At The Intersection, Kant, Derrida, and The Relation Between Ethics and Politics

At the Intersection: Kant, Derrida, and the Relation between Ethics and Politics
Author(s): Marguerite La Caze

Source: Political Theory, Vol. 35, No. 6 (Dec., 2007), pp. 781-805
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
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between Ethics and Politics
MargueriteLa Caze
University Australia
ofQueensland,
To elucidate thetensionsin therelationbetweenethicsand politics, I construct

a dialogue betweenKant, who argues thattheycan be made compatible,and
Derrida,who claims togo beyondKant and his idea of duty.ForDerrida, ethics
makes unconditionaldemands and politics guides our responses to possible
effectsof our decisions. Derrida argues that in politics theremust be a
negotiationof the non-negotiablecall of ethical responsibility.I argue that
Derrida's unconditional ethics cannot be read in precisely Kantian terms
because his 'impossiblereals' can be destructive. Moreover, Derrida expands
thereachof ethicsbeyondKant bymaking all ethicaldemands unconditional
or perfect,yethe does not articulatea politics thatwould enable us to respond
to thesedemands.We need to takeaccount of thesedifficultiesin theorizing
how ethicsshouldconstrainpoliticsand how politicscan provide theconditions
forethics.
Keywords:Kant;Derrida;ethics; duties
politics;
Politics says, 'Be ye wise as serpents';morals adds (as a limitingcondition)

'and guileless as doves.'1
It is necessary todeduce a politics and a law fromethics.2
Recent interpretationsof Jacques Derrida's work note a close connection

with themes found in Immanuel Kant's writing.3Nevertheless, most of
these discussions have not focused on the specific question of the relation
between ethics and politics, which is central toDerrida's thought. In recent
years Derrida refers extensively toKant's ethics and political philosophy,
for example in The Politics of Friendship and On Cosmopolitanism and
Author's Note: I would like to thank the Australian Research Council for supporting my
research; audiences at the Society forEuropean Philosophy conference, Reading University; the
University of New South Wales philosophy seminar; Damian Cox; two anonymous reviewers;
and the editor of Political Theory for constructive comments on earlier versions of this essay.
781

782 Political Theory
Forgiveness and in essays on justice and law, democracy, and terrorism.4On

the one hand, Derrida is influenced by Kant's approach to ethics and poli
tics, and on the other hand, he wants to go furtherthanKant, saying, 'So I
am ultra-Kantian. I am Kantian, but I am more thanKantian.'s Derrida's
hyperbolic ethics goes beyond political considerations and yet he accepts
thatwe must act according to political concerns. In Adieu to Emmanuel
Levinas, Derrida's position is that 'it is necessary to deduce a politics and a
law from ethics.'6 Like Kant, Derrida concerns himself with questions of
ethics and politics within the state, between states, and between individuals
and states. Understanding the relationship between Kant and Derrida
through an engagement with these questions enables a more productive
conception of the intersection between ethics and politics that takes seri
ously the tensions involved.
Kant argues that ethics, or rathermorality for him, and politics do not
come into conflict because ethics places limits on what can be done in poli
tics.7Derrida argues similarly that ethics must always take precedence or
thatpolitics must be derived from ethics. However, forKant ethics ormoral
ity is based on what is possible, and forDerrida ethics is necessarily guided
by the impossible. For Derrida, ethics is comprised of unconditional
demands, and politics of the strategieswe must develop to respond to possi
ble consequences and effects of our decisions. On Kant's account, right
(those duties thatcan be enforced) along with virtue (duties that cannot be
enforced) comprise morals or ethics. While Kant believes that only those
moral constraints thatcan be imposed should be part of politics, Derrida sees
the ethical virtues as being essential to politics as well. I argue thatDerrida
goes beyond Kant, as he claims, but without explicitly acknowledging the
difficulties that arise from expanding the influence of ethics on politics in
thisway. Moreover, Derrida simultaneously gives up on the acceptance of
any principles thatcannot be overridden, as I will demonstrate by examin
ing his position on human rights. In this sense, he gives up a very important
feature of Kant's position. I construct a dialogue between Kant and Derrida
in order to demonstrate what is at stake in the disagreements between them
and to explore the potential conflicts between ethics and politics thatmust
be considered in any attempt to produce an ethical politics.
The Intersection of Ethics and Politics
To understand how ethics and politics might intersect, the firstquestion

thatneeds to be considered iswhether ethics and politics inevitably come

La Caze /Kant, Derrida, and Ethics and Politics 783
into conflict. Iwill briefly sketchKant and Derrida's overall views on their
relation and then consider inmore detail the differences between them. In
'Toward Perpetual Peace' Kant argues thatmorals, in termsof right,should
be takenmuch more seriously in political decisions; in fact, it should be the
overriding consideration. As he writes, '[A]ll politics must bend its knee
before right.'8 It should be noted that it is only the enforceable aspect of
ethics that is relevant to politics forKant.
The firststep inKant's demonstration that there is no conflict between
politics and ethics is the view thatwe are always free to act ethically. He
contends thatmorals could not have any authority ifwe could not act on
them.9Kant's furtherargument is that there is
no conflictof politics, as doctrineof rightput intopractice,withmorals, as

theoreticaldoctrineof right(hence no conflictof practicewith theory);for if
therewere, one would have tounderstandby the lattera general doctrineof
prudence, thatis, a theoryofmaxims forchoosing themost suitablemeans
toone's purposes aimed at advantage, thatis, todeny thatthereis a [doctrine
oflmorals at all.'0
Given thatKant sees politics as the application of morality (that aspect of

morality described in the doctrine of right), it follows that any conflict in
the application would undermine the idealism of morality and make itego
istic or self-interested." Thus, complaints of conflict between politics and
ethics are simply complaints of inconvenience. This iswhat Kant means by
his claim that a moral politician, who makes political prudence conform to
morals, is possible, but a political moralist, who makes morals conform to
thepolitical interestsof a statesperson, is not.'2Any attempt tomake morals
conform to political interests,he argues, undermines the concept of right
altogether and replaces itwith force, so that it is no longermorals at all. He
says there is only a conflict between morality and politics subjectively in
people's self-interested inclinations,'3 and he observes that the real danger
to acting morally is self-deception thatconvinces us we are justified in fol
lowing our own interests rather than duty.Kant is of the view that follow
ing our own interests is an unreliable business as it is difficult to calculate
whether our actions will have the right results, but in acting according to
morals we have a dependable guide.
While Derrida also believes thatpolitics should be deduced from ethics,
he is not as sanguine as Kant concerning the possibilities of conflict
between them.This is due to the strong contrast-indeed, contradiction
he findsbetween unconditional ethical concepts and theirconditional pairs.
Derrida's account of unconditionality emerges from the deconstruction of

784 PoliticalTheory
particular ethical concepts in a series of texts.He does not provide an ethi

cal system or give an explicit or detailed answer to the question 'Why be
moral?' because he is not addressing themoral skeptic. In addition to jus
tice,which for him is undeconstructible, he deconstructs concepts such as
hospitality and forgiveness into theirpure and impure or unconditional and
conditional forms. For example, pure hospitality involves a complete open
ness and welcome of theother independent of any 'invitation,'whereas con
ditional hospitality depends on a wide range of criteria concerning identity,
length of stay, and so on."4 In relation to asylum seekers, one of the issues
Derrida is concerned with, these criteria are often determined by the state
and its laws. Conditions on hospitality may be necessary, but they are not
truehospitality. Thus Derrida finds a kind of ethical imperative in the logic
of the concepts themselves. Insofar as we aspire topure hospitality and true
forgiveness, they provide an ethical demand by highlighting the ethical
inadequacy of conditional hospitality and forgiveness.
Derrida develops his position concerning the relation between ethics and
politics most explicitly in 'Ethics and Politics Today,'15 although he returns to
this question in a number of other works, including Adieu to Emmanuel
Levinas. What he focuses on is the responsibility tounderstand these concepts:
[R]esponsibilityof course requires thatany answer be preceded inprinciple

by a slow, patient,rigorouselucidation of theconcepts thatare used in dis
cussion. . . .For each of thewords ethics andpolitics, but also forall of the
words thatone immediatelyassociates with them.16
Nevertheless, in spite of this need for seemingly endless elucidation,

