundhouuse: A Journal of Critical Theory and
Practice 1(1), p. 4. Retrieved November 10, 2011 from http://www,essl.leeds.
ac.uk/roundhouse
59. Weinberger, O. (1999), “Legal validity, acceptance of law, legitimacy: some
critical and constructive proposals.” Ratio Juris 12(4), p. 339.
60. Cf. Froomkin, M. (2003) “Habermas@Discourse.net: toward a critical theory
of cyberspace.” Harvard Law Review 116(3), p. 777.
61. Finlayson, J. G., “Does Hegel’s critique of Kant’s moral theory apply to
discourse ethics?” pp. 32–33.
62. Finlayson, J. G., “Does Hegel’s critique of Kant’s moral theory apply to
discourse ethics?” p. 33.
63. McCarthy, T. (1993), “Practical discourse: on the relation of morality to poli-
tics.” Habermas and the Public Sphere. Ed. C. Calboun (Cambridge MA: MIT
Press), pp. 64–65.
64. Cohen, J. (1990) “Discourse ethics and civil society” in Universalism vs.
communitarianism. Ed. D. Rasmussen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), p. 86.
65. Ross, P. (2002), “Left communitarianism: beyond Habermas’ discourse
ethics.” A paper presented at the PSA Annual Conference (Scotland: University
of Aberdeen), p. 13
66. Benhabib, S. (1986), Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of
critical theory (New York: Columbia University Press).
67. See Delanty, G., Habermas and occidental rationalism, pp. 30–59.
68. Habermas, J., Moral consciousness and communicative action, pp. 98ff.
69. Thomassen, L. (2006), “The inclusion of the other: Habermas and the paradox
of tolerance.” Political Theory 34(4), pp. 442–443.
70. See Habermas, J., The inclusion of the other. chap. 1, part III.
71. Ibid., chap. 1, part IX.
72. Habermas, J., The inclusion of the other.
73. Ibid.
p. 210.
75. Delanty, G., “Habermas and occidental rationalism.” p. 37.
76. Giddens, A. (1990), The consequences of modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press),
p.174, quoted by G. Delanty, Habermas and occidental rationalism, p. 37.

78. Habermas, J. (1994), “Europe’s second chance” in The past as future. Ed. M.
Pensky (Cambridge: Polity Press), p. 80; quoted by G. Delanty, Habermas and
occidental rationalism, p. 38.
80. Ibid., p. 42.
81. See Habermas, J., The theory of communicative action: reason and the rationaliza-
tion of society, pp. 157–185.
82. Ibid., p. 44.
83. See Delanty, G., “Habermas and occidental rationalism.” pp. 44–52.

15
Levinas Meets the Postcolonial:
Rethinking the Ethics of the Other
AB (Benda) Hofmeyr
Introduction
To what extent can Levinas’ thought be useful, to engage with and

perhaps learn from, non-Western and postcolonial ethical frameworks
and conceptions of difference and alterity? An encounter between ethical
metaphysics and “other” non-Western, postcolonial philosophies of
alterity seems critical in light of the fact that all of Levinas’ philosoph-
ical labors have relentlessly been dedicated to uncovering the violence
at the very heart of Western philosophy – the reductive tendency of the
Self to reduce, subject or “colonize” any and every form of otherness it
comes into contact with. Within the canon of contemporary Western
philosophy, his has been one of the most prominent (if not the first)
voice(s) to initiate the ethical turn towards the Other, insisting upon
the inherent responsibility we bear towards others. With this insistence,
Levinas decisively reconstrued the decentered subject of the second half
of the 20th century in terms of its fundamental relatedness to the Other.
This Other is not merely the one who appeals to me in the face of the
beggar, the orphan or the widow. More radically, this Other is conceived
as an alterity lodged within the self. When considering the possibility of
a critical encounter between Levinas and non-Western and/or postcolo-
nial conceptions of the other, however, one runs up against a number
of challenges.
Levinas has not only been guilty of a number of explicitly racist
remarks, his work is undeniably Eurocentric even as it proposes to
critique the totality characteristic of the history of Western philosophy
with the infinity of the ethical encounter. Moreover, his Eurocentrism
is premised on a very narrow conception of Europe: for him, “Europe is
the Bible and the Greeks,”1 which excludes the constitutive violence of
280
Levinas Meets the Postcolonial 281
Europe the “empire.” Furthermore, Levinas’ conceptualization of alterity

allows no distinction from, comparison to, or derivation from identity.
Radical difference is unphenomenolizable; it does not appear, cannot
be compared to or distinguished from other others. For Levinas, alterity
does not follow from differences; differences issue from alterity. In addi-
tion, there is the seemingly insurmountable gap between ethics – a rela-
tion limited to the singular self and the Other person – and politics, the
realm where the countless appeals of other Others impinge upon face-
to-face relations. In light of these challenges, one might wonder what
scope there is – if any – for a productive interchange between ethical
metaphysics and postcolonial celebrations of differences (for example,
Negritude, Black consciousness, the fact of blackness, and so on).
This question is further complicated by the fact that these discourses,
and the entire postcolonial “oeuvre” as such, are political discourses
expressly concerned with the politics of difference and oppression.
Levinas’ philosophy, on the other hand, is largely a-political. He showed
very little interest in world affairs, apart from his preoccupation with the
Holocaust and the fate of the Jewish people. There remains a recalcitrant
gap between ethics and politics in his thought, even though he insists
that ethics necessarily entails politics: the ethical encounter between the
self and the Other always also implicates other others. Yet, the singu-
larizing asymmetric responsibility that cannot be evaded or delegated,
which issues from the face (that is, ethics, in Levinas’ sense) reintro-
duces thought, knowledge, and judgment (that is, ontology) – having
to compare the incomparable appeals of countless others competing for
the limited resources of the self.
This chapter seeks to critically consider the possibility of an encounter
between Levinas and non-Western and postcolonial discourses of the
self, the other and their relation by addressing the challenges outlined
above. In short, can Levinas’ ethical metaphysics contribute to decolo-
nizing the mind or does his racism, the Eurocentric and a-political nature
of his thought, in conjunction with his insistence upon an abstract
Alterity, render it an instance of the structural violence responsible for
the marginalization of difference(s) and/or otherness?
In an attempt to flesh out these problematics, the chapter will criti-
cally consider Levinas’ notions of the self, the Other as radical alterity,
ethical subjectivity and the nature and (im)possibility of ethical agency.
This line of investigation will inevitably lead us to Levinas’ concep-
tualization of racism as the most extreme form of moral evil. Levinas
conceives of moral evil as the reduction of the absolute otherness of the
Other person to the non-human otherness of a totality, of a species in
which Otherness loses its singularity and is simply treated as one more
of a kind. The chapter will conclude by considering how ethical meta-
physics, which is expressly not meant as a prescriptive normative frame-
work for ethical action, fares when the ethical meets the political, when
the appeal of the singular other becomes amplified in a socio-political
world where all the other others, also and at the same time, lay claim to
the self’s resources.
Levinas and African philosophy?
For various reasons, which I shall try to address in this chapter,

engaging the thought of Emmanuel Levinas from the perspective of
African philosophy might strike many a reader as rather oxymoronic – a
“clearly confused” endeavor, one might say, that will probably amount
to nothing more than a “shrewd dumbness.” Of course, African philos-
ophy today is in fact postcolonial African philosophy – a necessary quali-
fier, much in the same way as one would refer to present-day South
African reality as “post-Apartheid.” As we know, “post-” in this context
refers to “after in time,” not in the sense that it is something that has
been dealt with, overcome, or left behind. Rather, it can be likened to
the functioning of “post-” in “post-Hiroshima,” which ushered in an
era in which “humanity” tried (and is still trying) to slay the dragon
which it created in the name of progress and modernity – not unlike
colonialism or Apartheid. “Post-” encapsulates history as “effective”
history that continues to exert the effects of the past in the present.
African philosophy, by its very nature socio-politically engaged precisely
because of the “effective” force of its colonial past, is embedded in its
“post-”colonial reality. As such, it addresses Europe and the West out of
its lived experience with Europe and the West, a fundamental entan-
glement going back to the cross-pollination of ancient ideas across
Mediterranean shores – which reminds one of the oft-overlooked or
disavowed reality that ancient Greece, the cradle of Western philosophy,
was the product also of African inspiration. As Appiah puts it: “for us to
forget Europe is to suppress the conflicts that have shaped our identities;
since it is too late for us to escape each other, we might instead seek to
turn to our advantage the mutual interdependencies history has thrust
upon us.”2
This necessitates a two-way dialogue premised on the understanding
that “Africa-Europe” is a constructed binary solidified by bloody histo-
ries and colonized minds. Settlers and natives, as Mamdani (2001)
explained, belong together: the restless ones and the territorially bound.
To do away with one, you have to do away with the other. This does
not mean, however, that we are forever tied to the binary in which, on
the one side, the subaltern’s speech is nothing but a ventriloquizing of
the erstwhile master discourse, albeit with a different accent. Nor are we
bound to a defensive denialism of any meaningful entanglement – the
other pole of the binary – which is co-extensive with a fervent demoni-
zation of all things European, often accompanied by the invocation
of a mythical state of bliss before the colonizer’s arrival. Perhaps here
too there is a third alternative, as Mamdani believes: the possibility of
forging a single intellectual citizenship for all. Mamdani insists that this
is not a matter of reconciliation. Neither is it a reconciliation of the
disputants, which is a form of fence-mending or pacification. Nor is it
a reconciliation of their differences through which a middle ground is
found by way of compromise.3
Instead, it is a two-way dialogue premised on the recognition that

postcolonial African reality is forging a philosophy out of its encoun-
ters with European modernity. It is also speaking out of its poverty,
suffering, and affliction, and from its own rich heritage of human-
istic dignity, as Bell reminds us. I agree with is contention that the
ethical values, forged within these contexts, have given legitimacy to
Africa’s claims to give voice to issues of justice, the nature of oppres-
sion, matters of human character such as patience, hope, forgive-
ness, and reconciliation. Africa’s postcolonial text is being written
by Africans, but it is also addressed to a world outside Africa. All of
Africa’s diasporic millions are voices of the legacy of the postcolo-
nial reality and these voices are entwined with North, South and
Caribbean Americans, with Arab and Jew, and with virtually every
European who has a colonial history with Africa.4
With the encounter I want to stage between Levinas and African philos-
ophy in this chapter, I want to explore some of the challenges that a
seemingly quintessential European or Continental philosopher such as
Levinas faces when his thought on alterity, on the inherent responsibility
we bear towards the Other, is brought face-to-face with other (postcolo-
nial African) ways of thinking alterity and especially difference(s). Given
the fact that Levinas’ entire oeuvre is dedicated to exposing the violent
reductionism at work in Western philosophy, a colonizing tradition par
excellence that establishes its self-certainty by way of usurping anything
and everything that is other-than-itself, staging such an encounter
might not be so oxymoronic after all.
Self and other: immanence vs. transcendence?
Levinas conceives of the being of the self in terms of the Spinozan

conatus essendi: that is, the persistent concern with its own existence.5
The “natural” or spontaneous being of the I is the striving (conatus) to
persevere in being as self-interest. The self is ontologically driven to
maintain itself in existence and to self-actualize. It therefore approaches
the other person from an “interested” position – it tries to integrate the
other into its project of existing as function, means, or meaning and
therefore cannot be but a violent, reductive and totalizing force.
Levinas’ Other, on the other hand, is the other person that confronts
the self as absolute alterity. As such, the other person is the only form
of otherness capable of resisting the self’s violence. The epiphany of the
Other as “face” refuses reduction to its plastic form,6 for no represen-
tation can contain Infinity. In other words, Levinas’ Other cannot be
recognized by way of complexion or ethnicity, cannot be categorized
as “Field Negro” or “House Negro,”7 makes no distinction between
“conquerors” and “immigrants.” Levinas’ Other is absolute in his or
her alterity, defying all representation and any reduction to recogniz-
able traits. In fact, Levinas insists that this difference is absolute in the
sense that it is different by virtue of itself and not by comparison to
others. This difference precedes all differences. Alterity, he insists, does
not follow from differences; alterity is fundamental and in no way tied
to incidental differences in complexion, ethnic identity, sexual orienta-
tion, gender, or whatever.
When I encounter this Other, he or she shows him- or herself as “face,”
and the face poses an ethical (as opposed to a concrete) resistance to my
reductive being. The face challenges my self-interested effort of existing,
which reduces alterity to sameness but does not make it impossible. The
commandment against murder does not make murder impossible (an
everyday – even banal – reality), even when its authority is maintained
in bad conscience over evil committed.8 Hereby the ethical is theo-
rized as a “possibility,” albeit a possibility against all odds, as opposed
to a “compulsion” or “inevitability” (and certainly not as prescriptive
normative moral framework): the face does not force compliance, but
only appeals. Ethical action is made possible by a moment of “radical
passivity” that enables a momentary suspension of one’s conatus that, in
turn, makes possible an action for the other, an action that goes against
the very grain of our ontological make-up.
The Infinity of the Other derives from transcendence, which cannot
appear other than as incarnated immanence, the other person. It is the
Cartesian idea of Infinity placed in the I by the Infinite – that foreign

