Unbecoming Subjects: Judith Butler, Moral Philosophy, and Critical Responsibility

Index

i n d e x absolute point of reference, 198 absolutes, 203 accountability, 4, 6, 40, 48, 275n28 agency and, 137 desires and, 49 history and, 177 justice and, 171 moral conduct and, 173–74, 182 moral philosophy and, 40, 182 power and, 183 psychoanalysis on, 175 responsibility and, 16, 49, 80, 110–11, 137, 145 self-knowledge and, 23, 171 translation and, 170–83 wrongdoings and, 172 accusation, 101, 113–18 action agency and, 90 collective, 206 critique and, 207, 210 ethics of, 58, 200–201 intentional, 7, 78, 227 judgment of, 131 justification for, 4 moral, 56 against others, 131 responsibility and, 109–10 subjects and, 193 will and, 57 address desires and, 227 history and, 227 297 judgment and, 135–36 of others, 145 others and, 164 passionate attachment and, 227 power and, 199–200 responsibility and, 142, 162, 182 subject formation and, 264n29 transference and, 151 Adorno, Theodor, 59, 188–89, 214–24 on ethical action, 201 Kant and, 221 on morality, 233 on moral philosophy, 214 on norms, 196–97 agency, 4, 6, 46, 72–91. See also moral agency abolition of, 86 accountability and, 137 action and, 90 conscience and, 56 ethical, 72 institutions and, 88 intentional action and, 78 moral philosophy and, 74, 87, 108 Nietzsche on, 53 norms and, 83, 89 political, 72 power and, 89 resistance and, 86–87 responsibility and, 73–74 alienation, 85 Allen, Amy, 208–9 alterity, 7, 8. See also other/others 298 Index ambivalence, 6, 154 of desire, 152, 249 of responsibility, 117 suffering and, 100 anarchical, 101, 108 the Good and, 126 Anderson, Amanda, 208–9 Antigone’s Claim (Butler), 249 aporia, 17, 187–224 archaeology, 236, 239, 284 of passionate attachments, 46–47 of power, 242 arche, 101 Arendt, Hannah, 52 Aristotle, 272n31 asceticism, 61 assujetissement (subjectivation), 11, 29 asymmetry, 154, 161, 162, 168 attachment. See passionate attachment Austin, J. L., 79 authoritarianism, 234 autonomous individual, 10, 59, 78, 100, 225 bad conscience. See guilt beholdenness, 5–6 Benhabib-Butler debate, 17, 205–6 Bernstein, Richard, 208 birth statistics, 30 Bodies That Matter (Butler), 26, 76, 77, 80 body, 21–50 critique and, 55 Foucault and, 31 history and, 35 language and, 25–26 materiality of, 24–26, 29–30 norms and, 24, 33, 35 power and, 31 self and, 32–33 violence and, 214 vulnerability of, 197 Bound by Recognition (Markell), 246 Brown, Wendy, 231–32, 234–35 Bush administration, 73 Butler, Judith, 2. See also individual writings on desires, 260n14 on dyad, 139 on ethics, 193, 247–48, 258n5 on materiality, 28 on moral conduct, 193, 218 on moral subject, 112 on norms, 80 on performativity, 79 on responsibility, 148 on self-reflection, 188 on subject formation, 32, 187 on subjection, 28 on vulnerability, 197 work of, 8 caregivers, 155 cause and effect, 121 certainty, 52 Christianity, 61, 66 civil rights movement, 73, 87 codes of conduct, 1, 25, 53, 114, 129 coercion, 31–32 knowledge and, 213 collective action, 206 commandment, 7, 140, 152, 267n13 communication, 146, 150, 151, 156, 204 compassion, 7 condemnation, 174 conditioning of morality, 189 of normativity, 228 of unknowingness, 172 confrontation, 162 conscience, 49, 56, 263n19. See also guilt agency and, 56 developmental psychology on, 60–61 the Good and, 134 history and, 53–54 moral conduct and, 64 in moral philosophy, 52 Nietzsche on, 134, 262n9 responsibility and, 70 self-consciousness and, 60 subject formation and, 70 violence and, 56 will and, 53–54 Index 299 consciousness, 101, 108 guilt and, 116 Levinas on, 97 responsibility and, 131 subjection and, 24 constitutive opacity. See opacity contestation, 235–36 Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (Butler ), 36, 44, 82 ‘‘Contingent Foundations’’ (Butler), 88, 90 Cornell, Drucilla, 205 corporeality, 197 creditor, 64–65 criteria, 202–14, 228, 238 for coercion, 250 for deliberation, 15, 78 ethical, 9 for moral conduct, 11 normative, 39, 196, 202, 209, 251 for recognition, 243 for responsibility, 192 for social criticism, 39 critique, 16–17, 89, 169 action and, 207, 210 aims of, 202–3 aporia and, 203–24 body and, 55 desires and, 55 epistemology and, 210, 216–17, 226– 27, 238 ethics and, 10, 189, 199, 225–56 ethos and, 191–203 of institutions, 190 justification and, 207 Kant and, 216–17 legitimacy and, 206 moral conduct and, 13, 143, 210 moral philosophy and, 6–7, 12, 54, 192, 214–24 by Nietzsche, 111–28 normative commitment and...