Derrida says thatall ethical and political decisions are structuredby urgency,
precisely because we have to take decisions without any certainty about the
rightnessof what we do. He writes that in ethics and politics, this structureof
urgency 'is simultaneously the condition of possibility and the condition of
impossibility of all responsibility."7For Derrida, ethics and politics also have
in common that they are answering the question 'What should I do?' and
thatwe should give thoughtful and responsible answers to the question.
Nevertheless, ethics and politics appear, at least, to be very different.Derrida
characterizes these perceived differences between ethics and politics.
Because ethical responsibilityappeals to an unconditional that is ruled by

pure and universal principles already formalized,thisethical responsibility,
thisethical response can and should be immediate,in short,rathersimple, it
should make straightfor the goal all at once, straight to its end, without
gettingcaught up in an analysis of hypotheticalimperatives,incalculations,

in evaluations of interestsand powers. . . Whereas,

. on the contrary,still
according to the same appearance, political responsibility, because it takes
intoaccount a largenumberof relations,of relationsof power,of actual laws,
of possible causes and effects,of hypotheticalimperatives,requiresa timefor
analysis, requires a gamble, thatis, a calculation that is never sure and that
requires strategy.18
This rich description of the fundamental difference between ethics and pol
itics reflectsKant's distinction between the dependability of ethics and the
unreliability of mere hypothetical imperatives. Ethics is seen as occupying
a higher and more impractical realm whose unconditional principles mean
that one can respond immediately, whereas politics is seen as concerned
with day-to-day practical strategies thatneed to be carefully planned out.
However, Derrida immediately notes that these characteristics are only
apparent, and thatpolitics can be understood as more urgent than ethics. He
argues that theremust be a negotiation of the non-negotiable, so in that
sense the political is always inscribed in the ethical.'9 For example, when
hostages are taken, a refusal to negotiate is an acceptance of the risk to the
hostages on thebasis that itwill save others in the future.Similarly, a deci
sion to negotiate with the hostage takers is a decision to try to save the
hostages in thehope that itwill not be detrimental to others' lives. 'In both
cases' Derrida writes, 'the political imperative and the ethical imperative
are indissociable.'20 This example is quite convincing as both alternatives
can be understood in ethical terms.Those who refuse to negotiate believe it
is more ethical to risk these hostages' lives than to allow a practice of
hostage taking to go on. Similarly, negotiating with hostage takers does not
show thatone has abandoned ethics, unless one takes the extreme view that
simply communicating with such people is unethical. Thus political deci
sions inevitably involve ethical considerations on Derrida's account. and in
cases like this they are difficult tomake because the outcome is uncertain
and the risks great.
Derrida famously claims in 'Force of Law' that '[j]ustice in itself, if such
a thingexists, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructible.'2' He sees justice
as primarily an ethical concept and it is contrastedwith law, or right,which
is a concept that is deconstructible. InAdieu toEmmanuel Levinas, Derrida
discusses the Torah in Jerusalem as an exemplification of the problem of
ethics and politics. According to him, the problem is fundamentally one of
negotiation between the demands of ethics and the realities of politics. The
Torah is read by Levinas in 'Cities of Refuge' as justice: 'The Torah is jus
tice, a complete justice . . .because, in its expressions and contents, it is a
call for absolute vigilance.'22 Derrida says that theTorah in Jerusalem

786 PoliticalTheory
must still inscribe the promises in the earthly Jerusalem.And henceforth

command thecomparison of incomparables (thedefinitionof justice, of the
concession made, out of duty, to synchrony,co-presence, the system,and
finally,theState.) Itmust enjoin a negotiationwith thenon-negotiable so as
to findthe"better"or the least bad.23
The complete justice of ethicsmust be inscribed in concrete politics and law.

In general Derrida distinguishes between the formal injunction to
deduce politics from ethics, which is absolute and unconditional, and the
question of content thatwe have a responsibility to determine forourselves
in each particular case. In this sense we can see thatDerrida agrees with
Kant that ethical considerations always have a role in politics, but they do
not constrain politics in quite the same way. Rather than providing a limit
towhat is possible, they set up an impossible injunction that politics can
only aspire to, rather than follow. To understand thisdifference between the
two on the intersection of ethics and politics more thoroughly,we need to
see the ways in which Kant takes seriously potential conflicts between
ethics and politics.
Tensions between Ethics and Politics
Kant's understanding of politics as bending its knee before ethics may

suggest thathe has no conception of the reality of politics. Yet in some ways
his view shows more awareness of the complexities of politics than
Derrida's. Kant notes that following ethical imperatives should be com
bined with political wisdom or an understanding of how best to instituteor
work toward perpetual peace.24 This iswhat itmeans to be as wise as a ser
pent. Furthermore, Kant sees it as important to explain why there is a per
ceived conflict between ethics and politics and tomake some caveats and
exceptions to his general view.
First, adherence to political maxims must derive from the concept of the
duty of right.Within states, these rights are to freedom, equality, and inde
pendence, which are the principles upon which states should be estab
lished.25 For morals in the form of right to be applied in politics, Kant
maintains that rightsmust be able to be made public. His transcendental
formula of public right is 'All actions relating to the rights of others are
wrong if theirmaxim is incompatible with publicity.'26The key idea is that
actions that affect the rights of others are unacceptable if they need to be
kept secret. However, the reverse is not held to be true-actions that are
consistent with publicity are not necessarily right,as Kant observes, because

a very powerful state can be quite open about itsmaxims.27 The power of
such a state means it does not have to be concerned about opposition or
resistance to itsmaxims. Kant argues for this principle of public right as
follows:
For a maxim thatI cannot divulge without therebydefeatingmy own pur

pose, one thatabsolutelymust be kept secret if it is to succeed and thatI
cannotpublicly acknowledgewithoutunavoidably arousingeveryone'soppo
sition tomy project, can derive thisnecessary and universal,hence a priori
foreseeable,resistanceof everyone tome only fromthe injusticewithwhich
it threatenseveryone.28
This principle is both ethical (part of the doctrine of virtue) and juridical
(related to right), and Kant attempts to show how it is relevant to civil,
international, and cosmopolitan right. First, civil right concerns right
within a state. Kant upholds the right of human beings to respect by the
state, saying, 'The right of human beings must be held sacred, however
great a sacrifice this may cost the ruling power.'29 Nevertheless, with
regard to the rights of people against the state,Kant argues that rebellion
is shown to be wrong by the fact thatpublicly revealing a maxim of rebel
lion would make it impossible, whereas a head of state can publicly
declare theirwillingness to punish rebels.30 Iwill saymore about thispoint
furtheron. Kant's view is that systems of law are justified by their foun
dation. Once they are founded, however, they should not be overthrown. In
contrast, Derrida believes that a system of law can only be justified by
what comes after its institution.3"Second, international right is the right
of nations. This right,Kant says, must be an enduring free association
between states.32Cosmopolitan right is the right to hospitality or the right
to visit all the countries in theworld.
On Kant's account, politics can be made commensurable with morality
only within a federative union of states thatmaintains peace:
Thus theharmonyof politicswithmorals is possible onlywithin a federative

union (which is thereforegiven a priori and is necessary by principles of
right),and all political prudencehas foritsrightful
basis theestablishmentof
such a union in itsgreatestpossible extent,withoutwhich end all its sub
tilizingis unwisdom and veiled injustice.33
This point suggests, reasonably, that so long as states are at war or are not
willing to pursue peace, political practice and morality are likely to conflict.