kernel at the heart of the self that paradoxically constitutes the self as
an identity in dia-stasis. As such, the self is always troubled by the other-
within-the self, and is fundamentally incapable of ever fully coinciding
with itself. The Other-in-the Self is in actual fact an enigmatic anachro-
nism, since it would be more accurate to describe this being-troubled as
a “will always already have been troubled.” A (future) encounter with
the Other is needed to bring to the present a constitutive inscription
by alterity that predates the self. In other words, the placing of the idea
of Infinity is an-archic, it is always-already there, an inherent potential
that realizes the humanity in the human. Transcendence is the double
movement of trans-ascendence and trans-descendence: in the latter
case, it is a movement downwards and inwards, reconfiguring the very
ontological structure of the I: a denucleation whereby the fundamental
self-interestedness of the I is turned outward to face its responsibility
towards the other person, trans-ascending its very conatus.
The self and the Other should nevertheless not be conceived of as two
poles of a binary opposition. Levinas conceives of this relationship in
terms of “and” rather than “or.” In fact, the “and” of Totality and Infinity
(1961) became a definitive (Derridean) “both/and” in Otherwise Than
Being and Beyond Essence (1974), in which Levinas insists that the Other
is in the self.9 The encounter with the other person triggers an inherent,
fundamental alterity that “always-already” disturbs self-interestedness.
The possibility of ethical action is thus the paradoxical simultaneity of
the necessary persistence in being, and the an-archic, pre-original, pre-
reflective (always-already) possibility of going against the grain of one’s
ontological blueprint: that is, the possibility to be otherwise than being
and to go beyond the logic of one’s conatus. Levinas already introduces
and insists upon this simultaneity in Totality and Infinity, but it only
becomes fully articulated in Otherwise Than Being, where the emphasis
is wholly on the traumatization of the ethical encounter, and the
preceding economics of existence in the world is even disavowed. In
Totality and Infinity the separation of the I remains a necessary condition
for the possibility of the ethical relation. Here, in his first magnum opus,
the emphasis is on establishing the difference between the need of an
indigent I – and its instrumentalist relationship to provisional otherness
in the world that it needs to sustain itself – and desire. Desire signals
a relationship of disinterest, where the I is fully independent and can
engage the Other without self-interest. Once this distinction has been
established, Levinas shifts his concern in the later Otherness Than Being
to the impact of the fully separated I’s encounter with absolute alterity
where the trope of traumatization is central. The encounter with the

Other “de-nucleates” the egoist self-concern of the self and concern for
self becomes a selfless concern for the Other.
The alterity at the very heart of the self, which enables being “other-
wise than Being,” therefore comes to the fore as essentially belonging to
the dynamic of conatus: always at odds with itself – needing to continue
in self-persistence, but troubled by the possibility that this effort to exist
is at the expense of another’s. Hence Levinas is able to postulate the
possibility of a “good will” made possible by “bad conscience.”
Racism: alterity vs. difference
Racism, for Levinas, is the most extreme form of moral evil, understood
as the reduction of the absolute otherness of the Other (the face), to the
non-human otherness of a totality – of a species in which Otherness loses
its singularity and is simply treated as one more of a kind.10 Reduction to
qualities totalizes rather than singularizes: I cannot but be white (on a
predominantly black continent) and female (to my (still) predominantly
male interlocutors), categorized as of settler-descent, and these qualities
are all that I am.
Levinas insists that diversity – differences that result from different
qualities – is antecedent to Otherness/absolute alterity.11 I am other
fundamentally and preceding any observable differences much like iden-
tical twins are alike in nothing more than appearance. They might be
borne from the same gene pool and socialized in an identical setting,
but they nevertheless remain irreducible singularized by a fundamental
alterity that cannot be overcome – neither by nature nor by nurture. To
recognize the Other as a face “without any cultural adornment”12 is to
refuse to subject persons to any such reduction which would rob them
of their unique irreplaceability, and make them into another one of a
kind/species.
If the self is driven by self-interest and our encounters with others
are predominantly dictated by a means–end rationality, since ethical
encounters are not the rule but the exception, then racism too is not
improbable but commonplace. Insofar as one is – according to the sponta-
neous dynamic existing, or conatus essendi, directed toward the “same,”
toward maintaining and fortifying one’s own –, one must be considered
“by nature” potentially racist, without of course being predestined or
overdetermined by it. The I’s racist tendencies are “normal,” as opposed
to a psychological or pathological deviation limited to the few. Despite
the “normality” or commonplace occurrence of racism, it is nevertheless
not a fated inevitability. Rather it is a permanent possibility woven into

the dynamic of our being. By virtue of being, we are naturally inclined
to reduce the face to the form in the interest of self-maintenance.
Levinas’ conception of the absolute otherness of the Other person
that poses ethical (as opposed to actual or concrete) resistance to assimi-
lation by the self could perhaps be further elucidated by contrasting it to
Tsenay Serequeberhan’s exposition of the historical relation between the
self (European culture) and the Other (Africa).13 Serequeberhan main-
tains that European culture established its identity by historically and
thematically differentiating itself from “the Otherness of the Other” –
exemplified by the barbarism of the Black African. What is at stake here
is the constructed binary between the pureness of the White European
that can only uphold this identity by radically opposing itself to its
Other, which is conceived as non-assimilable. Here alterity is understood,
not as that which is fundamentally other and therefore not reducible to
qualities, but fundamentally other precisely because of its contrasting
qualities – qualities that are so threatening in their opposition that the
self cannot afford any encounter, recognition or assimilation without
contamination. Here “the Otherness of the Other” is not the wellspring
of ethical alterity, but the very legitimation of ethical violence. In 1967
Ezekiel Mphahlele resorted to this conception of otherness to explain
the situation in the then Apartheid South Africa. Whites, he explained,
maintained their identity by refusing to surrender to their African situ-
atedness. Blacks, on the other hand, “have reconciled the Western and
the African in them.” Hence, “[t]he only cultural vitality there is, is to be
seen among Africans; they have not been uplifted by a Western culture
but rather they have reconciled the two in themselves.”14
Levinas and postcolonialism: evaluating three

main challenges
Having established these basic markers of Levinas’ thought, we can now

turn to the question at the heart of this chapter: to what extent can
Levinas’ thought be useful – for engaging with, and perhaps learning
from, non-Western and postcolonial ethical frameworks and concep-
tions of otherness? Despite the ethical sensibility at the heart of Levinas’
project, the specters of his racism and Eurocentrism, premised on a
very parochial conception of “Europe,” seems to thwart the way to any
productive interchange. In what follows I would like to face these chal-
lenges head-on in a preliminary attempt to negotiate possible avenues
around them. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide
any definitive solutions, (which is perhaps beyond the scope and intent
of any philosophical investigation), I offer a few suggestive proddings of
the obstacles, which I address in terms of three main challenges.
First challenge: the distinction between difference and diversity

The first challenge one encounters when attempting to engage Levinas’
conceptualization of alterity is the fact that it allows no distinction
from, comparison to or derivation from identity. Radical difference is
unphenomenolizable; it does not appear, cannot be compared to or
distinguished from other others. Alterity does not follow from differ-
ences; differences issue from alterity. If Levinas precisely critiques the
insistence upon distinguishing qualities as the root of other-reductive
violence, is there enough complementarity in their scope of reference
for a productive interchange between ethical metaphysics and postcolo-
nial celebrations of or insistence upon differences?
Levinas has precisely been critiqued by Drabinsky for his refusal to
recognize diversity in difference.15 The most obvious counter-argu-
ment from a Levinasian perspective would be that the reintroduction
of differentiation into difference would inevitably also reintroduce
the problems of otherness overdetermined by their empirical, observ-
able qualities, which precisely blind us to the face behind the form.
The terror of totalizing identity cannot be combated by insisting on a
counter-identity. Levinas’ insistence upon the “abstractness of the face”
needs to be qualified in terms of his equally vehement contention that
the face can only be accessed by way of the form. In other words, the
absolute alterity of the other person manifests itself in the affectivity
of the encounter between embodied selves. I can recognize you as you,
beyond your complexion, gender, or ethnicity, because I am affected by
virtue of your proximity to me. The proximity of another affects me by
resonating with my infectedness by another within myself that I cannot
fathom. In other words, Levinas would insist upon an encounter with
the embodied Other. The “otherness” of the embodied Other might
come in various forms – quintessentially racial or ethnic – but Levinas’
point would be that these empirical differences do not encapsulate what
truly singularizes us. Moreover, it is precisely this singularizing alterity
that also makes for our fundamental human bond. We are all others to
ourselves, apart from being others to other persons. My whiteness does
not make me more transparent to myself. In fact, my inner opaque-
ness is the “difference” par excellence that singularizes me and there-
fore separates me from others, while rendering “differences” moot.
If Levinas’ disavowal of diversity in difference, on the one hand, and
postcolonial celebrations of differences, on the other, are both animated

by the conviction that self and Other are deserving of equal recogni-
tion, that the self is also another’s Other, then there seems to be ample
ground for productive and critical interchange, precisely because of the
difference in approaches.
Second challenge: Levinas’ racism and Eurocentrism

The second major challenge that Levinas presents, in a postcolonial
context, is his racism and his emphatic Eurocentrism. He has been
guilty of a number of explicitly racist remarks and his work is undeni-
ably Eurocentric even as it proposes to critique the total characteristics
of the history of Western philosophy with the infinity of the ethical
encounter. His Eurocentrism is exacerbated by the fact that it is prem-
ised on a very parochial conception of Europe: for him, “Europe is
the Bible and the Greeks,”16 which seems to exclude the constitutive
violence of Europe the “empire.” There are two possible ways in which
one can address Levinas’ racism and Eurocentrism: (1) by addressing the
context in which Levinas conceptualizes Europe; and (2) by considering
his personal views (or racist remarks) in relation to his work/thought.
Concerning the first, “Europe” or “Western culture,” according to
Levinas, is split between Greek and the Bible. “Greek” refers to “the
manner in which the universality of the West is expressed ... rising above
the local particularism(s).”17 For Levinas, “Greek is the language of
totality, grounded in the correlations of subject and object, of self and
world, actor and action, knower and known,”18 which is the fundamental
premise that gives rise to the other-reductive violence of ontology to
which Levinas’ ethical metaphysics is opposed. Levinas insists that the
Bible teaches a different lesson, the lesson of ethics and responsibility.
Levinas’ primary goal in the essay19 in which he puts forward this paro-
chial conception of Europe is to call attention to a crisis in European
culture. The presiding Greek rationality, according to Levinas, is beset
with the risk of draconian, organized oppression, dehumanization, and
destruction as exemplified in the Gulag and Auschwitz. If “Europe” or
“Western culture” is a contested identity – split between the contrary
impulses of its combined Hellenic and Hebraic heritage – then Levinas’
Eurocentrism is premised on an European exceptionalism that attributes
Europe’s special position to its capacity for self-critique. For Levinas, this
capacity for self-critique is made possible by its Hebraic heritage: the
possibility of “an ontological inversion.”20 The Bible, Levinas main-
tains, announces the possibility of interrupting the original persever-
ance of realities in their being, the very perseverance at the root of
all evil – the evil of the Shoah as well as the evil of colonialism. The
“logic” on which Levinas’ ethical metaphysics is premised is undeni-
ably religiously inflected. A religious allegiance that serves to salvage his
Eurocentrism for believers, but that remains highly contestable for those
that have borne witness to the other-reductive violence of missionary
origin. Levinas would counter that the violence of evangelical projects
and institutions cannot undo “the little kindness” – “the goodness of
one person toward another,” “the rahamim [compassion, pity, mercy] of
the Bible.”21
Concerning the second, if it is compassion, pity and mercy towards
one’s fellow human beings that Levinas propounds, what then to make
of his racist remarks? Can one legitimately separate the man and his
utterances from his thought/works? When it comes to ethical meta-
physics (which is not an ethics or morality, to be sure), which insists
upon racism/moral evil as an inherent possibility of the human that is
constituted by its responsibility to the other, can we maintain the death
of the author, the separation of the text and the life, as Barthes and
Foucault insisted, effectively privileging the works over the interviews?
In other words, do we not expect the character of the author – who
preaches responsibility for the other – to lend credibility to his ideas: for
are words not empty without deeds?
If one cannot separate the text and the life, perhaps Levinas’
Eurocentrism, his racism and prejudice, provide credence to his ethical
metaphysics, rather than to discredit it. He is, after all, firmly steeped in
the tradition of Western philosophy, even as he recognizes and critiques
its constitutive violence which reduces all things “other” to a unity. His
insistence upon Europe as the wellspring of the human is contestable,
since it privileges the same against all identities considered other. As
argued above, a Europe defined in terms of the Bible and Greek is itself
recognized as an inherently split self whose ethical impulse is often
overshadowed by its totalitarian tendencies. Would all other selves, by
the same token, not also be spit selves, also prone to self-affirmation at
the expense of the Other? Is this not the violence that Levinas alerts
us to even if he cannot safeguard himself from such other-reductive
inclinations?
What if, following Barthes, we subscribed to the idea that the author is
dead: that he, his life, his intentions, do not have any definitive explan-
atory power? What if the life of the text, as Drabinski insists22 – and
Levinas as well in response to a question about the status of commentary
(in relation to the Talmud23) – is to be found in commentary? It is in this
context that Levinas insists that the question, “Is my life righteous?” is
trumped by the question, “Is it righteous to be?” Can we conclude from

