Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Origins of Responsibility by François Raffoul

Review by: Roman Altshuler
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-) , January 2012, Vol. 62, No. 246 (January
2012), pp. 217-220
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association
and the University of St. Andrews

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41426886

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 BOOK REVIEWS 217

truth-evaluable asserted content. In c

asserted content can be evaluated even
recovers the asserted content by conside
faction of the presupposition are required
Unfortunately, there are obstacles to d
presupposition failure with other approa
into compositional semantic theories. A
deliver anything like a compositional se
requires further work to determine the
can be incorporated into a compositiona
cists have a variety of means of analysi
apparent presupposition failure. Usually,
dated. If A utters 'the king of France is
modate' the presupposition that there is
is something A believes. On many theor
reconstructed smoothly. Future research
NCPF have advantages over theories inv
pertains to Yablo's specific proposal to t
NCPF. This suggestion needs to be deve
since it is not obvious why the existence
sentence such as 'there are prime numbe
The book displays Yablo's ability to pr
traditional philosophical problems. T
research programs. The volume is worth
associated fields.

University of Barcelona Bryan Pickel

The Origins of Responsibility. By François Raffoul. (Indiana UP, 2010. Pp. xiv +
341 •)

The locution 'A is responsible for x' seemingly has two radically different mean-
ings. On the traditional account, we are responsible for our actions and omis-
sions, the consequences that ensue from them, and so on. Although this view of
responsibility is often understood in causal terms, many accounts that reject any
causal theory of action, such as Sartre's, are united by the view that responsibility
rests on authorship : we are responsible for what we author. Let's call this the
'accountability' view. But we sometimes also say, for example, that people are
responsible for their children, and here we mean not only that they are responsi-
ble for what their children do but also, and more commonly, that they are
responsible for their children's upbringing, that they are responsible to their chil-
dren, and thus their responsibility rests not on their own activity but on their
response to something external to their will. Let's call this sense of responsibility
'expropriability'. It is tempting to think that the relation between these two senses
of responsibility is one of homonymy. Raffoul's central claim is that this tempta-

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2i8 book reviews

tion should be resisted: not only a

but the latter takes priority over th
This is a succinct and not entirely
ject, in part because he ultimately
first attempts to show that the not
phenomenologicaP construct that
responsibility is not a matter of f
instead a response to the demands
sibility, on which the subject is h
also comes in for criticism, howev
traditional role of subjectivity in
itself. What we need is a new sen
which responsibility is ' the appropriat
Here, responsibility involves a re
event of the other, but subjectiv
rather, constituted in the response
subject with absolute authorship,
being beholden to the Other, we
and is constituted, by virtue of its
domain of its power.
Raffoul's aim, then, is to show th
side the subject's power over itself
secondary aim is to demonstrate t
persistent concern with ethics w
tasks by tracing the development
several historical figures, capped by
- Dastur and Nancy are the most
apart from its primary subjects) tho
to depend on the voluntary, and
make us responsible for a good dea
radicalises this view, making the
activity of a transcendental subje
attacks this view as a construct de
ment, opening (perhaps inadverten
based on our need to create new v
turns this directive to create new v
ing ego, only to find the account
the Other necessarily precedes any
responsibility in the response to t
by its thrownness into the world
the other. This theme is then elab
ble only for something that is no
thus inappropriable - locating resp
This book serves as a welcome add
and responsibility by laying out a

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 BOOK REVIEWS 219

presents us, moreover, with interesting re

on facticity, a critique of the common v
faith, and a valuable explication of hyp
open to an other which is greater than i
and Kant, on the other hand, add little f
mary texts. Raffoul here eschews second
mary. The chapters on Nietzsche and Sa
surprising extent on 'On Truth and L
respectively, often broaching the think
provide further explication. The chap
other hand, are far more dense, displayi
thinkers, but those uninitiated into a dis
ing will find them tough, if often enlig
chapter of the book is the one dealing wi
only chapter that features a significant am
Raffoul's overall strategy also raises so
against the accountability view largely o
a construct, which he presents without
reader to decide whether or not to end
other arguments - from Nietzsche, Lév
effect that responsibility always rests on
propriable decision. But these arguments
often presented with an unhelpful venee
that they cannot yet be made compatible
Finally, it is unclear how Raffoul's stat
the origin and a new conception of resp
the origins of responsibility, we are loo
explanandum may remain conceptually
once we have the explanans firmly in pl
planandum; indeed, Raffoul seems to be
But he gives no indication of why. Afte
out that the explanans of responsibility
propriable - it is not clear that the noti
sion, or what such a revision might inv
an ontological event of being; the Derrid
an abstract notion of event of the other.
guide to making revisions at the ontic lev
sionary guidance. Of course Raffoul may
a way of adjusting our judgments of re
event. But if he does, he gives no accou
Indeed, there is no move from the expla
simply trails off.
The most regrettable aspect of the bo
related work in analytic philosophy. (H
dominated by applied ethics and disreg

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 220 BOOK REVIEWS

makes ethical decision possible,

cially unfortunate because rec
strong alternatives to the autho
developed, can serve as a valua
thus provide an incipient, if fla

SUM Stony Brook Roman Altshuler

Emotional Truth . By Ronald de Sousa. (Oxford UP, 201 1. Pp. xviii + 391. Price
£38.00.)

This book is a collection of facts and arguments about emotion as a feature of

our thinking and planning lives. Behind it I can make out a big picture about
successful thinking, including appropriate feeling as a special case. In this review
rather than describe ¿ill the facts and arguments I shall try to discuss the big pic-
ture which, I should say clearly, de Sousa never states in the terms I am using.
So what follows puts things in a broader and cruder way than he does. As I read
de Sousa, his central aim is to explain and defend a view about the fulfilled or
authentic life, and to do so in terms of a linked set of comparisons between emo-
tions and beliefs. The working out of this aim is tangled and often bewildering,
as well as being clever and often very stimulating. The most ambitious idea,
though, is just the thought that such a project is possible, that by asking what the
analogues for emotion of truth, knowledge, and rationality are we can get some
hold on, well, the meaning of life. Very few will be converted to wholehearted
acceptance of the idea by this book, and some will dismiss it out of hand. But a
good proportion of readers should be struck by a grudging admission: there's
something important here.
The picture of authentic life that is a background to much of the action is this.
People vary in their deep emotional natures, let's say their emotional signatures,
so it depends on a person's particular signature which emotions can be made
central for her, determining the appropriateness of other states of all kind in a
Humean passion-first way. The result can be pictured as like the variegated but
thematically unified Jackson Pollock paintings de Sousa alludes to near the end of
the book. Embracing these emotions and the themes that they engage is then
what it is for that person to be true to herself. It is a kind of success that is differ-
ent from contentment or getting what you want. Of course this is a metaphorical
use of 'true', but for all that it is the sort of thing people might naturally say.
They might also say that the emotion rather than the person was true, unfaked,
authentic, for that person in the context of what else she was feeling and doing.
Now see this through a more sedate take on truth and emotion. A sudden fear
of someone can lead to a true belief that the person is dangerous. If the fear is
operating as fear should, this might be knowledge. There might be no other way
that person in those circumstances could have come to know of the danger. So
emotions can lead to true beliefs, and their proper functioning can be part of
good truth-directed thinking. An emotion can also be part of the realisation of a

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