788 PoliticalTheory
Although Kant believes that politics can be made commensurable with

morality, he concedes thatpractical circumstances or conditions can make
it difficult to bring this ideal into effect and that itmay be brought about
gradually. For instance, statesmay have towait to introduce reforms until
it can be done peacefully.34 In her book Kant's Politics, Elisabeth Ellis dis
cusses the role thatprovisional right,or right that acknowledges the diffi
cult circumstances under which we are likely to be applying morals, plays
inKant's account of politics.35 She notes thatKant recommends that even
in themidst of war, for example, we should act 'in accordance with princi
ples that always leave open the possibility of . . . entering a rightfulcon
dition.'36 In thisway, Kant provides guidance to thosemaking decisions in
less than ideal conditions.
While Kant is confident about ethics and politics 'agreeing,' there are
some complicated exceptions he mentions in the essay 'On the common
saying: thatmay be correct in theory but it is of no use in practice.'37 He
observes that sometimes unconditional or perfect and conditional or imper
fect duties might conflict. This sense of imperfection refers to the latitude
allowed in fulfilling the duty rather than a state of imperfection in societies
thatare not yet governed ideally,which provisional right is concerned with.
Kant defines a perfect duty as 'one that admits no exception in favor of
inclination' (1996a, 4:422), whereas an imperfect duty is one that is virtu
ous and worthy to fulfill but it is not culpable not to do so unless that is
made into a principle (1996a, 6: 390). I should note here that this distinc
tion between perfect and imperfect duties divides the virtues. Duties of the
virtue of respect to others are perfect,whereas duties of love are not, or, in
other words, we have discretion as towhen we should follow them.38Such
duties may conflict
if it is amatterof preventingsome catastropheto thestateby betrayingaman

who might stand in the relationshipto anotherof fatherand son. This pre
ventionof troubleto theformeris an unconditionalduty,whereas preventing
misfortune to the latteris only a conditional duty (namely, insofaras he has
notmade himself guilty of a crime against the state).One of the relatives
might reporttheother's plans to theauthoritieswith theutmost reluctance,
but he is compelled by necessity (namely,moral necessity).39
In this case, the duty to prevent catastrophe to the state clearly trumps the
duty to prevent misfortune to a relative provided the relative is acting
treacherously. However, Kant does not discuss a case where preventing
greatmisfortune to the statewould conflictwith a duty to prevent a violation

of the rights of the relative or indeed any other person. Although it is a dif
ficultpractical problem thathe does not examine in depth, he is quite clear
that such rights should never be violated and he does touch on the issue
briefly.
In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant says that 'there is a categorical
imperative, Obey the authoritywho has power over you (in whatever does
not conflict with innermorality).'40 Morals can conflict with political prac
tice if a leader demands we do something unethical, and when they do we
must obey morals. However, here and elsewhere, as I noted, Kant con
demns revolutions, a condemnation that seems counter to his own theory. It
is rarely observed thatKant had an ingenious caveat to his view on revolu
tions. In his notes concerning the 'Doctrine of Right,' he comments,
Force,which does not presuppose a judgmenthaving thevalidityof law[,] is

against the law; consequently the people cannot rebel except in the cases
which cannot at all come forwardin a civil union, e.g., theenforcementof a
religion,compulsion tounnaturalcrimes,assassination, etc.41
The implication appears to be that if such acts were generally forced upon
a people, they could not properly be in a civil union. Therefore, tyrannical
and totalitarian regimes may well not count as civil unions forKant. Then
revolution could be ethical in the sense that such a revolution would be cre
ating a civil union. Thus such examples of conflict between duties to the
state and other duties that could be brought against Kant would be
accounted forby this caveat. However, revolution for such reasons as poor
government or inequity would still be excluded as they could occur in a
civil union.
Cases where the state tried to prevent philanthropy provide other exam
ples of conflict between politics and morality, this time relevant to the doc
trineof virtue. Kant also believes thatpolitics and virtue should agree, but
notes thatphilanthropy is an imperfectduty, or in otherwords thathow it is
fulfilled is to a great extent a matter of discretion. In any case, his view is
thatpolitics easily agrees with this sense of morality 'in order to surrender
the rights of human beings to their superiors.'42What he has inmind here
is that 'politics,' or rather those in power, like to pretend thatperfect duties
of right are imperfect duties that theybestow only as benevolence and so
are very ready to claim they are moral in that sense. This distinction
between perfect and imperfect duties, a distinction rejected by Derrida, is
important to conceiving an ethical politics, I argue.

790 PoliticalTheory
Derrida's account of the relation between ethics and politics treats these
complications in a differentway fromKant, as one might expect, because
he relies on the idea of negotiation to overcome these complications. One
of the criticisms of Derrida's deconstructive ethics is that itdoes not give us
any guidance as to how tomake decisions. For example, Simon Critchley
writes, 'I would claim, with Laclau, that an adequate account of the deci
sion is essential to thepossibility of politics, and that it is precisely this that
deconstruction does not provide.'43 Derrida's view thatwe must negotiate
between ethics and politics leaves us with the question of how far toward
each we should tend in our negotiations. Ethics with its unconditional
demands is impossible to satisfy forDerrida, and politics must be limited
by ethics. They seem to act as constraints on each other such that the deci
sion, and the action, will always lie somewhere between the two. There is
an in-between position or many in-between positions thatLevinas gestures
toward in 'Politics After!':
So therewould be no alternativebetween recourse tounscrupulousmethods

whose model is furnishedbyRealpolitik and the irritatingrhetoricof a care
less idealism, lost inutopian dreams but crumblingintodust on contactwith
realityor turninginto a dangerous, impudentand facile frenzywhich pro
fesses tobe takingup thepropheticdiscourse.44
Levinas's presentation of a case against ethics in politics often put explic

itlyor implicitly highlights its absurdity and the need to sketch out alterna
tive in-between positions. This iswhat Derrida attempts to do.
Derrida claims that there are no rules to determine what would be the
better or least bad alternatives. Another way thatDerrida expresses the
problem is by writing 'The hiatus, the silence of this non-response con
cerning the schemas between the ethical and the political, remains. It is a
fact that it remains, and this fact is not some empirical contingency, it is a
Faktum.'4s It is not clear how to deduce politics from ethics. However, he
also says that politics and law must be deduced from ethics, in order to
determine that 'democracy is "better" than tyranny'and "'political civiliza
tion" remains "better" thanbarbarism.'46Derrida's promotion of democracy
and respect for international law (as well as reflection on its foundations)
parallels Kant's concern with republicanism and establishing a cosmopoli
tanworld order.47He accepts with Kant and Hannah Arendt that a world
government is not desirable, and yet believes we need to go beyond their
views to thinkof a 'democracy to come' (la democratie a' venir) thatwill
unite law and justice.48 The reason Derrida is so positive about the concept

of democracy is that it 'is the only one thatwelcomes the possibility of

being contested, of contesting itself,of criticizing and indefinitely improv
ing itself.'49This democracy to come is not intended to refer to a future state
of democracy but to a call for 'a militant and interminable political cri
tique.'50This democracy is envisioned by Derrida to challenge the author
ityand sovereignty of the state and, on an international scale, to emerge in
new institutions such as the International Criminal Court. Further on in the
essay, Iwill show how Derrida's ideas about democracy stand out fromhis
overall account of negotiating between ethics and politics.
In the next section, I examine the differences between Kant's regulative
ideals and the categorical imperative and Derrida's idea of unconditional
ethical demands thatmotivate his conception of an ethical politics. This dis
cussion will clarify theirvery distinctive accounts of unconditionality.
Unconditional Ethics, Regulative Ideals, and the