this that the fact that Levinas’ own life was not entirely righteous does
not discredit his insistence that being as such might not be righteous?
Knowing nothing – by his own admission – about Buddhism, he insisted
that for him the Bible is the model of excellence.24 He insists upon
Europe (“alongside its numerous atrocities”) and the Bible (in the name
of love for the neighbor), knowing full well that neither Europe nor the
Bible (or Europe as the Bible and the Greeks) represents a pure identity:
the Truth, or the uncontaminated moral good. Are both not examples
par excellence of the kind of hybridity and mongrelization celebrated by
Rushdie, even as they sometimes come cloaked in the guise of totalitari-
anism and the absolutism of the supposedly pure? Levinas frequently
also identifies the West with Greek and opposes it both to Hebrew and
to his Judaic inspired ethics of disruption, where both of the latter are
understood as non-Western. There is evidence of a hesitation or vacilla-
tion between identifying Hebrew as an aspect of what is European and
seeing Hebrew as marginalized otherness. His own hybrid identity as a
European Jew might account for this hesitation; but the fact is, neither
Greek nor Hebrew – and especially the combination of both – make for a
self-same Europe that neatly coincides with itself. Levinas’ celebration of
Europe, his Eurocentrism, should therefore also be read as a recognition
of the constitutive otherness at the very heart of the self, that precisely
accounts for the human aspect – the ability of Europe, alongside its
numerous atrocities, to invent the idea of “de-Europeanization.”25 For
the orientation of ethics in Levinas is not the condemnation of others,
but the moment of self-questioning.
Third challenge: the a-political nature of Levinas’ ethical

metaphysics
The third (and last) challenge I can address within the limited scope of
this contribution, encountered when one engages with Levinas from
the perspective of postcolonial African philosophy, is the fact that
Levinas’ philosophy is largely a-political. The fact is, Levinas showed
very little interest in world affairs, apart from his preoccupation with
the Holocaust and the fate of the Jewish people. There remains a recal-
citrant gap between ethics and politics in his thought, even though he
insists that ethics necessarily entails politics, that the ethical encounter
between the self and the Other always also implicates other others. Yet,
the singularizing asymmetric responsibility that cannot be evaded or
delegated that issues from the face, that is, the pre-original, pre-reflective
ethical responsibility, by necessity reintroduces thought, knowledge, and
judgment (and with it all the problems of ontology) when the abstracted
face-to-face relationship assumes its rightful place in the world. In the
world, the self has to compare the incomparable appeals of countless
others competing for the scarce resources of the self.
Levinas attempts to address the issue of politics and justice by way of
the Third. Levinas’ ethical encounter – the face-to-face – is essentially a
twosome, but in the real world the self constantly faces, not one appeal
but countless others who are: homeless, jobless, street-bound, kids
left to their own devices; the destitute, hungry, imploring, reminding
one that your place in the sun is at the expense of others’ well-being.
Levinas’ notion of the Third, whereby he attempts to represent the
appeals of many others next to and in conjunction with the Other’s
address, as Drabinsky rightly points out “tends to function more as a
phenomenology of how the political is signified in moral consciousness
than an actual clarification or exploration of the meaning of political
responsibility.”26 To navigate the moment of transition from the ethical
to the political, Levinas invokes the messianic – representing a sort of
pure futurity. In the here and now, we are faced with the reality of our
ontological inclination towards evil, with the failure of institutions such
as the state to institute and maintain justice. In Totality and Infinity,
Levinas insists that war, other-reductive evil, and injustice can only be
overcome if time itself is reconceptualized in terms of the messianic
“infinite time of triumph,” which signals perpetual peace:27 “Messianic
triumph is the pure triumph; it is secured against the revenge of evil.”28
So, the victory of peace over war according to Messianic time – time as
the Other and the future, as Levinas explains in Time and the Other,29
epitomizes the transition from ontology to ethics or from philosophy
to the religious.30 Drabinsky is right when he maintains that “such a
moment, while critical and diagnostic of the present in its illumination
of injustice, does not lend itself to prescribing just political action”31 in
the here and now: that is, the transition from the otherwise than being
to the plane of being, which raises the question of action, mobilization
and resistance.
Indeed, it would seem that Levinas’ respective conceptualizations of
ethics and politics are fundamentally incompatible, even opposed: the
ethical subject is stripped of her ego, denucleated, imploding under the
weight of the world, radically passive; the political subject, on the other
hand, is called back from this place of an-archic preconscious responsi-
bility that incapacitates, to compare the incomparable – to judge and to
act, knowing full well that each and every action will invariably deny
other others’ appeals.
Following Derrida’s Adieu, Simon Critchley offers one possible work-

able negotiation between ethics and politics in Levinas’ thought.32
Politics, Critchley maintains, demands inventing a new normative
guideline for every situation – a norm premised on the Other’s ethical
injunction lodged in me. This injunction is nonfoundational yet non-
arbitrary, even though each decision is necessarily different in response
to the singular demand made on me by each other Other in his or her
specific context. “Every time I decide I have to invent a new rule, a new
norm, which must be absolutely singular in relation to both the other’s
infinite demand made on me and the finite context within which this
demand arises.” He further explains that “each political decision is made
experientially ex nihilo, as it were, and is not deduced or read off proce-
durally from a pregiven moral content, and yet it is not arbitrary: a rule
shapes the taking of that decision.”33
Derrida accepts Levinas’ formal notion of the ethical relation to the
other: that is, the latter’s insistence upon the messianic, while refusing
the specific political content that Levinas’ ethics seems to entail – his
Zionism, French republicanism, and Eurocentrism – which necessarily
includes the violence of imperial expansion and usurpation.34
Concluding thoughts
Needless to say, within the limited scope of this chapter one cannot flesh
out these issues in all their complexity. If there is to be equal “post-post-
colonial” (and “post-post-Apartheid,” for that matter) intellectual citi-
zenship that enables a meaningful and instructive encounter between
European and African thinkers/thought, one would have to avoid the
“anodyne pieties” that a thinker like Levinas can offer. We have to get
rid of our blindspots – our selective readings, our defensive sermonizing.
We have to confront the embedded prejudices head-on to find the gaps
where a meaningful encounter is possible. Levinas’ critique of ontology
might be such a gap. Eaglestone35 proposes that “Levinas’s critique of
ontology is a way of exploring in detail the philosophical discourse that
underlies Western thought precisely in terms of its colonial and all-con-
suming power.”36 He suggests that, in the first instance, it is not the
ethical call that seems to speak out against colonialism but the way in
which Levinas construes the history of Western philosophy as a reduc-
tion of the other to the same, which serves as a necessary condition for
the realization that we need to “decolonize the mind” and come up
with “new forms of cultural and political production.” For my part, I am
inclined to believe that the interstices of the ethical – the moments of
radical passivity in which the self’s conatus is momentarily suspended –

open up a space of interlocution in which a meaningful encounter might
take place between Levinas and his postcolonial counterparts.
Notes
1. E. Levinas (2007), In the Time of the Nations, trans. Michael B. Smith (London:
Continuum), pp. 119–121.
2. K. A. Appiah (1992), In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture
3. M. Mamdani (2001), “Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities:
Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism,” Society for Comparative
Study of Society and History 0010–4175, pp. 651–664.
4. R. H. Bell (2002), Understanding African Philosophy: A Cross-cultural Approach to
Classical and Contemporary Issues (New York: Routledge), p. 48.
5. E. Levinas (1991), Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso
Lingis (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers). In French (1974), Autrement
qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff), pp. 4–5.
6. E. Levinas (1985). Ethics and Infinity. Conversations with Philippe Nemo, trans.
Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press). In French (1982),
Éthique et infini. Dialogues avec Philippe Nemo. Librairie Arthème Fayard et
Radio-France, L’espace intérieur 26, pp. 90–91.
7. Reference to Malcolm X’s distinction in Mamdani, “Beyond Settler and
Native,” p. 657.
8. E. Levinas (1996), Nouvelles lectures talmudiques (Paris: Minuit), pp. 22–23.
9. Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, pp. 141, 179.
10. In this regard, see R. Burggraeve (1999), “Violence and the Vulnerable Face
of the Other: The Vision of Emmanuel Levinas on Moral Evil and Our
Responsibility,” Journal of Social Philosophy, 30 (1), pp. 39–42.
11. E. Levinas (1988), “La vocation de l’autre,” in E. Hirsch (ed.), Racismes. L’autre
et son visage (Paris: Cerf), p. 92.
12. E. Levinas (1964), “Meaning and sense,” in A. Peperzak, S. Critchley, & R.
Bernasconi (eds) (1996), Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press), p. 53.
13. T. Serequeberhan (1994), The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy (New York:
Routledge), p. 128.
14. E. Mphahlele (1967), “Remarks on Negritude,” in African Writing Today
(Harmondsworth: Penguin), p. 248.
15. J. E. Drabinsky (2011), Levinas and the Postcolonial. Race, Nation, Other
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
16. Levinas, In the Time of the Nations, pp. 119–121.
17. Ibid.
18. M. L. Morgan (2011), The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 186.
19. First published in Cosmopolitiques, 4 (February 1986).
20. Levinas, In the Time of the Nations, p. 119.
21. Ibid., p. 121.
22. Drabinsky, Levinas and the Postcolonial, p. xi.
23. J. Robbins (ed.) (2001), Is it Righteous To Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press), p. 163.
24. Levinas, Is it Righteous to Be? p. 164.
25. Ibid.
26. Drabinsky, Levinas and the Postcolonial, p. 167.
27. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, pp. 281–285/257–261.
28. Ibid., p. 285/261.
29. E. Levinas (1987), Time and the Other, trans. R. Cohen. (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press). In French: (1948), Le temps et l’ autre (Grenoble & Paris: B.
Arthaud).
30. In this regard, see H. Caygill (2002), Levinas and the Political (London:
Routledge), pp. 97–98.
31. Drabinsky, Levinas and the Postcolonial, p. 168.
32. S. Critchley (2010), “Five Problems in Levinas’s View of Politics and the Sketch
of a Solution to Them,” in P. Atterton and M. Calarco (eds), Radicalizing
Levinas (Albany: Suny Press), pp. 41–53.
33. Critchley, “Five Problems,” pp. 48–49.
34. Ibid., p. 49.
35. R. Eaglestone (2010), “Postcolonial Thought and Levinas’s Double Vision,”
in P. Atterton and M. Calarco (eds), Radicalizing Levinas (Albany: Suny Press),
pp. 57–68.
36. Eaglestone, “Postcolonial Thought,” p. 64.

16
Rorty’s Contribution to
Postmodern Ethics
Amaechi Udefi
Introduction
Richard Rorty, in the words of Harold Bloom, remains “the most inter-
esting philosopher in the world today”.1 This description shows at once
the many contours of Rorty’s philosophical firmament. It is an incontro-
vertible fact that Rorty was trained in the analytic philosophical tradi-
tion, as some of his early writings reveal, but the same tradition later
become, as it were, the battlefield of his philosophical attack.
As it is now familiar, Rorty’s analysis began with a critique of the
attempt in ancient philosophy, particularly by Plato to professionalize
philosophy. The professionalization of philosophy presupposes that
there is a world or reality independent of man; that all human beings
“share an unchanging essence, and that knowledge of this essence can
help us decide what to do with ourselves.” The essentialism noticeable
in Plato again is implicated in such ideas as “absolute,” “objective”
and transcendent. For Plato, situations that involve moral dilemma,
only requires the light of reason “to deal with them and this is acces-
sible to all reflective human beings.” This position, which character-
ized the philosophical orientation in the ancient period dovetailed
into the modern period because most of the intellectual discourse of
Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, amongst others, smacks of this.
But for Rorty and other anti-Platonists or quietists as they are labeled
because of their endorsement of movements such as pragmatism, post-
modernism, existentialism and a rejection of naturalism, algorithmic
model of the scientific method” and rationality, dismissed this. Here,
the scientific method, which is taken as the epitome of rationality is
simply the conviction that to be rational and scientific means to adhere
to prepared criteria, criteria established prior and external to the inquiry
296
Rorty’s Contribution to Postmodern Ethics 297
which we are currently undertaking and which are therefore not tainted
by subjectivity or contingency.
In this chapter, an attempt is made to analyze Rorty’s assertion that
there is a distinction between public and private morality, which some
scholars agree is in tune with contemporary liberal democratic culture.
Also, it is submitted that Rorty’s views on moral philosophy flow from
his critique of Plato and his followers who attempt to essentialize philos-
ophy and by extension erect a foundation for morality, knowledge,
truth, justification and the like, with which they intend to promote a
trans-cultural and a historical nature of rationality. But such an argu-
ment, from Rorty’s view, seems unsustainable given the fact of an over-
whelming diversity of cultures and civilizations.
Rorty’s obsession
One thing that a general reader or a beginning student of Rorty will

easily notice is that Rorty has devoted considerable and systematic
attention to such areas as philosophy of language and metaphilosophy
but may not so easily notice his account of moral philosophy and prac-
tice, though may not equate or rival “the systematic manner common
amongst leading contemporary moral philosophers.”2 Again a student
of Rorty would notice some kind of uniformity in the way and manner
that he tackles and addresses issues in his essays. In other words, Rorty
hardly departs from his initial premise – basically anti-foundationalism
and pragmatism – in his discussion of issues in epistemology, moral
philosophy, cultural and literary theory, education, politics, law, science
and religion. Based on this, it is proper and natural to say that Rorty’s
moral philosophy flows from his anti-foundationalist and pragmatist
orientation. So, I will, for a broader perspective of his moral writings,
first discuss his views of philosophy and how he thinks it should now
be conceived.
Rorty’s later writings can be described, for want of a better word,
as largely deflationary and adversarial of the enterprise of traditional
philosophy: Like we stated in the “introduction” that Rorty had a
profound training in the analytic philosophy for which he devoted a
large percentage of his early writings. But, ironically the same tradi-
tion later became the subject of his attack and philosophical polemics.
Some critics and admirers have described him as an “academic rebel”
following the publication of his highly influential book Philosophy and
the Marrow of Nature, where he seems to state unequivocally his real
intention thus:
298 Amaechi Udefi
The aim of the book is to undermine the reader’s confidence in the

