Marguerite La Caze

Integrity and the fragile self

Views of integrity: integrated-self identity clean-hands. Integrity as a virtue: should we strive for integrity? integrity and commitment emotional integrity integrity and morality integrity and moral limits the virtue of integrity. Integrity and utilitarian moral theory: Williams against the utilitarian the argument from integrity what is the problem with utilitarianism? is utilitarianism really incompatible with integrity?. Types of integrity: professional integrity political integrity what defeats political integrity? intellectual integrity artistic integrity artistic integrity and moral integrity the many roles of integrity. Striving for integrity: is the pursuit of integrity self-indulgent? too much integrity? can political and social structures undermine integrity?.

Envy and resentment

Abstract Envy and resentment are generally thought to be unpleasant and unethical emotions which ought to be condemned. I argue that both envy and resentment, in some important forms, are moral emotions connected with concern for justice, understood in terms of desert and entitlement. They enable us to recognise injustice, work as a spur to acting against it and connect us to others. Thus, we should accept these emotions as part of the ethical life.

The Asymmetry between Apology and Forgiveness

Government refusals to apologise for past wrongful practices such as slavery or the removal of indigenous children from their parents seem evidently unjust. It is surprising, then, that some ethical considerations appear to support such stances. Jacques Derridas account of forgiveness as entirely independent of apology appears to preclude the need for official apologies. I contend that governments are obligated to apologize for past injustices because they are responsible for them and that official apologies should not involve a corresponding expectation for forgiveness. My argument is that an apology and forgiveness are asymmetrical because an apology is based on respect, a perfect duty, and can be a public act, whereas forgiveness is based on love, is an imperfect duty, and is a personal undertaking. It follows from this asymmetry that an apology is a prerequisite for reconciliation, but forgiveness is discretionary. Refusals to apologize tend to impede the reconciliation process and make the possibility of forgiveness remote. The concept of reconciliation has also been criticized on the grounds that reconciliation implies a former harmony that should be restored and fault on both sides. However, I argue it should be understood as a willingness to work together without a presumption of having overcome the past.

Revaluing envy and resentment

My paper “Envy and Resentment” is part of a project to revise the evaluation of negative and unpleasant emotions as contributors to the ethical life. I focus on these two emotions because of their obvious connection with issues of social justice and the relative neglect of their moral role by comparison with indignation, for example. Much traditional moral psychology has operated with a kind of gatekeeper role in relation to emotions, dividing emotions into two categories – those which are considered to be ethically appropriate to experience and those which are not. My aim is to introduce a greater complexity into our moral assessment of emotions, by demonstrating that certain forms of envy and resentment are genuinely moral. My argument is a relatively modest one: that some forms of envy and resentment are centrally connected with a concern for justice and so should not be morally condemned but accepted. Envy and resentment enable us to discern and respond to injustices against ourselves and others. I argue that whereas envy and resentment as character traits or dispositions may be ethically deplorable, as episodic or occurrent emotions they can be both moral responses to injustice and lead to action against injustice. Stan van Hooft and Aaron Ben-Ze’ev defend different views of envy, the former arguing that envy is essentially a vicious emotion and the latter that envy is morally neutral. Both philosophers make a distinction between the intrinsic nature of emotions and the consequences of experiencing emotions. Both philosophers also focus on particular kinds of cases of envy, a focus that determines their view of its moral character. I accept that some forms of envy are not moral, and distinguish between cases of improper envy and moral envy. Envy can be an emotional response in a range of circumstances: where a person has something one considers desirable, either through luck, natural talent, or just or unjust means. Our everyday experiences of envy are often of the harmless kind, for example, where we cheerfully envy a friend who is lucky enough to gain something we believe is desirable. However, my focus in the paper is on envy as a

Should Radical Evil Be Forgiven

Is evil an absolute difference that we must respond to with horror? Or is evil an aspect of humanity that we must approach with understanding? How we answer these questions partly determines how we should answer the question of whether we should forgive evil, particularly radical evil. Radical evil, as it is used it here, can be understood as evil that is not motivated by understandable human motives. Hannah Arendt argues that one cannot forgive radical evil because such acts completely transcend the human realm. Radical evil seems to be beyond our understanding. By contrast, Jacques Derrida argues that true forgiveness has nothing to do with measuring the extent of guilt, wrongdoing, remorse, apology, or healing. True forgiveness in this view involves forgiving the unforgivable, so forgiveness must be possible even in the most extreme cases, such as those of radical evil.

Terrorism and trauma: Negotiating Derridean ‘autoimmunity’

I begin by examining the logic of autoimmunity as characterized by Jacques Derrida, ‘that strange behaviour where a living being, in quasi-suicidal fashion, ‘‘itself’’ works to destroy its own protection, to immunize itself against its own immunity’ (Borradori, 2003: 94). According to Derrida, religion, democracy, terrorism and recent responses to the trauma of terrorism can be understood in terms of this logic. Responses to terrorism are ‘autoimmune’ and increase the trauma of terrorism as well as risking democratic values. I argue that the risks of autoimmunity can be negotiated in better ways if we see how autoimmunity relates to another important Derridean concept, hospitality.I begin by examining the logic of autoimmunity as characterized by Jacques Derrida, ‘that strange behaviour where a living being, in quasi-suicidal fashion, ‘‘itself’’ works to destroy its own protection, to immunize itself against its own immunity’ (Borradori, 2003: 94). According to Derrida, religion, democracy, terrorism and recent responses to the trauma of terrorism can be understood in terms of this logic. Responses to terrorism are ‘autoimmune’ and increase the trauma of terrorism as well as risking democratic values. I argue that the risks of autoimmunity can be negotiated in better ways if we see how autoimmunity relates to another important Derridean concept, hospitality.