Categorical Imperative
The central features of Derrida's ethics, namely, the linking of ethics

with politics, the setting up of unconditional ideals, and his concern with
cosmopolitanism, make him sound very Kantian. This interpretationhas
been both encouraged and resisted by Derrida. For instance, in Limited,
Inc., Derrida says thathe uses the term 'unconditionality' 'not by accident
to recall the character of the categorical imperative in itsKantian form,' and
'it is independent of every determinate context, even of the determination
of a context in general.'51 However, Derrida does not characterize the
injunction that recommends deconstruction inKantian terms 'because such
characterizations seemed tome essentially associated with philosophemes
that themselves call for deconstructive questions' and he has reservations
about thinkingof theunconditional as a regulative idea or ideal.52 It is impor
tant to clarify this idea because it sheds lighton Kant's and Derrida's under
standing of ethical action.
One problem with Derrida's disclaimer here is that a regulative ideal in
Kant's sense does not appear to relate to unconditionality. As Derrida notes,
this term is used too loosely in philosophical discourse.53 Kant discusses the
notion of regulative ideas in theCritique of Pure Reason.54 These regulative
ideas are thatof the existence of thehuman soul, an independent world, and
God. These ideas cannot be proven; nevertheless we should posit them as
theyplay an important role in our thinkingby directing our studies of psy
chology and physics in the case of our ideas of the soul and theworld. The

idea of God provides the sense that everything in theworld is part of an

organized unity-'as ifall such connection had its source in one single all
embracing being, as the supreme and all-sufficient cause.'55 In contrast,
Derrida's unconditional concepts are not ideas thatwe posit as useful for
theorizing but concepts we take seriously as action guiding, although we
cannot fulfill theirdemands.
In a detailed discussion of justice and duties in Philosophy in a Time of
Terror, Derrida outlines three reservations about aligning what he calls his
impossible reals with Kant's possible ideals. First, Derrida says, his impos
sible is 'what ismost undeniably real' in itsurgency and its demands.56 This
can be seen as in contrast to a possible ideal thatwe work toward, likeKant's
cosmopolitan ideal. Unlike Kant's dictum thatought implies can, Derrida's
dictum is that 'ought implies cannot.' This is an important difference
between the two.On Derrida's account, one can take imperatives to be real
even ifone does not think theycan be reached or satisfied. I would note that
ideals can also be real in the sense of being urgent and making demands. At
one point, Kant says thatvirtue 'is an ideal and unattainable, while yet con
stant approximation to it is a duty.'57The fundamental difference is thatKant
believes thatwe can fulfillour duty in this approximation, butDerrida holds
that such approximation is in no sense a fulfillmentof duty.
Like Kant, Derrida sees autonomy as 'the foundation of any pure ethics,
of the sovereignty of the subject, of the ideal of emancipation and of free
dom,' but unlike Kant he believes that this autonomy will always be
imposed on by heteronomy or the imperative of the other, of politics, of the
conditional, and theremust be a transaction between these two impera
tives.58The unconditional imperative demands thatwe go beyond duty.The
unconditional imperative of justice contrasts with law, as unconditional
hospitality and forgiveness contrast with their conditional pairs.59 In every
case the unconditional tempers the conditional and must be taken into
account when making decisions. Derrida presents his understanding as an
analysis of the 'logic' of these concepts, which, when deconstructed, split
into these doubles. The result is thatKant's imperfect duties, which allow
some latitude in how we fulfill them, become perfect duties on Derrida's
account. They are perfect in the sense thatwe cannot put limits on what it
is to fulfill them, although we will inevitably fall short of theirdemands.
Second, Derrida says that his notion of responsibility is one of going
beyond any rule that determines my actions. Here, Derrida seems to be
shifting fromKant's metaphysics, where the regulative ideas or postulates
of world, God, and the soul play a role, to his ethics, where the categorical

imperative and maxims play the central role.60He says that 'as a quasi
synonym for "unconditional," the Kantian
expression of "categorical
imperative" is not unproblematic; we will keep itwith some reservations. '61
The concern with needing to go beyond a rule thatdetermines actions is one
that requires some discussion, and I will return to this issue after briefly
Derrida's thirdreservation.
considering
Derrida's third reservation returns toKant's metaphysics, saying that if
we were to take up the term 'regulative idea' we would 'have to subscribe
to the entire Kantian architectonic and critique.'62 This point is rather an
exaggeration, yet I believe he is right to reject the notion that he under
stands unconditional demands as regulative ideas. As I have pointed out,
the concepts function very differently.Finally, I can also see why Derrida
rejects a Kantian reading of his unconditional ethics in the case of hospi
tality,because whereas Kant's categorical imperative is something we can
aim to act on even ifwe cannot be confident of achieving it,Derrida's
unconditional hospitality is not only impossible but also positively
destructive since ifwe are completely open to any kind of visitation we
give up our sovereignty and therefore our capacity to offer hospitality.
While it can be held up as an 'impossible real' to improve our politics and
ethics, we do not want to come too close to it.Nevertheless, forgiveness
and justice seem not to be destructive in the same way as hospitality. And
justice, as Derrida says in 'Force of Law,' is not deconstructible. Thus the
answer to thequestion ofwhether Derrida's unconditional ethical concepts
are like those of Kant's ethical imperatives can only be answered by look
ing at particular examples. A furtherdifference is thatKant accepts that
hospitality is conditional and that forgiveness is an imperfect duty. So
Derrida is going beyond Kant inmaking conditional and imperfect duties
intounconditional and perfect ones, albeit duties thathave to be negotiated
with their conditional equivalents.
What Derrida does not say is how we can or should negotiate between
ethics and politics, between unconditionality and conditionality. A consid
eration of the issue of rule following,mentioned above, provides some indi
cations. He hints that there is a connection with Kant's ethics when he notes
that ifwe simply apply a rulewhen acting, 'Iwould act, as Kant would say,
in conformitywith duty,but not throughduty or out of respect for the law.'63
Thus, the problem of negotiation appears to become a question of how to
make a decision or reach a judgment. Derrida's claim is that
[w]ithoutsilence,without thehiatus,which is not theabsence of rulesbut the

necessity of a leap at themoment of ethical,political, or juridical decision,

794 PoliticalTheory
we could simplyunfoldknowledge intoa programor courseof action.Nothing

couldmake us more irresponsible;nothingcould be more totalitarian.64
Derrida sees Kant as both irresponsible and totalitarian in prescribing rules

