Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, 2017
Does atrocity age? What I mean to ask is, does time heal wounds that were genocidal or otherwise ... more Does atrocity age? What I mean to ask is, does time heal wounds that were genocidal or otherwise broad, deep, and caused by a fatal combination of human depravity and widespread indifference? Jean Améry famously refused to let the past be past in his essay “Resentments.” He argued that even if, with regard to the Holocaust, logically speaking, what happened is in the past, there is no moral sense to that. Morality requires of us that we refuse to let the past be whenever we are faced with a past that should have been otherwise. For him, writing 20 years after he was freed from the camps, time had not healed all wounds. Atrocity was not aging gracefully.
The subject capable of liberal legality ought to be revised such that the self-sufficient autonom... more The subject capable of liberal legality ought to be revised such that the self-sufficient autonomous individual cohabits with a passive self always already burdened with responsibilities she did not choose. This essay uses the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to delineate the relationship of this new subjectivity to liberal theories of justice, and reveals a productive ambivalence with regard to justice residing within rule of law scholarship: why is it that we sometimes have to transgress the rule of law in order to do justice to what it stands for? Emerging debates about the rule of law in calls for international humanitarian intervention help us think through this question in its concrete urgency. The linkage then demonstrates that law's justice exists only as a delicate and never-concluded balancing process between the demands of ethics and those of politics — a process of balancing that is mirrored in the new account of a subject who aspires to justice and therefore makes jus...
... 3. See Allen Buchanan, Secession and Nationalism, in A Companion to Contemporary Political ... more ... 3. See Allen Buchanan, Secession and Nationalism, in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, ed. by Robert E. Goodin and ... we are all virtually homines sacri.28 In State of Exception, Agamben theorizes an indistinction between democracy and totalitarianism ...
The weight of justice hangs on the distinction between consent to obligation and responsibility f... more The weight of justice hangs on the distinction between consent to obligation and responsibility for what no one would choose. What could this mean? It is often thought that the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas gives us valuable insight into the field of ethics, but has little to offer when it comes time to make the difficult decisions imposed on us by politics and institutional legality. However, if the weight of justice does hang on the distinction between consent to obligation and responsibility for what no one would choose, then what Levinas offers us with his philosophical description of human subjectivity sets in motion a much needed correction to a tradition we might wish to preserve in some of its aspects. That tradition — of liberal rule of law legality and equal rights — assumes that the subject of law and of rights is autonomous and self-sufficient, capable of consenting to take on any duty he or she would bear. That narrative respects individuals and supports liberal ideas about justice but cannot explain to us why we might bear duties beyond our legitimate legal duties. And yet such duties are indelible in our current political landscape: Who is responsible for the refugee, the prisoner of war, the sufferer of poverty or famine, the one to whom I never consented to owe a thing? If we want to answer those questions with any lasting success, we need to amend the theoretical pre-history of liberal individualism, starting with the narrative of subjectivity we inherit from that tradition. This chapter will set forth Levinas’ revision of subjectivity, show its affinity with the tension between formalism and responsiveness we find in rule of law theory and practice, and gesture toward a new way to conceive of a liberatory form of individualism, all for the sake of justice.
Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, 2017
Does atrocity age? What I mean to ask is, does time heal wounds that were genocidal or otherwise ... more Does atrocity age? What I mean to ask is, does time heal wounds that were genocidal or otherwise broad, deep, and caused by a fatal combination of human depravity and widespread indifference? Jean Améry famously refused to let the past be past in his essay “Resentments.” He argued that even if, with regard to the Holocaust, logically speaking, what happened is in the past, there is no moral sense to that. Morality requires of us that we refuse to let the past be whenever we are faced with a past that should have been otherwise. For him, writing 20 years after he was freed from the camps, time had not healed all wounds. Atrocity was not aging gracefully.
The subject capable of liberal legality ought to be revised such that the self-sufficient autonom... more The subject capable of liberal legality ought to be revised such that the self-sufficient autonomous individual cohabits with a passive self always already burdened with responsibilities she did not choose. This essay uses the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to delineate the relationship of this new subjectivity to liberal theories of justice, and reveals a productive ambivalence with regard to justice residing within rule of law scholarship: why is it that we sometimes have to transgress the rule of law in order to do justice to what it stands for? Emerging debates about the rule of law in calls for international humanitarian intervention help us think through this question in its concrete urgency. The linkage then demonstrates that law's justice exists only as a delicate and never-concluded balancing process between the demands of ethics and those of politics — a process of balancing that is mirrored in the new account of a subject who aspires to justice and therefore makes jus...
... 3. See Allen Buchanan, Secession and Nationalism, in A Companion to Contemporary Political ... more ... 3. See Allen Buchanan, Secession and Nationalism, in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, ed. by Robert E. Goodin and ... we are all virtually homines sacri.28 In State of Exception, Agamben theorizes an indistinction between democracy and totalitarianism ...
The weight of justice hangs on the distinction between consent to obligation and responsibility f... more The weight of justice hangs on the distinction between consent to obligation and responsibility for what no one would choose. What could this mean? It is often thought that the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas gives us valuable insight into the field of ethics, but has little to offer when it comes time to make the difficult decisions imposed on us by politics and institutional legality. However, if the weight of justice does hang on the distinction between consent to obligation and responsibility for what no one would choose, then what Levinas offers us with his philosophical description of human subjectivity sets in motion a much needed correction to a tradition we might wish to preserve in some of its aspects. That tradition — of liberal rule of law legality and equal rights — assumes that the subject of law and of rights is autonomous and self-sufficient, capable of consenting to take on any duty he or she would bear. That narrative respects individuals and supports liberal ideas about justice but cannot explain to us why we might bear duties beyond our legitimate legal duties. And yet such duties are indelible in our current political landscape: Who is responsible for the refugee, the prisoner of war, the sufferer of poverty or famine, the one to whom I never consented to owe a thing? If we want to answer those questions with any lasting success, we need to amend the theoretical pre-history of liberal individualism, starting with the narrative of subjectivity we inherit from that tradition. This chapter will set forth Levinas’ revision of subjectivity, show its affinity with the tension between formalism and responsiveness we find in rule of law theory and practice, and gesture toward a new way to conceive of a liberatory form of individualism, all for the sake of justice.
Violence in Philosophy and Literature VII International Online Workshop, 2021
For more than a year now we have been all globally isolated. Assuming that the seriousness of the... more For more than a year now we have been all globally isolated. Assuming that the seriousness of the crisis demands some further, more focused reflections, this workshop proposes to address the question of isolation in philosophy and literature and in connection to the notion of violence. Following our annual tradition, we will devote ample time for discussion after each talk and for one reading sessions. This workshop is the seventh event in a series of gatherings that fall under the epigraph of “Violence in Philosophy and Literature”. It has taken place previously on “Language and Violence” (Tel Aviv University), “Space and Violence” (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), “Thinking and Writing – Disruption” (ZfL Berlin), “Violence Incorporated” (University of Chicago), “Sound and Violence” (Collège International Paris), and on “Time and Violence” (Goethe University, Frankfurt).
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Papers by Jill Stauffer
This workshop is the seventh event in a series of gatherings that fall under the epigraph of “Violence in Philosophy and Literature”. It has taken place previously on “Language and Violence” (Tel Aviv University), “Space and Violence” (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw), “Thinking and Writing – Disruption” (ZfL Berlin), “Violence Incorporated” (University of Chicago), “Sound and Violence” (Collège International Paris), and on “Time and Violence” (Goethe University, Frankfurt).