It’s easier to lie if you believe it yourself: Derrida, Arendt, and the modern lie

In ‘‘History of the Lie: Prolegomena’’ (2002) Jacques Derrida examines Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the modern lie in politics in her essays ‘‘Lying in Politics’’ (1972) and ‘‘Truth and Politics’’ (1968/1993). Arendt contrasts the traditional lie, where lies were told and secrets kept for the greater good or to defeat the enemy, with the modern lie, which comprises deception and self-deception on a massive scale. This article investigates the seriousness of different kinds of lies in political life in the light of Arendt and Derrida’s reflections on lying and contemporary lies in politics and shows where concern should focus.In ‘‘History of the Lie: Prolegomena’’ (2002) Jacques Derrida examines Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the modern lie in politics in her essays ‘‘Lying in Politics’’ (1972) and ‘‘Truth and Politics’’ (1968/1993). Arendt contrasts the traditional lie, where lies were told and secrets kept for the greater good or to defeat the enemy, with the modern lie, which comprises deception and self-deception on a massive scale. This article investigates the seriousness of different kinds of lies in political life in the light of Arendt and Derrida’s reflections on lying and contemporary lies in politics and shows where concern should focus.

The mute foundation of aesthetic experience

Luiz Costa Lima argues in The Limits of Voice that Kants Critique of Judgment plays a pivotal role in furthering aestheticization, or the objectification and universalization of aesthetic experience. He introduces the term ‘criticity’ to refer to the act of questioning and finds that Kant poses the alternatives of aestheticization and criticity. However, Costa Lima sees Kant and most of the following literary criticism as accepting aestheticization, with exceptions such as Schlegel and Kafka (Costa Lima 1996: xii). He states ‘The effective actualization of an aesthetic experience is then defined by the fact that it constitutes a mute universality, one that necessarily cannot be communicated’ (1996: 100). Yet Kants view is that aesthetic experience is communicable. I suggest the tension between the two can be resolved through the distinction between actual and potential communication, and argue that what is foremost for Kant is the potential to communicate aesthetic experience, not its privacy. Thus I demonstrate how Kant can be seen as a proponent of criticity and can account for our capacity to share experiences and judgments of taste. Furthermore, I contend that Hannah Arendts work on ethical and political judgment, particularly in Lectures on Kants Political Philosophy (1982), can be seen as an another example of criticity in the moral and political spheres, and show how she extends both Kants aesthetic work and Costa Limas ideas. Arendt, like Kant, shows how aesthetic experience is potentially communicable. Finally, I explain how Arendt turns Kants aesthetic judgement to criticity in ethical and political judgment through developing an intersubjective account of judgment. In that sense, aesthetic experience is able to find a way out of muteness and Costa Limas concept of criticity can find a place in other fields.Luiz Costa Lima argues in The Limits of Voice that Kants Critique of Judgment plays a pivotal role in furthering aestheticization, or the objectification and universalization of aesthetic experience. He introduces the term ‘criticity’ to refer to the act of questioning and finds that Kant poses the alternatives of aestheticization and criticity. However, Costa Lima sees Kant and most of the following literary criticism as accepting aestheticization, with exceptions such as Schlegel and Kafka (Costa Lima 1996: xii). He states ‘The effective actualization of an aesthetic experience is then defined by the fact that it constitutes a mute universality, one that necessarily cannot be communicated’ (1996: 100). Yet Kants view is that aesthetic experience is communicable. I suggest the tension between the two can be resolved through the distinction between actual and potential communication, and argue that what is foremost for Kant is the potential to communicate aesthetic experience, not its privacy. Thus I de...

Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism (review)

In recent years, scholars have begun to take Simone de Beauvoir seriously as a philosopher, rather than only as a novelist and essayist, and Margaret Simons has been at the forefront of that reassessment of her work. This book collects nine essays by Simons and three interviews with Beauvoir, all published between 1979–1998. She first met Beauvoir when working on her doctoral dissertation in Paris, and a moving memorial to Beauvoir opens the book. The book provides an opportunity to grasp the full extent of Simons’s insight into Beauvoir’s philosophy and contains exciting new work on Beauvoir’s 1927 diaries. Her most controversial claim may well be that in Beauvoir can be found a women’s moral voice affirming connection. The book is suitable for both Beauvoir scholars and interested students and has a clear, readable writing style. The essays are arranged in chronological order, but certain themes can be usefully traced: the reception of Beauvoir as a philosopher; Beauvoir’s views about race, motherhood, and homosexuality; and her influence on other feminists. It seems a good idea to begin with Simons’s careful analysis of the problems with the English translation of The Second Sex. These problems have affected both particular interpretations of Beauvoir’s work and the reception of her as a thinker. (She herself was unaware for a long time of the extent of the deletions and distortions.) Simons alerts readers to the fact that The Second Sex is not just translated into English but quite massively edited. These excisions are without notations, and more than ten percent of the work is missing (Simons 1999, 61). Beauvoir’s translator, H. M. Parshley, deleted a great deal of women’s history, for example, descriptions of the lives of medieval women, which led to an omission of Beauvoir’s distinction between freedom and license. This, in Simons’s view, is “a serious distortion obscuring Beauvoir’s point that never in history have women been allowed the combination of independence and concrete opportunity that defines real freedom” (1999, 63). Simons shows us that, even more seriously, Parshley renders Beauvoir’s philosophical terminology inaccurately and misleadingly, thereby obscuring her ideas and her connections to philosophical tradition. For example, her use of