for action as ifwe were nothing more than calculating machines.
Furthermore, Derrida criticizes Kant for conflating right and virtue or
assuming that politics can be deduced from ethics. One commentator,
Olivia Custer, finds this reading of Kant as emerging most clearly in
Derrida's discussion of hospitality, where Derrida criticizes Kant for
imposing restrictions on hospitality, thereby turningan ethical concept into
a juridical one.65However, I interpretDerrida's insistence on hospitality as
an ethical concept as one that is not fully adequate to the realities faced by
those seeking asylum, a concrete case towhich he believes his account of
hospitality is relevant.As I argue in another essay, Derrida's emphasis on
hospitality as an ethical concept makes practical measures for asylum seek
ers and refugees dependent on goodwill, rather than putting a set of struc
tures,based on right, in place.66 This makes his conception of unconditional
ethical duties, once negotiated with political realities, atmost ameliorative
of theworst excesses of inhospitable or otherwise unethical governments.
As I noted earlier, forKant virtue is thatpart of morality or ethics that
cannot be enforced or made part of politics. Thus, the accusation thatKant
thinks one can deduce politics from ethics, understood as politics deduced
fromvirtue, is inaccurate. Kant did not think thatvirtue and rightwere nec
essarily co-implicated but instead had a hope thatpeople would live accord
ing to the virtues of love and respect once right restrained politics. In fact,
Derrida himself brings virtue into politics by emphasizing the importance
of ethical concepts such as unconditional hospitality and forgiveness to pol
itics.Yet he avoids suggesting what hospitality would amount to or inwhat
circumstances we should forgive.67
Kant's furtherdistinction between perfect and imperfect duties demon
strates the problems with Derrida's reading.While perfect duties appear to
provide a rule for action, imperfect duties allow leeway concerning what
acting out of duty means. When I attempt to act from the duty of benefi
cence, for example, I need to consider the time, the context, those who
would benefit, and the appropriateness of my action.68Thus Derrida's crit
icism of Kant's notion of duty could only apply to the perfect duties of
respect. The duties of love do not follow determinate rules. There can also
be conflicts between our imperfect conditional duties thatwe would have
to resolve for ourselves in the absence of rules. It isDerrida's transforma
tion of imperfectduties into perfect ones thatmakes duties of love seem as

if they could involve rule following. This is one of the paradoxical aspects
of Derrida's thinking.While he makes imperfect duties into perfect ones,
their status as such is undermined by his view that they are impossible.
They appear to be reminders of our inadequacy as ethical actors.
Particular judgments, forDerrida, are always made in relation to an
unconditional injunction.While in judging, one must reinterpretand reaf
firmexisting rules; the judge is not just ifhe or she
doesn't referto any law, to any rule or if,because he doesn't take any rule
forgrantedbeyond his own interpretation, he suspends his decision, stops
shortbefore theundecidable or ifhe improvisesand leaves aside all rules,
all principles.69
Such a process of judgment involves the recognition of the specificity of

particular cases, something likeKant's notion of a reflective judgment that
begins with the particular, but itdoes not require the creation of new prin
ciples. Derrida acknowledges that new judgments can conform to existing
laws but theymust reaffirmthem.How I understand his point is as theneed
to consider each situation afresh even when applying a law or principle.
This point is reasonable, but more difficult to accept is Derrida's idea of
negotiation and the impossibility of unconditional demands. I would sug
gest thatmost ethical choices are not impossible, although political life
tends to provide more of such dramatic choices than private life. For Kant,
we are able to formulatemoral laws forourselves and act on them.He says
that it takes only 'common human reason' towork out our duty and that 'I
do not . . .need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do in order
thatmy volition be morally good.'70 Kant notes, however, thatwe can never
be completely sure that our motives are pure.71 In the next section I will
show how Kant's account fares better in relation to human rights, as an
example of true non-negotiability, and how Derrida goes beyond Kant, as
he claims, in introducing virtue to politics.
Human Rights
Reconstructing
I am critical of both Kant and Derrida and find insights in both their
work. On the issue of human rights,Kant's overall framework ismore pro
ductive thanDerrida's even though he identifies inconsistencies inKant's
account. Kant's argument provides an important step toward an ethical
politics, in spite of his unappealing condemnation of revolutions and lack

796 PoliticalTheory
of consideration of conflicts between human rights and duties to the state.

Such a politics is one where at the very least certain human rights are
respected. It should be noted that Derrida refers to the Declaration of
Human Rights as a means of challenging the sovereignty of states.72
However, even these rights,which we need, must be subject to negotiation
or transactionwith the conditional and must be questioned. He writes,
To take thishistoricityand perfectibility[ofhuman rights]intoaccount inan

affirmativeway we must neverprohibitthemost radical questioningpossible
of all theconcepts atwork here: thehumanityofman (the "properofman"
or of thehuman,which raises thewhole question of nonhuman livingbeings,
as well as thequestion of thehistoryof recentjuridical concepts or perfor
matives such as a "crime against humanity"),and then thevery concepts of
rightsor of law (droit),and even theconcept of history.73
In one sense, what Derrida is saying is thatwe need to reflectmore on all

the concepts related to human rights, and in that sense, there is no problem
with thatkind of questioning.
However, it is when this idea is combined with Derrida's view thatwe
have to negotiate with the unconditional that his position becomes more
difficult. If such things as human rights are always potentially negotiable,
then they cannot be relied on as principles to guide ethical or political
decisions. Questions of the death penalty, denaturalization, treatment of
refugees, and conduct of war, forexample, are not subject to any limitations
as such. Any unconditional demands are always weighed up against condi
tional exigencies. So, for instance, even torturemight be justifiable if it can
be negotiated or exchanged for some other value or in the light of condi
tional considerations. This is the implication of Derrida's claim that the
Torah 'must enjoin a negotiation with the non-negotiable,' quoted earlier.74
It is also the implication of unconditional demands, such as hospitality, that
are themselves destructive. Derrida's comments on democracy are quite
useful for thinking about political systems, as he says that democracy is
preferable to other systems because it opens onto a future and is per
fectible.75These criteriamay enable us to determine preferable courses of
action in some circumstances and could be seen as parallel toKant's sug
gestion that in difficult circumstances such as war we should act in such a
way as to 'always leave open thepossibility of . . .entering a rightfulcon
dition.'76What Imean by this is that in relation to thepolitical organization
of states (at least) Derrida concedes thatdemocracy really is preferable to
other forms of government, and we can take the freedom and equality on

which it is based as guiding principles. However, I do not believe that this

exception resolves the problems inDerrida's views on human rights.
I am not suggesting thatKant's understanding of human rights is prefer
able toDerrida's in every respect. Certainly Kant's account of thedetails of
the principles of right leaves much to be desired, particularly thatof inde
pendence as a citizen, as he excludes women and non-property owners
from the role of active citizens.77Nevertheless, one could extend this prin
ciple in an inclusive way. Another problem I see inKant's account of right
is his acceptance of capital punishment for the crimes of high treason and
murder.78 This acceptance appears to be in conflict with the categorical
imperative to treateveryone as ends in themselves and with thewhole tenor
of theKantian view thatwe should treatothers with respect. However, as
Nelson Potter argues, in both these cases Kant can be revised in a manner
thatmakes his view more consistent, particularly since Kant himself was
offering a critique of the contemporary cruel punishments often carried out
as well as arguing for a limitation on the crimes capital punishment should
be applied to.79These are reconstructions thatwould be necessary for gen
uine compatibility between ethics and politics, inmy view.
Derrida does not address this question of how importantKant takes the
death penalty to be, although he emphasizes Kant's connection of the jus
talionis (law of retribution) to the basis of criminal justice.80 I would argue
that one could retain this conception of punishment but still maintain an
abolitionist stance, although itwould be preferable to have a differentview
of punishment as well.8" Kant's ideas of rights need to be reconstructed in
a number of ways, some of which they already have been in practice (at
leastwidely), to include women as active citizens, and some of which they
have not, to exclude capital punishment, for example. An ethical politics
should make an explicit commitment to certain rights and work out how
theycan be established and upheld. While Derrida is doubtless against cap
ital punishment, for example, he does not set out the principles on which
thatopposition is based, but says thatboth the death penalty and abolition
ist discourse are deconstructible.82 This analysis suggests that the death
penalty is negotiable, and that raises an issue about how his view could be
made compatible with a commitment to human rights.
Conclusion
This engagement between the two philosophers is interesting in itself,
yetmy aim in pursuing this encounter between Kant and Derrida is also to