mind as something about which one should have a philosophical
view, in “knowledge” as something about which there ought to be a
“theory” and which has “foundations,” and in philosophy as it has
been conceived since Kant.3
The attempt within the enterprise of traditional philosophy has always

been the “search for providing a foundation for ‘Being and knowledge’,
that is, the attempt of philosophy to discover a secure basis from which
we might construct an independent, absolute, objective criterion for
truth.”4
In the course of pursuing his expressed intention, Rorty says a few
things about how epistemology came to play a central role in modern
philosophy and the latter’s historical trajectories. Rorty observed that
philosophy since Descartes has been dominated by epistemology. This
is taken to mean that since the period, “philosophers have often seen
themselves as operating in a space outside of science and the rest of
culture, a space, as it were, where the theory of knowledge critically
oversees all non-philosophic endeavours”.5 Based on this image or busi-
ness of philosophy, the epistemologist has an overriding duty to deter-
mine the extent of our knowledge, that is, what we can rationally accept
or justifiably hold to, which choices are objective, and which theories or
activities are unscientific, irrational or groundless. The point here is that
there is an unconstrained and limitless boundary for philosophy (episte-
mology) to traverse in terms of judgments about rationality, knowledge,
objectivity, scientificity, ans so on, of any society and cultural institu-
tions. The outcome of such judgments would be universally applicable
to any human theory, activity or culture.
What is suggested here is that philosophy would be truly “first philos-
ophy,” that is, a foundational discipline. The image of philosophy as
characterized here animates the reflections of philosophers both ancient
and modern. As Rorty puts it:
We owe the notion of philosophy as a tribunal of pure reason,

upholding or denying the claims of the rest of culture, to the eight-
eenth century and especially to Kant, but this Kantian notion
presupposed general assent to Lockean notions of mental proc-
esses and Cartesian notions of mental substance. In the nineteenth
century, the notion of philosophy as a foundational discipline which
“grounds” knowledge claims was consolidated in the writings of the
neo-kantians.6
Rorty traces the historical development of the constitution of philos-

ophy as a foundational discipline. This is given a considerable treat-
ment in parts one and two of his book, already cited above, specifically
on mind (consciousness) and knowledge (epistemology) respectively.
The philosophers that are associated with the creation of the image of
philosophy as a foundational discipline include Plato in the ancient
period, Descartes, Locke and Kant in the modern period. Here, Rorty
intends to show that certain problems in philosophy, like the mind-
body problem is assumed to be a basic problem in philosophy because
it appears to be intuitively evident that there is some important distinc-
tion between what is “mental” and what is “physical,” although we may
be at a loss how to characterize this distinction or even what it amounts
to. The roots of this problem are traceable to Plato’s acceptance of the
optical metaphor of an eye of the mind in an attempt to explain our
knowledge of universals and eternal truths.
There is a link between Plato’s vision of the mind as the optical meta-
phor or privileged representations and the Cartesian invention of mind
as inner representations as well as Kant’s professionalization of philos-
ophy. According to Rorty, the Cartesian construct of the mind as inner
representations is the font and origin of the modern idea of a “theory
of knowledge.” Rorty argues that the epistemological turn taken by
Descartes would not have registered any impression on the European
mind save the crisis of confidence in European thought. The crisis arose
as a result of the skeptical doubts about our ability to attain apodictic
certainty. To be sure, traditional skepticism was worried by the problem
of the criterion and the possibility of validating our knowledge claims
without falling into either circularity or dogmatism. However, Descartes
thinks that this worry is gratuitous and argues that the problem can be
solved with his “method of clear and distinct ideas.” Rorty, however,
maintains that the invention of the Cartesian mind would not have
been sufficient for the development of epistemology without Lockean
confusion of explanation with justification. Rorty says that without
Locke, it would not have occurred to anyone to look for foundations of
knowledge in the senses.7
Now Rorty turns attention to Kant who he said made attempt
to reconcile the Cartesian “inner space of reason” and Lockean
Sensualism. The strategy adopted by Kant was to assign active roles to
both mind (reason) and senses. For him, the physical reality (senses)
furnishes the human mind (reason) the raw materials to work and
transform them into meaningful data. This is what is regarded as
Kant’s “Copernican Revolution,” whether or not this revolution was
300 Amaechi Udefi
successful is a different matter. The important thing is that, following

his insight, Kant inaugurated the belief of an epistemology-centered
conception of philosophy. Apart from making philosophy as epis-
temology, he also professionalized it and by so doing distinguishes
philosophers from scientists. This point is succinctly stated by C.I.
Lewis thus:
There are, in our cognitive experience, two elements; the immediate

data, such as those of sense, which are presented or given to the
mind, and a form, construction, or interpretation, which represents
the activity of thought.8
The point here is that with Kant, there emerged a conception of philos-
ophy as an institutionalized authority.
The assumption here is that it is the business of philosophy to inves-
tigate the foundations of the sciences, the arts, culture and morality
and also assess their cognitive claims and presuppositions. To put the
same point differently, philosophy in this dispensation assumed to be
an objective tribunal, a cultural overseer, one to which all other descrip-
tions of reality and other types of discourse were brought for assessment.
Based on this, the view of philosophy as the “Queen of the sciences”
arose and popularized by Kant and others.
The presumption is that the sciences are ignorant of their own

presuppositions and the rationale of their “Methods” and that it is
the proper business of philosophy to articulate these presuppositions
and adjudicate their validity.9
It is argued that this conception has been responsible for such distinc-
tions as word–world, analytic–synthetic, fact–value, necessary–contin-
gent, mind–body dualism within analytic philosophy.10 The image or
conception of philosophy, which Rorty wants to subvert can be summa-
rized thus:
Philosophy as a discipline… sees itself an the attempt to underwrite

or debunk claims to knowledge made by science, morality, art or reli-
gion. It purports to do this on the basis of its special understanding
of the nature of knowledge and of mind. Philosophy can be foun-
dational with respect to the rest of culture because culture is the
assemblage to claims to knowledge and philosophy adjudicates such
claims.11
Deconstruction and overcoming of tradition
Rorty is thoroughly worried about the image that is wound around

philosophy, which as we stated above, suggests that philosophy is a
foundational discipline sitting in judgment of other cultural systems
and deciding which to be accepted and rejected. Then, Rorty takes a
deflationary and negative position against this image and urges for the
deconstruction and abandonment of the entire philosophical enterprise.
He suggests that it should be supplanted by “conversation.” Rorty man
have adopted this term from Michael Oakeshott’s phrase “a voice in
the conversation of mankind,” which he (Rorty) uses in a metaphorical
sense to suggest a situation whereby different disciplines and cultural
systems are free to contribute a voice in the ongoing debate with none
commanding no special authority over the right of others to say what
they want, and whose pronouncements rest upon no special insight
into the nature of knowledge.12
The dream of philosophy as a foundational discipline and dominant
paradigm of rationality is an illusion. Witness what he says:
…what ties Dewey and Foucault, James and Nietzsche together is

the sense that there is nothing deep down inside us except what we
have put there ourselves, no criterion that we have not created in the
course of creating a practice, no standard of rationality that is not
an appeal to such a criterion, no rigorous argumentation that is not
obedient to our conventions.13
For Rorty, philosophy is like any other genre with its own vocabularies.
According to him, these vocabularies are not ahistorical but are contin-
gent and as such culture bound.14
What can be gleaned from our submission here is that truth and
knowledge are what is good for us to believe or to borrow William James’
phrase, what is “warrantedly assertible.” The implications of this are
firstly the idea of correspondence theory is redundant and secondly the
talk of trans-cultural rationality, which can be used to debunk or accept
cultures, should be jettisoned. As Rorty summarizes the point thus:
From a pragmatist point of view, to say that what is rational for us now
to believe may not be true is simply to say that somebody may come
up with a better idea… For the pragmatist, the desire for objectivity is
not the desire to escape the limitations of one’s community, but simply
the desire for as much intersubjective agreement as possible…15
302 Amaechi Udefi
Rorty was also attracted by Quine’s holism and Sellars’ anti-foundation-

alism with which he employed in his confrontation of philosophy as
providing an a priori critique of science and the rest of culture. It may not
be appropriate to embark on a detailed treatment of Quine and Sellars’16
views here, but only to say that their views, taken together, reveal that
our conceptions of an empirically neutral epistemology, which provides
foundations for other knowledge claims and cultures should be jetti-
soned. If Quine and Sellars are right, then we can begin to revise or drop
altogether the analytic synthetic, necessary-contingent distinctions. On
this Rorty says:
When Sellars’ and Quine’s doctrines are purified, they appear as

complementary expressions of a single claim, that no account of the
nature of knowledge can rely on a theory of representations. The
work of these two philosophers enables us… to make clear why an
account of the nature of knowledge can be at most, a description of
human behaviour.17
Even though Rorty was not comfortable with some aspects of Quine’s
and Sellars’ views, particularly their sympathetic claims to epistemology,
he (Rorty) endorses the holism implicit in their claims. The holism
common to Quine and Sellars suggests that justification is a matter of
social practice rather than a product of a correspondence between words
and objects. What Rorty did was to transpose it into what he prefers
to call “epistemological behaviorism,” which is the view that episte-
mological notions like certainty, warrant, incorrigibility, privacy, infer-
ence, non-inferential knowledge, and so on, are explainable in terms
of “certain ways in which human beings interact or what society let us
say.” This point is succinctly summarized by Rorty thus:
Explaining rationality and epistemic authority by reference to what

society let us say, rather than the letter by the former, is the essence
of what I shall call “epistemological behaviourism” This sort of
behaviourism can best be seen as a species of holism – but one which
requires no idealist metaphysical underpinnings. It claims that if
we understand the rules of a language-game, we understand all that
there is to understand about why the moves in the language-game
are made…18
Rorty’s epistemological behaviorism is antithetical to the conception of

philosophy as a general theory of representations. For him, justification
and truth are a matter of coherence and not the correspondence of

knowledge to reality. Thus, “the community is the source of all epis-
temic authority.”19
Indeed, the obvious consequence of Rorty’s holistic, anti-foundation-
alist and pragmatist view is that it is against any “essentialism.” The
attempt to essentialize philosophy is rejected by Rorty, and admonishes
instead that we should work within the norms of truth and rationality
accepted by our society. What can be gleaned from Rorty’s argument
here is that criticism and justification are normative notions, and like
other normative notions, for example, the correct way to behave, as
ethics or moral philosophy teaches, will have different applications and
a different import from culture to culture. With Rorty’s pragmatist orien-
tation, we do not think:
That there is anything isolable as the purpose which we construct

vocabularies and cultures to fulfil against which to test vocabularies
and cultures. But he does think that in the process of playing vocabu-
laries and cultures off against each other, we produce new and better
ways of talking and acting-not better by reference to a previously
known standard, but just better in the sense that they come to seem
clearly better than their predecessors.20
The point that emerges from this lengthy quotation is that whatever
seems right is right. There is no way to think about purposes and goals
outside of the vocabularies that are found within the context of our
culture, community or conceptual scheme.21
Rorty’s ethical anti-foundationalism
Our consideration here will focus on Rorty’s ethical anti-foundation-

alism. We submit that Rorty’s view of moral relativism logically flows
from his anti-foundationalist, holistic and pragmatist orientation as
we discussed at length above. Rorty is, no doubt, known for the enor-
mous contributions he has made in the areas of philosophy of language
and metaphilosophy, but not many scholars know that he has quite
some interesting essays on ethics or moral philosophy. This attitude has
unwittingly blurred full appreciation of his views on the subject as do
his writings on philosophy of language and epistemology.
Rorty’s views on moral and political theory rest on certain assumptions,
namely, the Platonic quest to essentialize philosophy whereby issues of
rationality and justification are determined by our “access to eternal
304 Amaechi Udefi
truth” and “human nature,” and the valorization of the values of liberal
democratic society of his American society, which promotes freedom,
tolerance, pluralism, justice, human rights and diversity. The latter is
obvious in what Rorty states that “we should be more willing than we
are to celebrate bourgeois capitalist society as the best polity actualized
so far”.22 Rorty argues, as quoted by Guignon and Hilley that this ideal
culture (liberal society) will abandon any attempt at grounding itself in
terms of a conception of the moral law or “the good for man,” it will
give up the idea that intellectual or political progress is rational in the
sense of satisfying neutral criteria, and it will accept that anything goes
so long as change is achieved by “persuasion rather than by force”.23
Rorty, for instance, adopts Nietzschean ethics and Hegelian histori-
cism as providing platform for his discourse of morality. According to
him, Nietzsche “has shown us that we have no access to timeless truths
about the nature of reality.” Rorty further submitted that from Nietzsche;
he learnt that “our beliefs about the world and our self-interpretations
are always preshaped by a background of understanding built into our
culture’s linguistic practices24”. Again, Rorty claims that “Hegelian histor-
icism” leads to what he (Rorty) calls “mild ethnocentricism,” which is
the view that “we must accept as true whatever is the outcome of normal
discourse within our community at the present time”.25 By normal
discourse, according to him, is defined as discourse conducted within an
agreed-upon set of conventions about what counts as a relevant contri-
bution, what counts as having a good argument for that answer or a good
criticism of it.26 As we stated elsewhere in the paper that the attempt to
essentialize and professionalize philosophy by the Platonic and Kantian
tradition is the vision that philosophy is in a vantage position over all
other discourses, and hence it assesses their presuppositions and “grounds
their practices in transcendental, ahistorical truths.” Here, Rorty’s view is
aptly summarized by Guignon and Hilley when they say:
Our moral convictions, for instance, cannot be justified by recourse to

