Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 18:28:14 +0000 From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com> Subject: Re: libidinal ethics Interesting - i'll reply tomorrow.... i steve Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote: >steve, > >I will freely grant you that Kant in the conventional sense is what >Badiou is attacking, but what I am proposing is reading Kant in >the unconventional sense. > >My argument is that if Kant is re-interpreted in this way, then there >are some strong similarities with Badiou. > >What I want to open up for discussion here is a psychoanalytical reading >of ethics. You have alluded to this yourself, but so far you haven't >gone into this in any great detail. > >In the "Ethics of the Real" Alenka Zupancic points out that Kant's >categorical imperative cannot simply be reduced to the superego. >Instead, what is significant about Kant's radical break with traditional >ethics is that Kant sees ethics as the demand for the impossible. The >question of the possibility of fulfilling one's duty is irrelevant from >a Kantian perspective. This links the categorical imperative to the >structure of desire. Both act in ways that ignore the reality principle. > >The second breakthrough is that Kant rejects an ethics based upon the >distribution of goods, an ethics that is based on what is good for >others. From Aristotle to Bentham, the stance of ethics to desire had >always been to make desires wait, to invoke ethics as a kind of delaying >tactic; a bridle upon the wild horses. > >Kant introduces the dimension of desire into ethics and brings it to its >pure state. As Zupancic puts it, "In relation to the smooth course of >events, life as governed by the reality principle, ethics always >apprears as something excessive, as a disturbing interruption." > >This is in line with what the translator of Badiou's Ethics, Peter >Hallward, states as well in the introduction. "Since 'normal' conscious >life (your psychological status quo) is structured around the repression >of this Real, access to it must be achieved by the essential encounter >(i.e. what Badiou will call an event, a happening which escapes all >structuring 'normality'.) Ethics is what helps the subject to endure >this encounter, and its consquences." > >This links Badiou's ethical project to Kant's because "like Badiou, Kant >abstracts questions of ethics from all 'sensibility', and also like >Badiou, he posits the universal as the sole legitimate basis for >subjective action, that the familar command to 'act on a maxim that at >the same time contains in itself its own universal validity for every >rational being;. It was Kant who first evacuated the ethical command of >any substantial content, so as to ground ethical 'fidelity' in nothing >other than the subject's own prescription." > >"Kant's very procedure-the evacuation of all heteronomous interests and >motives, the suspension of all references to 'psychology' and 'utility', >all allusion to any 'special property of human nature', all calculation >required to obtain 'happiness' or 'welfare' - bears some resemblance to >Badiou's. What remains paramount for both is a specifically subjective >(and explicitly 'infinite') power." > >What I would like to discuss is this very possibility of linking >psychoanalysis with ethics in order to create a libidinal ethics in >which the categorical imperative is reconfigured as a drive, based upon >desire. (I will, therefore I can.... I can't go on, I will go on). > >Also, how does ethics in this sense link to Lyotard's reading of the >ethical in general and of Kant specifically? What is the relation of the >ontological sublime (as opposed to the merely aesthetic sublime) to >ethics in this sense? > >Is there a way to re-read Kant that does not merely construe him as the >spokesman for universal human rights and a slavish devotion to duty, >that would restore some of Kant's radical potential for reconfiguring >ethics? > >eric > >
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