798 PoliticalTheory
illuminate the difficulties that arise in conceiving an ethical politics.

Derrida's demanding view of ethics highlights some of the gaps inKant's
vision. Derrida is right to claim thathe goes beyond Kant. I contend that in
raising the importance of virtue as well as right to politics, his view is an
important advance on Kant's. Derrida's focus on unconditional ethics
brings the imperfect duties of Kant to the forefrontof politics. This insis
tence on the importance of unconditional ethical demands to politics forces
us to thinkmore carefully about the role of these demands and about the
responsibility of both ethics and politics to each other. Derrida's work
reminds us how significant ethical virtues involved in hospitality, friend
ship, and forgiveness, for example, are to public life. Nevertheless,
although his account demonstrates the significance of ethics to politics, it
does not clarify how important ethics should be or suggest what conditions
would facilitate the negotiation between ethics and politics. Precisely
because Derrida goes further thanKant by bringing up the importance of
thevirtues, he should have more to say about what would make them flour
ish.However, Derrida does not account for the conditions thatwill support
an ethical politics and make ethical livingmore likely, perhaps because he
believes that any specific suggestions would be 'totalitarian.'The idea of a
'democracy to come' involves some important suggestions for international
institutions but does not articulate changes thatwould be needed to assist
groups and individuals tomeet those demands. His emphasis on uncondi
tional ethical concepts such as forgiveness and hospitality places the onus
on the individual to try to live up to unconditional demands. Yet a distinc
tion should be made between unconditional demands that are necessarily
destructive if fulfilled, such as hospitality, and those which are not neces
sarily destructive in the same sense, such as forgiveness.
While Derrida goes beyond Kant in emphasizing the importance of
virtue or imperfect duties, he does not advance beyond Kant by suggesting
what kind of political structures would enable the flourishing of these
virtues. Histransformation of Kant's imperfect duties into perfect duties
also makes thedevelopment of such enabling structureseven more unlikely.
Thinking of the virtues as perfect duties sets us on a path to construing eth
ical politics as a utopian dream and could justify the careless idealism
Levinas warns against or quietism in the face of impossibility. Derrida's
emphasis on the impossibility of following unconditional ethical demands
is likely to lead to the undermining of the authority of ethics thatKant was
concerned about. While Kant was probably a little too confident about the
ease with which we act ethically (although without being sure thatwe are
doing so), ethical demands need to be within the realms of possibility for

us to be able to cultivate ethical responses and to construct political struc

tures that support the ethical life.Kant expresses a vision where one focuses
on enforcing what needs to be enforced while leaving the other aspects of
ethics to look after themselves, whereas I argue thatwe should also con
sider how to at least encourage virtue. These are the problems I believe
need to be addressed in conceptualizing an ethical politics.
What emerges is that the most credible conception of the relation
between ethics and politics is one thatconsiders both thenorms of right that
Kant outlines and the virtues, inDerrida's sense, such as forgiveness, gen
erosity, and hospitality.What I mean is that the limits to action set up by
Kant should be acknowledged (and in some instances extended) and that
political organization should take account of the need for practical benevo
lence and ethical responses. Understanding the intersection of ethics and
politics in thisway requires a sense of what it is to act with respect and
benevolence forothers, so thatall decisions have these ethical standards as
touchstones to judgment. In order forDerrida's suggestion of an expansion
of the ethical realm tomake sense, political lifewould involve creating the
best conditions for ethical relations to ourselves and to others, in addition
to the constraints Kant believes ethics should place on politics. While we
should acknowledge the special circumstances of politics, politics should
be ethical inmore than one sense.
There are risks here in the possibility of interference in private or ethi
cal relations to the self, which Arendt and Foucault, for example, fear.83
However, I disagree with Kant thatwe should simply hope thatvirtue fol
lows in thewake of rightor, to thinkof it anotherway, that love will follow
respect because every aspect of our lives is affected by political decisions.
Such decisions could play a role in ensuring at an institutional and individ
ual level thatwe are able ormore likely to carry out imperfectduties to our
selves, such as the duty to perfect ourselves, and the imperfect duties of
benevolence to others. To give priority to ethics as Derrida conceives it, the
virtues of respect and of love would have to be encouraged and form the
basis of politics. These ethical considerations are relevant to the three
spheres thatKant discusses-relations within states, between states, and
between states and individuals. It is also relevant to relations between indi
viduals. Thus, the complexities of including the virtues in an ethical poli
ticswould have to be carefully considered with regard to all these relations.
These features of an ethical politics involve both basic human rights as
advocated by Kant and the cultivation of virtues as suggested by Derrida.
Furthermore,pursuit of thevirtues itselfcan facilitate a transformationof pol
itics and political conditions, and I take thispoint to be implicit inDerrida's

800 PoliticalTheory
focus on unconditional ethical demands. Nevertheless, the freedom implied

by thenotion of an imperfectduty,where there is a great deal of discretion as
to particular ethical decisions, should be retained. Between Kant's possible
ideals and Derrida's impossible reals, there is a possibility of ethical and
political action that is not simply ameliorative. Politics must be conceived in
a way thatmakes negotiating with ethics a more promising affair.
Notes
1. Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans.Mary J.Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 8:37.

2. Jacques Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael
Naas (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1999), 115.
3. See, for example, Christopher Norris, What's Wrong with Postmodernism: Critical
Theory and the Ends of Philosophy (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990), 194
207, for a discussion of Derrida's relation to Kant's epistemological project; Irene Harvey,
Derrida and The Economy ofDiff?rance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), who
is concerned with the influence of Kant's notion of critique and conception of the limits of rea
son; and Philip Rothfield, ed., Kant after Derrida (Manchester, UK: Clinamen, 2003), which
is a collection of essays on a range of Kantian themes.
4. Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship, trans. George Collins (London: Verso,
1997); and Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans.Mark Dooley and
Michael Hughes (London: Routledge, 2001).
5. Jacques Derrida, Questioning God, ed. John Caputo, Mark Dooley, and Michael J.
Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 66.
6. Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, 115. Levinas's influence on Derrida's ethics has
been explored more thoroughly than Kant's. This work includes Simon Critchley, The Ethics
of Deconstruction: Derrida and Levinas (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press,
1999); Simon Critchley, Ethics, Politics, and Subjectivity: Essays on Derrida, Levinas, and
Contemporary French Thought (London: Verso, 1999); Diane Perpich, "A Singular Justice:
Ethics and Politics between Levinas and Derrida," Philosophy Today 42, supp. (1998): 59-70;
and Miriam Bankovsky, "Derrida Brings Levinas to Kant: The Welcome, Ethics, and
Cosmopolitical Law," Philosophy Today 49, no. 2 (2005): 156-71, who also considers the
relation of both to Kant. Derrida discusses Levinas in Jacques Derrida, Writing and
Difference, trans. Alan Bass (London: Routledge, 2001); and in Derrida, Adieu to Emanuel
Levinas. On Kant and Derrida on hospitality, see Marguerite La Caze, "Not Just Visitors:
Cosmopolitanism, Hospitality, and Refugees," Philosophy Today 48, no. 3 (2004): 313-24.
Beards worth analyses the relation between Kant and Derrida on law and violence inRichard
Beardsworth, Derrida and the Political
(London: Routledge 1996), 46-70.
7.1 prefer the term ethics tomorality as it seems less focused on individual mores to the
contemporary ear.
8. Immanuel Kant, "Toward Perpetual Peace," inKant, Practical Philosophy, 8:380.
9. This position follows from his view that ought to implies can in Immanuel Kant,
Critique of Practical Reason, inKant, Practical Philosophy. Kant says that our awareness of
the moral law when we construct maxims of the will leads us to the concept of freedom.
Furthermore, our experience confirms this concept of freedom when we remember thatwe