a moral law independent of our current beliefs and practices. Instead,
“morality” refers to what a particular group happens to commend,
and the only goods are those goods internal to the practices of the
group. Given this… view of morality there can be no higher stand-
point for judging the worthiness of our practices, neither is there any
need for such justification.27
What we shall do in the remainder of the section is to connect Rorty’s

anti-foundationalist and pragmatist views with his writings on moral
and social issues. One of the crucial concerns of Rorty is how to defend
the ideals of a liberal democratic culture. In order to do so, he must first
liquidate and extirpate the earlier attempts to ground our beliefs, ration-
ality, truth, justification, and so on in an unchanging, fixed human
nature and the demands of the Enlightenment rationalist vocabulary,
which promotes instrumentalist and scientized culture. According
Rorty, if both concerns are allowed, then there could be what he calls
the “freezing-over of culture” and “dehumanization of human beings.”28
As a corollary to this, is Rorty’s endorsement of “Hegelian historicism”
as we noted above and application of what he calls “the ubiquity of
language,” both of which is taken to:
suggest that there is no way to step outside our vocabularies in order

to ground them in timeless truths about human nature. On the one
hand, our sense of who we are and of what is worth pursuing in life
are preshaped by the normal language-games we absorb in becoming
participants in an historical culture. On the other hand, the fact that
there are no privileged vocabularies means that it is up to us to take
over and reshape current public ways of speaking as we see fit.29
Having stated this, the ground seems to be prepared for instituting a

distinction between what Rorty calls “private morality” and “public
morality,” apparently circumventing the requirements of traditional
ethics, which makes a distinction between “prudence and morality,”
“reason and appetite,” “a deep self” from what is “superficial,” and at the
same time reliving the demands of a liberal democratic society, which
encourages “justice, accommodation, pluralism, tolerance, equality etc.”
For Rorty, there is a separation between private ethic of self-creation
and public ethic of mutual accommodation. While the former focuses
on the individual’s concern for developing his or her own “character”
and strives for self-realization, the latter concerns the “attempt to be
just in one’s treatment of others.”30 Again, the liberal society enables
us to recognize our contingency and our freedom to construct our
private vocabularies of moral deliberation unencumbered by external
constraints and superhuman directives as well as encourages an attitude
of live-and-let-live.31
Rorty contra his critics
Criticisms that are usually brought against Rorty can be categorized

into two: general and specific. The general aspect deals with the issue of
306 Amaechi Udefi
relativism. Here, the argument is that Rorty’s pragmatism is relativistic

since it amounts to saying that any view is as good as any other. For our
purposes, Rorty has been accused of being a moral relativist. By moral
relativism, it is meant that first, morality is relative to one or more moral
frameworks, second, for any set F, F is a moral framework just in case F is
some set of moral stands or beliefs held by an individual, group, society,
culture, religion, or tradition.32 The critics may have been emboldened
in their accusation because of Rorty’s repeated insistence that:
i. There are no objective facts or truths of any kind.33

ii. There are no objective moral facts or truths.
iii. That truths cannot be out there, that is, cannot exist independently
of the human mind.34
iv. That there is nothing beyond vocabularies which serves as a crite-
rion of choice between them.35
On the specific side of the criticism, there seems to be a tension in the

split, Rorty makes between private and public morality, as we noted
above and his preference for aestheticized imagination to morality. As
Rorty puts it:
In my utopia, human solidarity would be seen not as a fact to be

recognized by clearing away prejudice or burrowing down to previ-
ously hidden depths, but, rather as a goal to be achieved. It is to be
achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability
to see strange people as suffers. Solidarity is not achieved by reflec-
tion, but created.36
Rorty’s response to his critics is a bit weak. He began by saying that

critics accuse “pragmatists” of being relativistic because we (pragmatists)
believe that every coherent view is as good as every other, since we have
no outside “touchstone” for choice among such views.37 Furthermore,
Rorty absolves himself of the charge of relativism by saying that:
…it is not clear why “relativist” should be thought an appropriate

term for the ethnocentric view, the one which the pragmatist does
hold for the pragmatist is not holding a positive theory which says
that something is relative to something else. He is, instead, making the
purely negative point that we should drop the traditional distinction
between knowledge and opinion, construed as the distinction between
truth as correspondence to reality and truth as a commendatory term
for well-justified beliefs… Not having any epistemology, a forfiori, he

[pragmatist] does not have a relativistic one.38
There is a certain ambivalence in Rorty’s views of morality. On the one

hand, Rorty seems to accept moral relativism and deny moral objec-
tivism; on the other, he appears to endorse moral objectivism and reject
moral relativism. Even though Rorty rejects metaphysical realism and
epistemological representationalism among others, he nonetheless
would accept that “the world is constituted by facts about objects and
their properties and intrinsic nature which is unaffected by whether or
not we enter into cognitive relations with it.”39
A realist would normally make claims that “the world is mind inde-
pendent with a structure, which does not depend upon what we think
about it or the concepts we use to describe it.”40 In a similar vein, a
moral realist would accept the claim that when one make moral judg-
ments, that we are making claims which are true or false by virtue of an
independently existing moral reality. Here moral reality is understood as
moral facts. Thus moral realists are committed to the view that “moral
facts are objective or independent of any beliefs or thoughts we might
have about them.41 ”An illustration of what is canvassed here is that all
societies will disapprove of “murder” and “stealing” as been wrong, just
as they will approve “keeping promises” and “truth-telling” as good.
We are able to approve some things, while condemning others because
we have some ideas concerning what could make something good, bad,
right or wrong.
Now Rorty, just like anyone else would reject “murder” and “stealing”
as been morally wrong. This fact applies to all human beings irrespec-
tive of where they inhabit. Again Rorty has consistently denied that his
views lead to relativism as stated elsewhere in the essay.
Conclusion
Let us conclude the essay by saying that Rorty’s writings on moral and
social issues are consequent on his rejection of certain metaphysical and
epistemological theses like “realism,” “representationalism” and “corre-
spondence theory of truth.” Even though Rorty strenuously tries to clear
himself of the charge of moral relativism, there are a few expressions
or phrases in his work that suggest so. Rorty is thoroughly opposed to
any metaphysical and epistemological distinctions, such as, necessary–
contingent, scheme–content, analytic–synthetic, but he ended up insti-
tuting a distinction between private and public morality.
308 Amaechi Udefi
Notes
1. Richard Rorty (1989), Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), see book jacket.
2. Colin Koopman (2007), “Rorty’s Moral Philosophy for Liberal Democratic
Culture,” Contemporary Pragmatism, 4.2: 45.
3. Richard Rorty (1979), Philosophy and the Mirrow of Nature (Princeton: Princeton
4. John A. Levisohn (1993), “On Richard Rorty’s Ethical Anti-Foundationalism,”
The Harvard Review of Philosophy, Spring: 48
5. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirrow of Nature, pp. 45–46.
6. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirrow of Nature, p. 4.
8. C.I. Lewis (1956), Mind and the World Order (New York), p. 38.
9. Jaegwon Kim (1980), Rorty on the Possibility of Philosophy, Journal of
Philosophy LXXIV.10: 350.
10. R.H. King (1985), “In other words:” The Philosophical Writings of Richard
Rorty, Journal of American Studies, 19.1: 97.
11. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 3.
13. Richard Rorty (1982), Consequence of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press), p. xiii.
14. Richard Rorty (1989), Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), see “Introduction.”
15. Richard Rorty (1985), “Solidarity or Objectivity?” In John Rachman and
Cornel West (eds.) Post-Analytic Philosophy (New York: Columbia University
Press), p. 5.
16. W.V.O. Quine (1969), From A Logical Point of View: Logico-Philosophical
Essays (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 20–46; Wilfrid Sellars
(1963), Science, Perception and Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul),
pp. 127–196.
20. Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism, p. xxxvii.
21. C.B. Guignon (1986), “On Saving Heidegger from Rorty,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, XLVI.3: 407
22. Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism, p. 210.
23. Charles B. Guignon & David R. Hiley (1990), Biting the Bullet: Rorty on
Private and Public Morality, in Alan R. Malachowski (ed.) Reading Rorty
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.), p. 340.
24. Charles B. Guignon & David R. Hiley, “Biting the Bullet,” p. 340.
27. Charles B. Guignon and David R. Hiley, “Biting the Bullet,” pp. 340–341.
29. Charles B. Guignon and David R. Hiley, “Biting the Bullet,” p. 344.
30. Charles B. Guignon and David R. Hiley, “Biting the Bullet,” pp. 350–351.
31. Charles B. Guignon and David R. Hiley, “Biting the Bullet,” p. 343.
32. Christian B. Miller (2002), “Rorty and Moral Relativism,” European Journal of
Philosophy, 10: 354.
33. Richard Rorty (1991), Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, Philosophical Papers
vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 32.
34. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p. 5.
35. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p. 75.
36. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p. xvi. See also Richard Rorty
(1999), Philosophy and Social Hope (London, Penguin Books), pp. xxiv–12.
37. Richard Rorty, Objectivism, Relativism and Truth, p. 42
38. Richard Rorty, Objectivism, Relativism and Truth, pp. 21–34.
39. Richard Rorty, “Introduction” in Objectivism, Relativism, and Truth op. cit,
p. 4.
40. Paul Shechy (2006), “Moral Facts,” in Richmond Journal of Philosophy, 12
(Spring): 1.
41. Ibid., p. 2.

17
Human Conversation and the
Evolution of Ethics in Kitcher’s
Pragmatic Naturalism
Farinola Augustine Akintunde
Introduction
In Philip Kitcher’s words,
Ethics emerges as a human phenomenon, permanently unfin-

ished. We collectively, made it up, and have developed, refined, and
distorted it, generation by generation. Ethics should be understood
as a project – the ethical project – in which we have been engaged for
most of our history as a species.1
For Kitcher, ethics is a project that humans have collectively developed,

refined, and distorted all through human history. Moral conceptions
and processes grow naturally out of the very condition of human exist-
ence. He explores how the complex practice of ethical life existed from
the time of the earliest historical records, and how it continues to evolve
in our time. His investigation raises the perennial question of whether
ethical precepts and principles emerge from human social dwelling at
various stages in history, or are fixated codes prescribed by some moral
authority.2
In this chapter, I begin with a brief exposition of his historical analysis
of how ethics began in the history of human cultural evolution. Then
proceed to examine his proposed source of ethical norms, which he situ-
ates in the original condition of conversation after the failure of psycho-
logical altruism. I then proceed to analyze his pragmatic naturalism and
discuss its implications many of which are already evident from existing
scholarly critique of the Ethical Project. What becomes obvious from the
310
Human Conversation and the Evolution of Ethics 311
analysis presented here is that although having its issues, Kitcher remain
true to the modernist conception of ethics when the subject takes the
focal point, though not solitarily but in conversation with other.
Kitcher’s genealogy and the evolution of ethical practice
Where do moral standards come from? How do we arrive at the notion

that a particular act is good or bad in any human society? Are they from
Divine Revelation/Divine Will or agreement among people over years?
Are moral norms fixed or do they evolve? How do we account for ethical
progress? Was there a point of ethical discovery like that of scientific or
technological discoveries? These questions form the basis of Kitcher’s
theory of the evolution of morality.
Philip Kitcher’s genealogy of ethics gives a historical analysis of how
ethics began in human history. Kitcher’s ethical system is built on natu-
ralism. He builds his hypothesis on evidence from archaeology, anthro-
pology, primatology, psychology, history,3 and Paleoanthropological
studies.4 Kitcher opines that our human ancestors, the hominids, were
able to live together in their early communities because they possessed
the capacity for psychological altruism.5 By psychological altruism he
refers to the ability of an animal to modify its wishes, emotions and
intentions in response to its perception of the wishes, emotions and
intentions of others. Primatologists, he says, have provided evidence to
support the thesis that our evolutionary relatives are capable of psycho-
logical altruism:
For primates to engage in the kind of interactions they do, there

must be a propensity to form alliances and coalitions that ultimately
structure the payoff. Animals who were able to spread their altru-
istic dispositions towards non-relatives, particularly under condi-
tions where they and those with whom they bonded were weak, were
better able to survive in a harsh world.6
Thus, psychological altruism allows chimpanzees and bonobos to live

together in groups of a particular size range, but it does not allow them
to do so smoothly. This is where the inadequacy of altruism comes in. It
should be noted that Kitcher distinguished three types of altruism:
1. Biological Altruism: An organism A is biologically altruistic toward a

beneficiary B just in case A acts in ways that decrease its own repro-
ductive success and increase the reproductive success of B.7
312 Farinola Augustine Akintunde
2. Behavioral Altruism: An animal A is behaviorally altruistic toward a

