Authority and Obligation

Anarchism and Associative Obligations: In Defence of Voluntariness

by Luke Roelofs

This is an attempt to resolve a tension between two ethical positions I'd like to hold - that we have no special... more This is an attempt to resolve a tension between two ethical positions I'd like to hold - that we have no special obligations we haven't voluntarily assumed (in particular, none to states), and that we have special obligations to friends and family. The paper tries to reconcile those views by arguing that our relations to friends and family involve a constant process of voluntarily assuming obligations, though this is usually tacit, and the obligations are of very unspecific content.

'We the People' and the Right to Rule: Democratic Authority and the Obligation to Obey the Law

by Kurt Gerry

‘Lyotard and Levinas: The Logic of Obligation’

by Darren Ambrose

Published in JAC (Special Issue on Levinas and Rhetoric), Winter 2009, ed. M. Bernard-Donals

Jean-Francois Lyotard’s inquiry into the logic of obligation, culminating in his discussion of ethical phrases in “Le... more Jean-Francois Lyotard’s inquiry into the logic of obligation, culminating in his discussion of ethical phrases in “Le Differend”, is deeply indebted to Emmanuel Levinas’s reading of that logic and his articulation of a radically new modality of ethics. Both thinkers deploy a strategy of argumentation and a rhetoric of phrases whose performative contradictions are deliberate and affirmed. Levinas is one of the major figures in the twentieth century European philosophical tradition to have produced a substantive reconfiguration of ethics based upon the idea of an asymmetrical human relation rather than upon mutual obligation. The resulting ethics, outlined in texts such as “Totality and Infinity” and “Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence”, is one of hyperbolic responsibility beyond norms and duty and outside formal rules and pragmatics. In this paper I will analyse Lyotard’s arguments concerning the logic of absolute obligation – the ‘phrases of pure prescription’ - through a detailed reading of his relatively unknown essay on Levinas entitled “Levinas’s Logic”. Lyotard’s short commentary demonstrates considerable interpretative insight and originality in its attempt to identify the different levels of language and meta-language operative, but often unstated, in Levinas’s texts. However, as Lyotard himself recognises, such analysis risks doing considerable violence to Levinas by betraying the ethical signification of his thematization. His careful analysis of Levinas’s rhetorical strategy of deliberate logical contradiction represents a sophisticated response to Jacques Derrida’s early influential commentary ‘Violence and Metaphysics’.  Derrida’s commentary is marked by its critical claims regarding Levinas’s efforts to articulate a philosophical ethics in a purified rhetoric beyond the speculative reach of the Hegelian dialectic. As I demonstrate in this paper, central to Lyotard’s own interpretative efforts is an urgent recovery of Levinas’s ethics from such an allegedly reductive reading.

'Practical Necessity', Chapter 1

by Matthew O'Brien

The first chapter of my dissertation.

'Aristotelian Ethics, Justice, and Moral Law', Chapter 2

by Matthew O'Brien

The second chapter of my dissertation.

'Introduction', Practical Necessity: A Study in Ethics, Law, and Human Action

by Matthew O'Brien

This is the introduction to my dissertation, "Practical Necessity: A Study in Ethics, Law, and Human Action," which I defended and submitted in May 2011.

Justifications for Violence

by Kevin Magill

10,000 word essay, published in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, 2nd edn, ed. Lester Kurz, Elsevier, 2008.

See also 'Sorel, Nietzsche and ethical reasoning about violence: further thoughts on "Justifications for violence" ...’ http://wlv.academia.edu/KevinMagill/Papers/515618/Sorel_Nietzsche_and_ethical_reasoning_about_violence_further_thoughts_on_Justifications_for_violence_K._Magill_in_L._Kurtz_ed._The_Encyclopedia_of_Violence_Peace_and_Conflict_Academic_Press_2008_2nd_Edition_

Examines various arguments about whether and under what circumstances political violence can be justified and how they... more Examines various arguments about whether and under what circumstances political violence can be justified and how they can be employed in thinking ethically about violence. It begins by looking at arguments about the justifiability of violence that draw on major ethical theories such as deontology, utilitarianism and consequentialism. It then discusses more specific considerations and arguments concerning obligations to obey the law, the relationship between violence and reason, and between violence and democracy, and whether our duties and obligations regarding the use of violence are universal in scope or are limited by national, religious, community and class affiliation. Finally, it makes some novel suggestions about the overall purpose and conduct of discussions about the justifiability of violence in political theory and philosophy.