can act against our strongest desires and even our love of life in order to act ethically (ibid.,
5:30). By contrast, in the Groundwork (in Kant, Practical Philosophy), Kant argues that
because we are autonomous we are bound by themoral law: 'If, therefore, freedom of thewill
is presupposed, morality together with its principle follows from it by mere analysis of its
concept' (ibid., 4:447). Elsewhere, in a review of Schulz's '[ajttempt at an introduction to a

doctrine of morals,' he asserts thatwithout this possibility of freedom, any imperative is absurd
and the only position we can adopt is fatalism (ibid., 8:13).
10. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:370. Kant defines right as 'the sum of the conditions
under which the choice of one can be united with the choice of another in accordance with a
universal law of freedom' (ibid., 6:230). He further distinguishes between natural or private
right,which includes rights to property, rights to contracts, and domestic right, and public or
civil right, which concerns the rights of a state, the rights of nations, and cosmopolitan right.
The doctrine of virtue includes duties to ourselves and the duties to others of love and respect.
11. The doctrine of right concerns the a priori basis of ethical laws. One might disagree
with Kant's view that politics is the doctrine of right put into practice and argue, for example,
that ethics and politics are two separate spheres, as Arendt does in Hannah Arendt,
Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken, 2003), 147-58.
12. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:372.
13. According to Kant, the aims of moral evil are self-contradictory and self-destructive,
whereas those of moral goodness are consistent and conducive to happiness, so evil gives way
to themoral principle of goodness (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:379). See Kant's discussion
of radical evil in Immanuel Kant, "Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone," in Religion
and Rational Theology, trans, and ed. Allen W Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996).
14. Richard Kearney and Mark Dooley, Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in
Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1999), 70.

15. Jacques Derrida, Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews, 1971-2001, trans.Elizabeth
Rottenberg (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 295-314. The essay was first
given as a talk in 1987.
16. Ibid., 295.
17. Ibid., 298.
18. Ibid., 301.
19. Levinas also believes thatwe have to negotiate between ethics and politics. Robert
Bernasconi says thatLevinas is not concerned to resolve conflicts between ethics and politics,
yet 'the task of negotiating in practice the conflicting demands under which I find myself,
involves the use of reason, that is, the third person perspective'; Robert Bernasconi, "The
Third Party: Levinas on the Intersection of theEthical and the Political," Journal of theBritish
Society for Phenomenology 30, no. 1 (1999): 81. In his view, while Levinas 'favors' ethics over
politics, they are not in opposition for him.

20. Jacques Derrida, "Ethics and Politics Today," in Jacques Derrida, Negotiations
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 305. Both these approaches have been used
in response to the taking of foreign hostages in Iraq. In that circumstance, I think itwould be
hard to justify a refusal to negotiate as there is not enough order for one to argue that such
negotiation would 'create a precedent.'

21. Jacques Derrida, "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority,'" trans.Mary
Quaintance, in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, ed. Drucilla Cornell, Michel
Rosenfeld, and David Gray Carlson (London: Routledge, 1992), 14.

22. Emmanuel Levinas, Beyond theVerse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures, trans.Gary D.
Mole (London: Athlone, 1994), 46. For another reading of Levinas's essay, in relation to the
idea of political utopianism, see Oona Eisenstadt, "The Problem of the Promise: Derrida on
Levinas on the Cities of Refuge," Cross Currents 52, no. 4 (2003): 474-82.
23. Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, 112. Levinas's idea of justice appears to be very
different from Derrida's. For Derrida, justice is the ultimate ethical ideal, the undecon
structible, that goes beyond particular laws (Derrida, "Force of Law," 14). For Levinas, justice
is the political necessity of weighing different competing claims, contrasted with the infinite
responsibility for the particular other that is the ethical relation. In Derrida's outlook, justice
takes this concern with singularity.
25. In 'On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in prac
tice,' Kant defines the principles of a civil state as (1) thefreedom of every member of the
society as a human being, (2) his equality with every other as a subject, and (3) the indepen
dence of every member of a commonwealth as a citizen
(ibid., 8:290); and likewise in
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (in ibid., 6:314), and in Immanuel Kant,
Perpetual Peace, Kant says that the principles of a Republican state are freedom, equality, and
the dependence 'of all upon a single common legislation (as subjects)' (in ibid., 8:350). A
comparison of Kant's republicanism with Derrida's idea of democracy is one I do not have the
space to pursue here.
26. Ibid., 8:381. The second transcendental principle of public right is as follows: 'All
maxims which need publicity (in order not to fail in their end) harmonize with right and pol
itics combined' (ibid., 8:386). Kant's argument for this principle is that ifmaxims can only be
successful through publicity, theymust correspond to the universal public end, which is hap
piness, and for him this iswhat politics must do.

27. Ibid., 8:385.
28. Ibid., 8:381.
29. Ibid., 8:380.
30. There has been a great deal of interest inKant's condemnation of rebellion here, par
ticularly since he is a well-known supporter of the French Revolution; ibid., 6:320-23. See, for
example, Kimberly Hutchings, Kant, Critique, and Politics (London: Routledge, 1996), 46;
and Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, ed. Ronald Beiner (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1982), 44-51.
31. Derrida, "Force of Law," 35.
32. Kant's examples of ethical constraints on politics between states include the non
acquisition of existing states, the abolition of standing armies, no national debts with regard
to external affairs, non-interference with the governments of other states, and not using duplic
itous means inwar; definitive articles recommend republicanism for all states, a federalism of
free states, and the cosmopolitan right of hospitality. Kant examines three cases of apparent
conflict between politics and morals in international right and presents their resolution: where
one nation promises to aid another nation but decides to release itself from the promise
because of the effects thatkeeping the promise would have on its own well-being, where lesser
nations could not make public the idea that they intend to attack a greater power preemptively,
and where a large nation could not make it known that itwould absorb smaller nations if it
thought that necessary to its preservation (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 8:383-84). Third, Kant
says that cosmopolitan right's maxims work by analogy to those of international right.
Cosmopolitan right is interesting since the power imbalance between individuals and states is
enormous.

33. Ibid., 8:385.

34. Another example Kant gives is that
it cannot be demanded of a state that it give up its constitution even though this is a
despotic one (which is, for all that, the stronger kind in relation to external enemies),
so long as it runs the risk of being at once devoured by other states; hence, as for that
resolution, itmust also be permitted to postpone putting it into effect until a more
favorable time. (Ibid., 8:373)
Thus, it is reasonable towait until the state is secure from invasion before rectifying injustice
if that injustice is protecting the state.
35. Elisabeth Ellis, Kant's Politics: Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005), 112-54.
37. Ibid.
38. Another way Kant puts this point is that although respect 'is a mere duty of virtue, it
is regarded as narrow in comparison with a duty of love, and it is the latter that is considered
a wide duty'; ibid., 6:450.
39. Ibid., 8:301.
40. Ibid., 6:371.
41. Immanuel Kant, "Doctrine of Right," in The Metaphysics ofMorals, ed. Mary Gregor
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), XIX, 594-95, quoted in Robert J. Dostal,
"Judging Human Action: Arendt's Appropriation ofKant," Review ofMetaphysics 37 (1984): 732.
43. Critchley, The Ethics of Deconstruction, 200. In a later essay, Critchley presents
Derrida's account of the decision more sympathetically by describing it as non-foundational
but non-arbitrary and necessarily contextual; Simon Critchley, "Remarks on Derrida and
Habermas," Constellations 1, no. 4 (2000): 461-62.
44. Levinas, Beyond the Verse, 194.
45. Ibid., 116.
46. Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, 114-15. Another way thatDerrida expresses this
problem is by writing, as shown above in the text, 'The hiatus, the silence of this non-response
concerning the sch?mas between the ethical and the political, remains. It is a fact that it
remains, and this fact is not some empirical contingency, it is a Faktum1 (ibid., 116).
47. Quoted inGiovanna Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with J?rgen
Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 114-15.
48. Ibid., 120.
49. Ibid., 121.
50. Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005), 86. Critchley has a very good, albeit brief,
discussion of what Derrida means by democracy to come in "Remarks on Derrida and
Habermas," 463-64.
51. Jacques Derrida, Limited, Inc., ed. Gerald Graff (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern
University Press 1988), 152.