beneficiary B just in case A acts in ways that detract from its fulfill-
ment of its own current desires and that promote the perceived wishes
of B. It can also be practiced by individuals who fall into a category
intermediate between egoism and psychological altruism.8
3. Psychological Altruism: Psychological altruism refers to an ability
to identify and respond to the needs and wishes of other group.
Psychological altruism should be thought of in terms of the rela-
tion among psychological states in situations that vary according
to the perception of another’s need or desire. Although an altruistic
response can consist in modification of emotions or intentions,
it may be easiest to introduce the concept in reference to desire.9
Furthermore, Psychological altruism can either be paternalistic or
non-paternalistic.10
But the fact that our remote ancestors were equipped with dispositions
to psychological altruism doesn’t mean that their living together was
smooth and peaceful. Kitcher observes that altruism failed as they transit
from living in small groups or communities to larger ones. Expressing
the limitation of psychological altruism, he says:
Because the problems afflicting these small ancestral societies

stemmed from the limitations of psychological altruism, the earliest
rules sought remedies for altruism failures, situations in which one
group member failed to adjust wishes, emotions and intentions to
the clearly perceivable attitudes of others.11
This condition creates the need for them to introduce socially embedded
normative guidance. In other words, the failure of altruism led our
ancestors to a normative venture, which gave birth to the various ethical
precepts we adhere to: for instance, the conception of good. The first
ethical ventures were directed towards maintaining the equality of all
band members, and securing adequate shares of basic resources for all.
As human possibilities proliferate, however, inequalities are inevitably
introduced: the emphasis shifts from responding to the wishes of all to
enabling the truly talented to flourish. So, the solution to altruism failure
was ideal conversation the discussion of which shall follow shortly (in
the next section).
Kitcher’s genealogy has faced a number of criticisms. It has been asked,
for instance, whether and how Kitcher can manage to derive substan-
tive conclusions about what our own approach to ethics should be from
any such genealogy.12 Other questions raised include: How can Kitcher’s
distinctive meta-ethical apparatus permit such normative recommenda-
tions to emerge from any naturalistic account of how we came to have
ethical project in the first place? Does he really believe he has gotten an
“ought” from an “is”?13 Furthermore, Matthew Braddock and Alexander
Rosenberg have argued that the genealogy of morals starts well before the
advent of altruism failures and the need to remedy them. The challenge
the likelihood of long-term moral progress of the sort Kitcher requires
to establish is that it circumvents Hume’s challenge to avoid trying to
derive normative conclusions from positive ones –“ought” from “is.”14
I shall return to these issues in due time. But, at this point, I will like
to turn our attention to what Kitcher believes remedies the failure of
psychological altruism, human conversation.
Human conversation as the only ethical authority
Kitcher believes that the ideas of great figures in the history of philosophy,
as contribution to ethics, cannot be taken as authoritative discoveries.
He believes that ethical commands, principles of right and wrong evolve
over years. He feels that an account of ethics should not only tell us what
we are doing when we govern our lives by prescriptions and proscrip-
tions, but also help us make progress with our ethical commitments. He
considers traditional theories of ethics to be inadequate because they
cannot improve our ethical ideas and ideals. This inadequacy is because
they either ground ethics in the will of a deity (Divine Command
Theory), locate goodness in maximal happiness (Utilitarianism), view
ethics as the expression of moral sentiments (Hume’s Ethics), or view
ethics as appeal to procedures of practical reason (Kant’s Ethics). Kitcher
believes that we might begin to understand ethics by considering how
human beings came to have the complex contemporary practices of
appraising actions and people for it wasn’t always so. He treats ethics as
a part of human evolution by exploring how ethical life began, how it
grew and how it changed, in hopes that such investigation will inspire
better hypothesis about the nature and grounds of ethical judgment.
The Ethical method proposed by Kitcher is that deployed by our ances-
tors about 5,000 years ago after the failure of altruism – an ideal conver-
sation, that in which all human beings are included. He opines that the
ideal of the good is grounded in an examination of the ethical project in
its original form. In considering the ethical method, he posits that his
normative stance seeks to emulate the early stages of the ethical project.
In other words, it envisages an ideal conversation as one in which all
group members – that is, all human beings, including those who will
come after us – are included. He says that any actual conversation or
ideal ethical deliberation can be carried out by groups of people with
dissimilar ways of living, backgrounds and traditions. Those delibera-
tions will go well if they accord with the standards of ideal conversation.
What then are those standards?
Kitcher gave the cognitive conditions for any ideal ethical delibera-
tion or conversation. He says that a conversation is defective when it
embodies mistaken ideas about the contents of the natural world – when
it supposes, for example, that there is a transcendent being prescribing
and proscribing what we should do. At times, conversation goes awry
when people operate in error about the consequences of actions, when
they misrepresent the preferences of others, and when they do not see
how those preferences would be altered through discussions that made
the wants of each apparent to all.
According to Kitcher, apart from the mandate that ideal delibera-
tors adjust their own attitudes to the aspirations of their fellows, the
following steps must be considered in any ideal ethical deliberation:
a. Filtering Desires: by eliminating those that conflict with agreed-upon

elements in our ethical practice
b. Primitive Mirroring: one will see the other person as having specific
wants, and modify one’s own preferences to give some priority to the
satisfaction of the other person.
c. Extended Mirroring: approaches residual conflicts among preferences
through taking into account an indefinitely complex sequence of
reactions on the part of others. In other words, finding that one’s
wants are in tension with those of some third party, one consider the
reactions of many other people to one’s wants, assessments of those
reactions, assessments of the assessments, and so on.
Kitcher says that one needs a scheme of balancing in order to engage in

extended mirroring, such that if ideal deliberators cannot reach consensus,
their last duty will be to make their schemes of balancing explicit and to
discuss them. He also observes that most ethicist believe that discussions
of outstanding ethical questions are unlikely ever to reach consensus,
or even to find the weaker agreement that some potential answer, while
not optimal, is acceptable.15 Thus, he insists that any account of ethical
method ought to allow for the possibility that consensus may not be
reached, and even that the discussants may divide into groups, each of
which finds unacceptable the favored answers of the others.
Kitcher opines that part of his proposal for method in ethics allows for
practices of trial, further “experiment of living,” willingly undertaken
by groups who are inclined to a particular answer of an unresolved issue
and who wish to organize their social relations on its basis. Their envis-
aged experiment should be assessed, for not all such explorations are
permissible, but even those who disagree with them may recognize its
legitimacy.
To show his commitment to this position, Kitcher argues, in Science in a
Democratic Society, that ethics was invented through reactions humanity
has made towards various predicaments, and that his social technology
was “forged in discussion, in which all adult voices were heard, and
their goal was to find something with which all could be satisfied.”16 In
such a discussion, there are no ethical experts, only the authority of the
conversation. It is not a sort of an authoritative conversation, but an ideal
conversation, a discussion in which the participants come as equals, and
in which the goal is to satisfy all. So, for Kitcher, our ethical discussions
are adequate to the extent they reach the conclusions that would have
resulted from an ideal deliberation under conditions of mutual engage-
ment, and disclose those features of the ideal deliberation that would
move participants to adopt that conclusion.17
Kitcher opines that there was an original condition of conversation.
A conversation is not original if there is an exclusion of some people in
the conversation or appeal is made to ethical authority.18 For instance,
Woolman modestly recognized his contemporaries’ denial that failing
to respond to the desires of slaves constituted altruism failure. In the
manner of the ethical pioneers, Woolman began a conversation. Given
the unfolding of the ethical project over tens of thousands of years, and
the hierarchies and doctrines introduced in that unfolding, the original
conditions of conversations were distorted.
How then did they ensure the conformity of members of their society
to those norms that emerged from those ideal conversations? According
to Kitcher, the emergence of normative guidance proceeded stepwise,
and the implementation of punishment by early hominid groups consti-
tuted key step in its development.19 Punishment for rule-breaking was
eventually internalized, leading to full, self-directed normative guid-
ance, and in this way widespread normative guidance gained a foot-
hold in hominid society. Kitcher’s conclusion is that ethical inquiry is a
matter for joint deliberation: that there are no experts and any substan-
tive proposals, even about the agenda for discussion, must be tentative.
Philosophy’s role is that of a midwife to the broad discussions central to
ethical inquiry and practice.20
Kitcher’s ethical project can however not be understood without

paying attention to his pragmatic naturalism.
Kitcher’s pragmatic naturalism
Kitcher explains that pragmatic naturalism has affinities with both

“pragmatism” and “naturalism.” He believes that it is different from
many other ethical positions on the ground that it is not encapsulated
from scientific endeavors. He opines that the results from sociological
and anthropological studies of societies must be put to consideration in
ethics, while resisting any form of religious dogmatism:
Pragmatic naturalism engages with the religious entanglement of

ethics more extensively than is usual in secular philosophical discus-
sion – for the pragmatist reason that the entanglement pervades
almost all versions of ethical life. Yet, in accordance with its naturalist
scruples, it cannot maintain the image favored by those who would
ground ethics in the divine will.21
Kitcher’s Pragmatic naturalism proposes that some ethical state-

ments – typically, vague generalizations, commending honesty and
disavowing violence, for example – are true. They owe their truth to
the role they play in ethical progress: “truth happens to an idea.”22 His
theory denies ethical expertise. The role philosophy plays in ethics
can be one only of midwifery: to suggest a direction for renewed
conversation and some rules for mutual exchange.23 Pragmatic natu-
ralism, he opines, differs from previous attempts to link ethics to our
evolutionary past. It aims to understand the character of the ethical
project by exposing major features of its evolution. For Kitcher there-
fore, it is a difficult task to probe the deeper past because clues are
fragmentary.24
Pragmatic naturalism claims that the original function of ethics is to
promote social harmony through the remedying of altruism failures. It
views human beings as always having been committed to ethical claims:
they have governed their lives together according to agreed-upon rules
and have believed the descriptive counterparts of those rules (when they
have accepted an injunction to do some deed, they have also believed
the deed to be right, or good, or virtuous). On occasion, modifications of
ethical practice have been effected through inferences, but the clearest
cases from history reveal the premises as partly normative and partly
factual. Wollstonecraft’s premises are (1) women ought to be capable of
wifely and maternal behavior (in line with the prevalent ethical code),
and (2) educated women are more likely to have these capacities. She
infers that women ought to be educated.25
Pragmatic naturalism understands notions of ethical truth and justi-
fication in terms of the fundamental notion of progress, conceived
as functional fulfillment and refinement. Introducing ethical novel-
ties, whether at the beginning of ethical practice or in subsequent
modification, is justified when those who make the change do so by
following processes likely to lead to better functional fulfillment.26 It
offers a simple explanation of why people are inclined to follow moral
authority:
Each of us is born into a society that inculcates a body of lore, and,

because each of us has a capacity for normative guidance, more or
less cleverly stimulated by processes of ethical education, we find
ourselves, as children and as adults, feeling a tug to align our will in a
particular direction.…A sense of what is required of us (“the internal
sanction of duty”) stems from a cluster of capacities and dispositions
with which we have been equipped (“Conscience,” or a “mass of
feeling which must be broken through in order to do what violates
our standard of right”).Perhaps parts of this subjective basis derive
from some innate feeling, while others are implanted.27
Kitcher argues that Pragmatic Naturalism can answer any questions that
other rival ethical theory couldn’t.28 For instance, where Kantians and
Contractarians see failures of ideal rationality, pragmatic naturalism
diagnoses an inability to appreciate how central the ethical project is
to human life.29 It also addresses Thrasymachus and Nietzsche’s loop-
holes.30 It takes a similarly anti-foundationalist approach to ethics,
denying any serious human alternative to the ethical project.31 While it
gives no room for skepticism, it allows for pluralism.32
Kitcher is confident that pragmatic naturalism is workable because
humans have common needs. In his words:
Under conditions of mutual engagement, deliberators attempt to

respond to one another’s desires….They recognize that we all have
common basic needs, and that, as things stand, these are satisfied for
some people but by no means for all. They know, too, that the more
fortunate people have a richer set of aspirations, that from their own
perspectives, some desires are much more crucial than others, and
that the relative centrality of these desires is the result of a conception
of what matters in their lives.…From this, they conclude that the

appropriate focus of mutual engagement would be the satisfaction
of people’s central desires, and thus the promotion of worthwhile
lives.33
Pragmatic naturalism treats the contemporary world as a scaled-up

version of the initial stage in our ethical life, one in which our inherited
social technology is inadequate to the expanded field on which conflict
has emerged.34 It emphasizes equality,35 and its normative stance
consists in an egalitarian conception of the good, focusing on equal
opportunity for a worthwhile life, and a method for ethical discussion
in terms of mutual engagement within a comprehensive population.36
The conception of the good as equal opportunity for a worthwhile life
would be accepted by a discussion under conditions of mutual engage-
ment.37 Pragmatic naturalism advocates disentangling our ethical prac-
tices from myths about super-natural beings. As Kitcher argues, neither
religion nor philosophy can pronounce with authority: “Ethics,” he
says, “is something people work out together, and, in the end, the only
authority is that of their conversation.”38 It should be noted that one
of the major implication of Kitcher’s pragmatic naturalism is ethical
pluralism (or what can also be called “the incommensurability of ethical
practices”). Ethical pluralism is implied from his claim that different
groups might have cultivated different emotions, founding their ethical
practices in distinctive ways, such that human conscience is built or
formed in several ways since it is the internalization of the capacity for
following orders. By this very idea, Kitcher gave room to the possibility
of ethical pluralism. His opinion that there may be statements such
that neither they nor their negations meet the conditions required for
ethical truth. When that occurs, rival traditions whose ethical practices
have embodied the alternatives may progress indefinitely without ever
converging.
There are obviously areas in which the convergence of progressive
tradition is genuinely in doubt. This implies that between ethical tradi-
tion A and ethical tradition B, it is impossible to integrate their differing
accomplishments. The implication of Kitcher’s idea is the fact that there
will be no determinate ethical truth. In other words, the notion of truth
and falsity, for Kitcher, do not always apply in the ethical domain, for
the core of ethical truth is surrounded by a periphery of pluralism.39
The next section pays more attention to his notion of ethical truth and
ethical progress.
Kitcher’s notion of ethical truth and progress
A pertinent issue raised in Kitcher’s ethics concerns the question of

