Wonder and Generosity: Their Role in Ethics and Politics

Chapter 4: The Relation between Ethics and Politics

85 4 The Relation between Ethics and Politics Politics says,“Be ye wise as serpents”; morals adds (as a limiting condition) “and guileless as doves.” —immanuel Kant,“toward Perpetual Peace” it is necessary to deduce a politics and a law from ethics. —Jacques derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas in the center of moral considerations of human conduct stands the self; in the center of political considerations of conduct stands the world. —Hannah arendt, Responsibility and Judgment in the previous chapters, we saw that many important issues straddle the divide between ethics and politics and that many ethical matters can be resolved depending on political circumstances. Furthermore, our ability to feel wonder, generosity, and love is co-implicated with political circumstances . For these reasons, it is essential to consider the question of how we should conceive the proper relation between ethics and politics. one wellknown and important position is that of immanuel Kant, who argues that ethics and politics do not come into conflict because ethics places limits on what can be done in politics,or indeed that politics is a part of ethics.i focus on his work as it represents a kind of ethical limit-point for taking ethics in politics seriously. However, it is often contended, both by philosophers and in everyday life, that politics raises particular problems independent of ethical considerations. in this chapter, i introduce the work of Jacques derrida and Hannah arendt as they challenge Kant’s views and center on significant contemporary and recent political questions. is the answer, as 86 Wonder and Generosity derrida argues, that we must negotiate between ethics and politics? there are a number of significant differences between derrida and Kant on this question that help me to clarify and develop my argument concerning the role of the passions of wonder and generosity in ethics and politics. For Kant,ethics is based on the possible,and for derrida ethics is necessarily guided by the impossible. derrida goes beyond Kant in seeing ethical virtues as being part of politics, a view that is central to how i see the relation between ethics and politics working.against a prevalent interpretation of both Kant and derrida, i contend that we should not understand ethical and political decisions in aesthetic terms. in examining derrida’s answer to this question of ethics and politics, i take arendt’s point that we must be wary of the danger of moralism in politics seriously. nevertheless, i argue that in order to expand the realm of ethics into politics, politics should create the best conditions for ethical relations to ourselves and to others, in addition to the constraints or limits that ethics should place on politics. While we should acknowledge the special circumstances of politics, politics should be ethical in more than one sense.an understanding of this fundamental relation between ethics and politics will enable a clearer conception of wonder and generosity in relation to hospitality, forgiveness, and apology in later chapters. Kant on Ethical Politics: A Proper Politics i begin with Kant’s discussion of the relation between ethics and politics because he states what is at stake in their relation very clearly. derrida’s moves beyond Kant will then stand in sharp relief, and i can develop my own argument,which borrows insights from both.on Kant’s account,morals has two divisions: right, those duties that can be enforced, and virtue, those duties that cannot be enforced. His most extensive discussion of the relation between ethics and politics occurs in “toward Perpetual Peace,” which i also discuss in the following chapter. in this essay Kant argues that ethics should be taken much more seriously in political decisions; in fact, it should be the overriding consideration, rather than what he calls “expedience .”as he writes,“[a]ll politics must bend its knee before right” (1996a, 8: 380). Kant claims that only the enforceable aspect of ethics, or right, is relevant to politics.But what does it mean for politics to bend its knee here? in an appendix to “toward Perpetual Peace,” Kant examines this question . the first section is entitled “on the disagreement between morals the relation between ethics and Politics 87 and politics in relation to perpetual peace.” Here, he considers the common view that in politics circumstances sometimes dictate that we must act against morals or right.i should note that Kant thinks of morals as comprising both right or law...