52. Ibid., 153.
53. Derrida, Rogues, 83.
54. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (London:
Macmillan, 1986), A669-704, B697-732.

804 PoliticalTheory
55. Ibid.,A686,B714.
56. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 134. Derrida also says he hesitates to con
flate his idea of justice with a Kantian regulative idea (Derrida, "Force of Law," 25). He
repeats his reservations inDerrida, Rogues (83-85), in a discussion concerning democracy.

58. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 131-32.
59. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness.
60. Kant's description of moral ideas in theCritique of Practical Reason also seems helpful:
[I]f I understand by an idea a perfection to which nothing adequate can be given in

experience, themoral ideas, are not, on that account, something transcendent, that is,
something of which we cannot even determine the concept sufficiently or of which it

is uncertain whether there is any object corresponding to it at all, as is the case with
the ideas of speculative reason; instead, the moral ideas, as archetypes of practical
perfection, serve as the indispensable rule of moral conduct and also as the standard
of comparison. (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 5:127).
Here Kant is referring tomoral virtues such as wisdom and holiness. This idea seems quite
closeto Derrida's in the fact that they are impossible?nothing in experience can match
them?but are not transcendent, and can be used as a standard.
61. Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmentelle Invites Jacques Derrida to
Respond, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000), 81.
62. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 135.
64. Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, 111.
65. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 21-22; and Olivia Custer, "Kant after
Derrida: Inventing Oneself out of an Impossible Choice," in Rothfield, Kant after Derrida,
171-204.
66. La Caze, "Not JustVisitors."
67. See Marguerite La Caze, "Should Radical Evil Be Forgiven?" in Forensic Psychiatry:
Influences of Evil, ed. Tom Mason (Totowa, N.J.: Humana Press, 2006), 273-93, where I argue
thatDerrida's view of forgiveness implies that the onus is on the victim to forgive, although
he does not argue for it explicitly.
68. See Kant, Practical Philosophy, 6:452-55.
70. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 4:403. Kant observed that even experts could lack judg
ment in his essay on theory and practice:
[T]here can be theoreticians who can never in their lives become practical because they
are lacking in judgment, for example, physicians or jurists who did well in their school
ing but who are at a loss when they have to give an expert opinion. (Ibid., 8:275)
He thinks that this is due to a lack of the 'natural talent' of judgment. But, as Kant makes clear,
this difficulty in judgment applies to certain professional fields, not to ethics.
71. Ibid., 4:407-8.
72. Derrida, Rogues, 88.
73. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 133.
74. Derrida, Adieu toEmmanuel Levinas, 112.
75. Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror, 113-14.


77. Ibid., 6:314-15. Kant makes a distinction between active citizens, who are independent
and can vote, and passive ones, who he argues are dependent on thewill of others.
78. Ibid., 6:320, 6:333.
79. Nelson Potter, "Kant and Capital Punishment Today," Journal of Value Inquiry 36, nos.
2/3 (2002): 267-82.
80. Jacques Derrida and Elisabeth Roudinesco, For What Tomorrow . . .a Dialogue, trans.
JeffFort (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2004), 148.
81.1 do not have the space to argue formy position here, but I think it is important to indi
cate the points where I thinkKant ismisguided. Of course there are other points, such as his
view of the status of wives and servants (Kant, Practical Philosophy, 6:277, 6:315), which are
deeply problematic; I have only focused on two important issues.

82. Derrida and Roudinesco, For What Tomorrow, 148.
83. Arendt contends that ethics involves a concern with the self whereas politics involves
a concern with theworld; Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment, 153. Michel Foucault believes
that subjects must be free to practice ethical relations with themselves and others; Michel
Foucault, Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, vol. 1, ed. Paul Rabinow (London: Penguin,
1997), 281-301.
Marguerite La Caze is an Australian Research Fellow (2003-2007) in philosophy at the

University of Queensland working on a major project on "Wonder and Generosity as Guides
to the Ethics and Politics of Respect forDifference." She has research interests and numerous
publicationsinEuropeanphilosophyand feminist Her publicationsincludeThe
philosophy.
Analytic Imaginary (Cornell, 2002); Integrity and the Fragile Self, coauthored with Damian
Cox and Michael Levine (Ashgate, 2003); and recent articles with a focus on thework of Kant
and Derrida in Philosophy Today (2004) and Contemporary Political Theory (2006).


At The Intersection, Kant, Derrida, and The Relation Between Ethics and Politics

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At The Intersection, Kant, Derrida, and The Relation Between Ethics and Politics

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At the Intersection: Kant, Derrida, and the Relation between Ethics and Politics

Author(s): Marguerite La Caze

This content downloaded from 193.255.88.62 on Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:57:43 PM

At the Intersection 1.1/0..7. 73

Kant, Derrida, and the Relation http://

To elucidate thetensionsin therelationbetweenethicsand politics, I construct

Politics says, 'Be ye wise as serpents';morals adds (as a limitingcondition)

Recent interpretationsof Jacques Derrida's work note a close connection

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Forgiveness and in essays on justice and law, democracy, and terrorism.4On

The Intersection of Ethics and Politics

To understand how ethics and politics might intersect, the firstquestion

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no conflictof politics, as doctrineof rightput intopractice,withmorals, as

Given thatKant sees politics as the application of morality (that aspect of

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particular ethical concepts in a series of texts.He does not provide an ethi

[R]esponsibilityof course requires thatany answer be preceded inprinciple

Nevertheless, in spite of this need for seemingly endless elucidation,

Because ethical responsibilityappeals to an unconditional that is ruled by

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in evaluations of interestsand powers. . . Whereas,

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must still inscribe the promises in the earthly Jerusalem.And henceforth

The complete justice of ethicsmust be inscribed in concrete politics and law.

Tensions between Ethics and Politics

Kant's understanding of politics as bending its knee before ethics may

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For a maxim thatI cannot divulge without therebydefeatingmy own pur

Thus theharmonyof politicswithmorals is possible onlywithin a federative

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Although Kant believes that politics can be made commensurable with

if it is amatterof preventingsome catastropheto thestateby betrayingaman

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Force,which does not presuppose a judgmenthaving thevalidityof law[,] is

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So therewould be no alternativebetween recourse tounscrupulousmethods

Levinas's presentation of a case against ethics in politics often put explic

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of democracy is that it 'is the only one thatwelcomes the possibility of

Unconditional Ethics, Regulative Ideals, and the

The central features of Derrida's ethics, namely, the linking of ethics

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idea of God provides the sense that everything in theworld is part of an

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[w]ithoutsilence,without thehiatus,which is not theabsence of rulesbut the

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we could simplyunfoldknowledge intoa programor courseof action.Nothing

Derrida sees Kant as both irresponsible and totalitarian in prescribing rules

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Such a process of judgment involves the recognition of the specificity of

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of consideration of conflicts between human rights and duties to the state.

To take thishistoricityand perfectibility[ofhuman rights]intoaccount inan

In one sense, what Derrida is saying is thatwe need to reflectmore on all

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which it is based as guiding principles. However, I do not believe that this

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illuminate the difficulties that arise in conceiving an ethical politics.

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us to be able to cultivate ethical responses and to construct political struc

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focus on unconditional ethical demands. Nevertheless, the freedom implied