whether ethical change can be considered to be a movement from false-
hood to truth or whether ethical progress can be viewed as the accumu-
lation of ethical truth? Understanding Kitcher’s notion of ethical truth
will help address these issues. For Kitcher, Ethical truths are the descrip-
tive counterparts of prescriptions that would be stable under progressive
transitions. He believes that it would be reasonable to suppose that there
are some ethical truths. For instance, we are taught by our parents that
“it is right to tell the truth,” or that “it is wrong to initiate violence.”
Meanwhile, such vague generalizations cannot be taken to be absolute.
He believes that there are no moments of sudden insight in the history
of ethics, that there is no useful notion of truth without some explana-
tion of how truth is apprehended, and that we who come later in the
unfolding of the ethical project have no special ways of apprehending
ethical truth that were unavailable to our predecessors, out of whose
efforts what we take as ethical truth emerged. He concludes that appeals
to ethical truths, sometimes discovered in human history, should be
abandoned.
How then can be relate such perception of ethical truth with progress
in ethics? Any answer to this question will depend on what Kitcher
understand by ethical progress. For him, ethical progress cannot be seen
as the accumulation of ethical truths. Progress is an important notion for
our ethical deliberations, since, when we look into the past or confront
our own ethical ideas with those of different groups, or with rival possi-
bilities we image. He opines that what is most tenable is an account of
progress that is not based upon a prior notion of ethical truth. As seen
in technology, as an inquiry, progress with regards to the introduction
of devices that fulfill particular functions and as the refinement of their
functioning, is understood not in terms of truth but progress. A sign of
ethical progress is seen in as the ethical project unfolds.
Instances of ethical progress include when slavery is abolished, when
those attracted to members of their own sex are permitted to express their
feelings, when women are allowed a wider role or the transition from a
state in which women are treated as the property of fathers and husbands
to one in which they can make important decisions for themselves. In
the case of slavery, it was John Woolman who acted as an abolitionist
of chattel slavery by initiating the conversation for his contemporaries.
So, ethical progress is a matter of problem solving. It is not a progress
to something (a final complete ethical system), but progress from, and

the evolution of ethics is always unfinished. Yet, stable elements emerge
in different tradition. To buttress his ideas in The Ethical Project, Kitcher
posits that the fundamental notion is ethical progress not ethical truth.
In other words, he believes that the best way to approach ethical prac-
tice is from the point of view of progress rather than truth. In summary,
Kitcher conceives truth from a functional point of view, and perceives
progress as problem solving. What actually makes an action good or
wrong or the ascription of some ethical property (goodness, wrongness)
to some action or state of affairs depends on whether the action or state
would elicit a particular reactive attitude or would be endorsed by some
particular process of reflective thought.
Critical evaluation of Kitcher’s ethical project
From the foregoing, we can conclude that the ethical project consists of
a continuous series of deliberations in which people seek to make the
world better than it currently is.40 Kitcher felt that the ethical project
offered an escape from the uneasy and limited predicament of chimp-
bonobo-hominid social life. Ethics is a human project, something we
work out together, that evolves and is never finished. This project is
being passed on from generation to generation inherited, and with
this, we account for ethical progress. Ethics is a technological innova-
tion designed to solve the problem of living together peacefully in large
groups.
A number of issues have been raised in respect to Kitcher’s theory of
ethics. Michael Baurmann has contested the plausibility of Kitcher’s
analytical history of the development of human ethical practice. Though,
he agreed with Kitcher that ethical norms can be arrived at without refer-
ence to super-natural causes or philosophical revelation,41 he believes
there are alternative stories to Kitcher’s campfire tales.42 Kitcher’s stand-
point lies in his proposal of a renewal emphasis on the original function
of ethical norms.43 But, Baurmann, commenting on Kitcher’s explanatory
hypothesis about how ethical practice can occur suggests that we do not
need to speculate on developments 50,000 years ago. In this age, we can
better identify and understand the empirical conditions and mechanism
by which the ethical project can develop and be effective by dwelling on
themes from sociological and psychological theories of socialization and
norm-internalization, pedagogical theories of education and character
building, experimental studies and field research, game and decision
theory, evolutionary theory and history.44 I agree with Baurmann that
we do not need to look back too far into the past in order to know the
right thing to do in various moments of ethical decision.
Cailin O’Connor, Nathan Fulton, Elliott Wagner, and P. Kyle Standford
introduced the idea of “Cooporative effort” as a compliment to Kitcher’s
idea that the need to enhance the altruistic dispositions of its participants
was undoubtedly among the early functions of the ethical project:
Cooperative efforts that seem to have little to do with altruism also

seem likely to have played an important role in improving fitness in
ethically minded hominid groups. Such cooperative efforts may arise
when all group members simply pursue their own interests rather
than some group members sacrificing for the sake of others or even
modifying their own behaviors in response to their perceptions of the
needs and desires of other.45
Kitcher responds by saying that psychological altruism is a disposition

human beings share with other extant species, and is almost inherited
from some common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. Due to the
limitation of the range and scope of our ancestral psychological altruism,
social stability required prolonged peace-keeping. Because of the time
invested on peace-keeping, cooperative ventures were less extensive. So,
too much emphasis cannot be placed on cooperation among our ances-
tors.46 He argues further that our ancestors started with limited capaci-
ties for cooperation. They began to cooperate a bit more after solving a
few problems of altruism failure. Increased cooperation thus expanded
their emotional repertoire, and normative reflections on what they had
achieved led them to introduce more rules and stories. It was the new
rules and stories that induced further cooperation and developed the
sympathetic emotions further.
Cailin O’Connor and his friends, however, feel that there is a problem
with Kitcher’s discussion of the emergence of punishment on the
ground that it equivocates between a thin conception of punishment
that simply represents the unpleasant practical consequences of non-
compliance and a much more normatively robust conception involving
something like a justified evil delivered upon someone who deserves it
because she has violated a legitimate rule of conduct. They argue that
the difference is perhaps especially easy to see when we ask whether
the requisite non-interference of other group members in a particular
case of “punishment” is motivated only by the practical constraint of
comparative power (or advantage) or also involves such considerations
of justification, dessert, and legitimacy.47
Many scholars have also disputed Kitcher’s genealogy on many

grounds. It was said to have embodied the presumption that in coming-
to-be guided by normative considerations, hominids actually sat down
in the “cool hour” of the evening to seek agreement concerning specific
conduct, which implies that ethical conventions arose explicitly, as the
result of substantive ethical discussion, rather than implicitly as the
result of daily group interactions not specifically aimed at determining
ethical rules.48 According to C. Mantzavalous, Kitcher gave a conjectural
history; due to the temporal remoteness of the events and the limita-
tions of our evidence.49
Allen Buchanan argues that Kitcher does not succeed in achieving any
of the three aims he set out in the Ethical Project and that he cannot do
so given the meagre resources of his explanatory model which needs to
be enriched to include a more robust account of how humans came to
have the capacity to reflect on revised norms. Kim Sterelny observes also
that Kitcher derives an account of moral progress and even moral truth
from his view of the role of the ethical project as a social technology.
He presents an anti-history to Kitcher’s history and argues that most
of what is good about human social life depends on the expansion of
our social emotions, not on our capacities to articulate and internalize
explicit norms.50
Kitcher’s theory of the evolution of morality differs from those of his
predecessors such as John Mackie,51 Peter Singer,52 Brian Skyrm,53 and
Robert Nozick,54 just as his genealogy of ethics differs from accounts
given by by Frans de Waal and Richard Joyce.As Kitcher observes, in
defending moral naturalism: it is necessary to be able to tell at least one
step-by-step story about how the moral norms that govern our behavior
to some extent in modern societies might have evolved along with the
societies themselves. But many such stories are possible, and ancestral
social contracts leave no fossils to settle disputes over whose story is
more plausible.
Zed Adams, commenting of Kitcher’s view of ethics as a social tech-
nology, observes that Kitcher’s genealogy is truth-independent because
it explains the origin and subsequent development of ethics in terms of
fulfilling a social function, rather than in terms of discovering truths.55
He recognize two novelty of Kitcher’s genealogy on the ground that it: a.
shows how giving a truth-independent explanation for the origin of our
ethical sense need not debunk ethics, and b. shows how the historical
origins of ethics might inform our current practices, while avoiding the
naturalistic fallacy altogether.56
Kitcher felt that the tenability of his historical or genealogy lies on

the fact the he obtained his evidence from authentic historical sources.
The first point is that it is hard to resist the thought that some changes
in ethical practice have been progressive: look at the early version of the
lextalionis, in which murderers are punished through the death of a rela-
tive corresponding to the victim. This appears to be a progressive step:
the sentence falls directly on the perpetrator.
Conclusion
Philip Kitcher, from a naturalistic point of view, has been able to show
that the emergence and durability of ethical practice is possible without
reference to a divine will or a realm of objective values. Unlike those
who postulated ethical principles as guides for us in discerning the moral
statues of various human actions to discern whether they are morally
right or wrong, his historical exploration shows that human have possibly
lived their lives over the years and certain codes of conducts or guidelines
that have emerged could be taken as foundation or basis upon which
various human actions can be examined for coherency or consistency.
We can conclude that Kitcher achieves his goal of specifying the
psychological capacities and the social conditions that were required for
the emergence of human ethical life, and then to trace paths that connect
primitive ethical practices with the ethics of the present. On his account,
ethics is the product of collective human deliberation about the problems
we face in living together, and it is not hard to appreciate how an empa-
thetic response can be the starting point for renewed conversation.
Notes
1. Philip Kitcher (2011), The Ethical Project (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2011), p. 2. see also Philip Kitcher (2012), Précis of the Ethical Project, Analyse
& Kritik 34 (1), p. 1
2. Philip Kitcher, The Ethical Project, p. 2.
3. Kitcher had gained much insight from Friedrick Hayek’s theory of Cultural
Evolution, which influenced his work.
4. This is with particular reference to Research on Stages of Human Cultural
Evolution (a. Palaeolithic, b. Late Palaeolithic, and c. Early Neolithic) carried
out by Primatologists such as Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal. Their insight
to primate social behavior informed Kitcher’s idea in the “Ethical Project.” Cf.
Philip Kitcher (2009), “Ethics and Evolution: How to Get Here from There,” in
Stephen Macedo & Josiah Ober (ed.), Primates and Philosophers: How Morality
Evolved (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 120–139.

6. Philip Kitcher, Précis of the Ethical Project, pp. 2–3.
8. Ibid., p. 19
9. Philip Kitcher, Primate and Philosophers, p. 126
10. Philip Kitcher, The Ethical Project, p. 128
11. Ibid., p. 4
12. Cailin O’Connor et al. (2012), “Deus Ex Machina: A Cautionary Tale for
Naturalists,” Analyse & Kritik 34 (1), pp. 56.
13. Cailin O’Connor et al., “Deus Ex Machina,” p. 57.
14. Matthew Braddock & Alexander Rosenberg (2012), “Reconstruction in Moral
Philosophy?” Analyse & Kritik 34 (1), pp. 63–80.
15. Philip Kitcher, Précis of the Ethical Project, p. 17
16. Philip Kitcher (2011), Science in a Democratic Society (Amherst, New York:
Prometheus Press), p. 49.
17. Philip Kitcher, Science in a Democratic Society, p. 51.
18. Philip Kitcher, Précis of the Ethical Project, p. 12.
21. Ibid., p. 4.
22. Ibid., p. 7.
23. Ibid., p. 8.
24. Ibid., p. 138.
25. Ibid., pp. 256–257.
26. Ibid., p. 262.
27. Ibid., p. 263.
28. Ibid., p. 270.
29. Ibid., p. 273.
30. Ibid., p. 275.
31. Ibid., p. 280.
32. Ibid., p. 281.
33. Ibid., pp. 362–363.
34. Ibid., p. 394.
35. Ibid., p. 396.
36. Ibid., pp. 409–410.
37. Ibid., p. 18.
38. Philip Kitcher, The Ethical Project, p. 410
39. C. Mantzavalous (2012), “The Ethical Project: A Dialogue,” Analyse & Kritik
34 (1), p. 34.
41. M. Baurmann (2012), “The Golden Age of the Campfire: Should We Take Our
Ancestors Seriously?” Analyse & Kritik 34 (1), p. 39.
42. M. Baurmann, The Golden Age of the Campfire, p. 47.
43. Ibid., p. 48.
44. Ibid., p. 50.
45. Cailin O’Connor et al., “Deus Ex Machina: A Cautionary Tale for Naturalists,”
p. 54.
46. Philip Kitcher (2012), “Afterthoughts. Reply to Commentsin,” Analyse &
Kritik 34 (1), p. 170.
47. Cailin O’Connor et al., “Deus Ex Machina: A Cautionary Tale for Naturalists,”
p. 56.
48. Ibid., p. 55.
49. C. Mantzavalous, “The Ethical Project. A Dialogue,” p. 29.
50. Kim Sterelny (2012), “Morality’s Dark Past,” Analyse & Kritik 34 (1), 95–115.
51. John Mackie (1977), Inventing Right and Wrong (London).
52. Peter Singer (1980), Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology (New York).
53. Brian Skyrm (1996), Evolution of the Social Contract (Cambridge).
54. Robert Nozick (2001), Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
55. Zed Adams (2012), “Genealogies of Ethics,” Analyse & Kritik 34 (1), p. 161.
56. Zed Adams, “Genealogies of Ethics,” p. 162.

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Index
Abizader, A., 264–267 attack on purity, 151

Adams, Z., 322 conditional hospitality, 145–150
aesthetics of existence, 121–131, 140 on the Debret Laws, 144
African notion of self fulfilment, hostility vis-a-vis hospitality, 149
65–66 hyperbolic law of hospitality, 151
agency metaphysics of presence, 151
psychological understanding, 71 possibility of the impossible, 152
as right to make promises, 76–79 pure hospitality, see unconditional
as self control, 71, 72–73 hospitality
Amor Fati, 90 unconditional hospitality, 145–150
Apel, K. O., 262 Descartes, R., 1
Apel’s discourse ethics, 262–263 diversity, 286
Aristotelian representative cosmology, divine command notion of morality,
223 241
Athenian democracy, 164
Athenian respect for freedom, 164 Einstein’s theory of relativity, 158–159
enclosed society, 173–174
behavioural altruism, 312 Enlightenment, 1–2, 3
Bentham, J., 160 epistemological (methodological)
better judgement 75, 97–98 anarchism, 207, 208
biological altruism, 311 eternal recurrence, 72, 88, 93–94
Bowne, B. P., 212 ethics
Braddock, M., 313 broader approach, 4
Bradley’s moral agent, 50–51 of good conscience, 152
brute desires, 75 narrow approach, 4
Buddhist Nirvana, 94 nature of, 244
Bujjo, B., 66 Eurocentrism, 289
existence, 58
classical utilitarianism, 160, 242 existentialist psychology, 219
common sensism, 201
contractualism, 201 feminist ethics, 179
contradiction of enlightenment, 255 Feyerabend, P. K.
conversation, 315 anything goes, 209
creative man, 90 concern for others, 203
crime of hospitality, 144 epistemology of, 205
ethics of subjectivity, 204–205
Dadaism, 206 on moral character, 202–203
death of God, 93–95, 229–231 on science, 207
Debret Laws, 144 self-confidence, 203
Delanty, G., 264, 274 Foucault, M.
Deleuze, G., 132 analytics of truth, 115
Derrida, J. on care of the self, 126
anti-normative ethics, 150 on christian sexual morality, 111
341
342 Index
Foucault, M. – Continued Hegel, G. W. F.

conscience in, 105 the Absolute Spirit, 45–46
death of the subject, 107 ethical decision, 49
definition of ethics, 127 individual freedom, 48
ethics-politics relationship, 136–137 self-manifestation, 46–47
freedom, 127 Hegelian historicism, 304
genealogy of the subject, 127 Held, V., 180
on governmentality, 117 hermeneutics of suspicion, 214
identity in, 105 Hillar, M., 260
liberty, 132 Hobbes, T.
power in, 109, 128–130, 134 amoral account of man, 12–14
radical critique of the subject, conception of liberty, 16
106–116 methodological inconsistencies in,
self knowledge in, 104–105 20
self-creation, 131, 134 social contract, 18–20
the subject in, 104 state of nature, 14–16
subjectivity/autonomy in, 116–119 hospitality, 149
subject-truth relations, 113 human agency, 77, see also agency
three axis of subjectification, 127
Frankfurt, H., 71 individual, 72
Frankfurt School, 255 Infinity of the Other, 284
Freudian psychoanalysis, 214 intuitionism, 201
Freudian unconscious, 218
Judeo-Christian ethics, 3, 229
Gilligan, C., 179 justice (humanitarian context), 167
Gorbachev’s revolution, 166
greatest burden, 90–91 Kant, I.
care and compassion in, 39–40
Habermas, J. contribution to modernist project,
critique of Kant’s ethics, 261 25–26
discourse (communicative) ethics, contribution to postmodern ethics,
260, 264–268 32–40
discourse ethics principle (D), 264 human rights principle in, 35–36
on emergence of secular morality, the objectivity principle in, 32
256, 258 postmodern challenge to the ethics
the influence of Kant on, 260–261 of, 26–32
justification for (U), 265 on right of residence, 146
on modernity, 257–258 on right of visit, 146
on the moral/ethical points of view, social justice principle in, 37–39
270 on universal hospitality, 146
morality in pre-modern Western universality principle in, 33
society, 256–257 Kantian idea of autonomy, 104, 105
objections to discourse ethics of, Kantian moral principle, 163
268–274 Kantianism, 201
post-metaphysical thinking, 258 Kierkegaard, S.
on religion, 259 critique of Hegel, 56–58
on rules of argumentation, the individual in, 58–63
265–266 influences, 55–56
universalization principle (U), 264 inwardness and subjectivity, 63–65
Index 343
Kitcher, P. Marxist communism, 162

ethical deliberation/human Mayfield, J., 161
conversation, 313–314 Mele, A., 71
genealogy/evolution of ethics in, Mill, J. S., 160
311–313 modern-postmodern debate, 1
pragmatic naturalism, 316–318 modernity, 1
on types of altruism, 311–312 monological-dialogical distinction,
view of ethical progress, 319–320 262
view of ethical truth, 319 Mphahlele, E., 287
view of ethics, 310
Kohlberg, L., 263 neo-Protagorians, 210
Kohlberg theory of moral Nietzsche, F.
development, 263 on agency, 76
attack on Christianity, 71
Lacan, J. freedom of the will in, 99–100
critique of behaviourism, 218 on honesty, 87
critique of psychoanalysis, 217–219 on promises, 76, 79
critique of utilitarianism, 225–227 self-awakening in, 74
on desire of the Other, 235–236 self control/governance in, 74
on the dynamics of the good, 224 Sovereign Individual in, 74, 80
ethics of psychoanalysis, 215 Nietzschean ethics, 304
explanation of ethics, 215–216 Nietzsche’s Doctrine, see eternal
on Freud’s super-ego, 227–228 recurrence
on Freud’s unconscious and ethics, nihilism, 93
231–236 non-restrictive pluralism, 207
on genital love/ego psychology, 219 Nussbaum, M., 71, 80–83
on the history of moral theory, 221
on imaginary other vs. absolute objective principle, 171
Other, 220, 235 occidental rationality, 272–273
on Kant’s contribution to ethics, open society, 164–173
228–219
on the Law and the Thing, 229–230 papal infallibility, 257
neo-Freudian psychoanalysis, 215 paradox of toleration, 183
on psychoanalytic Pericles, 164
neo-Aristotelianism, 223 Peters, R. S., 262
symbolic register/symbolic order, Plato’s Republic, 162, 166
217–218 Popper, K. R.
Levinas, E. Care ethics in, 179–182
and African philosophy, 282–283 critical rationalism, 190, 206
alterity in, 286 critique of Marx, 168
being of the self, 284 critique of Plato, 167–168
on the Bible, 289 epistemology of, 192–193
on difference, 288 evolutionary biology, 160
ethical metaphysics of, 291 evolutionary epistemology, 158
on Other, 284 historicism/determinism, 165, 191
otherness of the Other, 287 human rights principle in, 164–167
on racism, 286 inclusitivity/universality principle
on the self and Other, 285 in, 177
Lyotard, J-F., 2, 211, 240 individual freedom, 164
344 Index
Popper, K. R. – Continued critique of Plato, 296–297

knowledge as conjectural, 192 critique of traditional philosophy,
minimal utilitarianism, 163 297–300
The Myth of the Framework, 189 deconstruction, 301–303
negative utilitarianism, 160–163 epistemological behaviourism,
open society, 164 302–303
piecemeal social engineering, 176 ethical-antifounationalism, 303–305
positive utilitarianism, 162 Rorty’s philosophy, 306
on professional ethics, 196 Rosenberg, A., 313
social justice principle in, 167 Russell, B., 183
suffering/misery, 161
theory of falsification, 193–195 sanity, 75
Three-world theory, 170–173 Sartre, J-P., 105
on violence and toleration, 184–185 Savoir, 108
post-apartheid, 282 Scanlon, T., 202
post-colonial African reality, 283 Schopenhauer, A., 95
postmodern knowledge, 211 Self, 3–10
postmodernity (ism), 2, 210, 240 Self-creation, 89
private and public morality, 307 Sim, S., 2
psychoanalysis, 214 social basis for morality, 242
psychological altruism, 312 Socrates, 154, 163
Sovereign Good, 223
Rand, A. Stoic/Stoicism, 72, 77, 83, 92
on axiom, 243 subject
the cardinal virtues, 247–249 of antiquity, 3
Epistemology, 243 as architect of ethical system, 10
the ethics of rational selfishness, modern, 3
250–251 supernaturalism, 241
on existence and consciousness,
243, 244 Taels, J., 4
justification of morality, 241–242 totalitarianism, 162
metaphysics, 243 traditional epistemology, 210
on morality, 241 transformative principle, 173
the pursuit of happiness, 249–250 tribunal of reason, 211
on reason and choice, 245–246
on thinking and productive work, universality, 209
246 utilitarianism, 201
on value, 244–245
realism, 307 virtue ethics, 202
Rorty, R. vulnerability, 77, 83, 86
on Cartesianism, 298–299
critique of, 305–307 Watson, G., 71

The Ethics of Subjectivity

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The Ethics of Subjectivity

Introduction: Modernity, Ethics and the Subject 1

1 From Chaos to Order: The Role of the Self in Hobbes’

2 Kant’s Contribution to Moral Evolution: From

3 The Moral Agent: Bradley’s Critique of Hegel’s

4 Reflections on Kierkegaard’s Inwardness and Ethics of

5 Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual and the Ethics of

6 A Case for Foucault’s Reversal of Opinion on the

7 The Ethics and Politics of Self-Creation in Foucault 126

8 Jacques Derrida on the Ethics of Hospitality 144

9 Karl Popper’s Contribution to Postmodernist Ethics 157

10 Open Standard, Open Judgment and Value Revision in

11 Navigating Feyerabend’s Moral Philosophy from

12 Outlines of Jacques Lacan’s Ethics of Subjectivity 214

13 Ayn Rand’s Ethics of Rational Selfishness 240

15 Levinas Meets the Postcolonial: Rethinking the

16 Rorty’s Contribution to Postmodern Ethics 296

17 Human Conversation and the Evolution of Ethics in

Selected Bibliography 326

Sometime in May 2013, I had become very eager to develop what I

Two chapters in this volume are revised versions of papers published

Sharli Anne Paphitis’ article titled “Nietzsche’s Sovereign Individual

I am grateful to the editors/publishers of the journals for granting

Blessing O. Agidigbi is Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy,

Farinola Augustine Akintunde is a doctoral research student in the

Anthony O. Echekwube is Professor of Philosophy at Ambrose Alli

AB (Benda) Hofmeyr is currently affiliated to the Department of

Precious O. Ighoroje is a doctoral research student in Philosophy at the

Peter A. Ikhane is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the

Elvis Imafidon is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Ambrose

Gerasimos Kakoliris studied philosophy at Essex University and

Francis Offor is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Acting Head,

Joseph Osei is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Fayetteville State

and Popper. Some of his recent publications include Eugenics: A Critical

Bob Robinson received his doctoral degree in Philosophy from Purdue

Gregory B. Sadler is an educator, speaker, philosophical counselor,

Amaechi Udefi is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy,

Isaac E. Ukpokolo is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ibadan,

It is perhaps fitting to begin this volume by saying a few things, a few

provides the central characteristics of modernity such as the enthrone-

The Enlightenment is… considered the beginning of modernity, the

One of the best ways to describing postmodernism as a philosoph-

Understood in this sense, this volume consists of essays on philoso-

… man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity

another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in

Or as Horkheimer and Adorno describe it, “Enlightenment, under-

In such an understanding, ethical issues take point of departure

to appeal. Precisely because of its bondedness to concrete situations

In both approaches, however, what becomes apparent in the ethics of

to ignore concrete situations and act, as a matter of duty, only in ways

Benda Hofmeyr examines in Chapter 7 aspects of Foucault’s later works

strives to maintain a balance between self-confidence and a concern for

Hofmeyr pays attention to Levinas’ ethical metaphysics, his notion of

In this essay, an attempt is made to extrapolate from Hobbes’ political

Hobbes’ amoral conception of man

We describe Hobbes’ account of man as “amoral” because it lacks any

For as in the middle of the sea, though a man perceive no sound

For Hobbes, the different interpretations people give to different things

Whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire; that is it

If the above opinion is anything to go by, it therefore follows that

The pre-moral “state of nature”

Hobbes’ pre-political state of nature is devoid of all the restraints of

There is no place for industry because the fruits thereof is uncertain;

Liberty here is defined by Hobbes as the absence of external impedi-