1. What does Badiou mean when he says at the very beginning on pg. 5 “This return to the old doctrine of the natural rights of man is obviously linked to the collapse of revolutionary Marxism, and of all the forms of progressive engagement that it inspired”? Was Marxism not concerned about natural rights? What does he consider to be those natural rights? 2. On p. 32, Badiou says that “a truth, in its invention, is the only thing that is for all, so it can actually be achieved only against dominant opinions, since these always work for the benefit of some rather than all.” Is this Badiou’s justification for the way history is written? Does he believe that there do exist universal truths in any form, or is it always the inscription from the larger group? 3. Badiou explains on pg. 36 that “Ethical discourse is thus both fatalist and resolutely non-tragic: it allows death to ‘go about its business’, without opposing to it the Immortal of resistance.” Could ethics, therefore, be time? Reality? Live itself? Or is Badiou, rather, indicating that it is a principle of endurance while life continues to move on?
1. Badiou offers some alternate theses about ethics. I feel that Thesis 3 makes the most sense and seems to be the only one needed. Isn't ethics, what is good or bad, deteremined situation by situation? As one culture views a situation another culture may view it in an entirely different way. When is there ever a situation that is universally accepted as right or worng? 2. What is an economy? Badiou says an economy is neither good or bad, it is a place of no value and it simply runs more or less well. Is an economy even that? How does the US economy run more or less well, but we are still one of the most powerful countries, despite being trillions of dollars in debt? 3. What does Badiou mean on page 40 when he states, "If there is no ethics "in general", that is because there is no abstract Subject, who would adopt it as his shield"?
1. Do you believe that Badiou's assessment in Thesis 2 (pg. 16) that our ability to identify Evil comes from our positive capabilities for Good is true? Or do you believe the opposite? Or somewhere in between?
2. When, if at any time, is a violation of ones ethics morally acceptable? Does a violation of your personal ethics by another warrant a punishment that is against your ethics? (Sparked from the topic of euthanasia on pages 35 and 36)
3. What is the basis for one's formation of ethics? What do ethics mainly stem from? Cultural ideas? Religion? A general consensus of what is "wrong"? Experience? Situations?
1. When talking about “ethical ‘consistency’” on pg. 49 what does Badiou mean when he says “For I cannot, within the fidelity to fidelity that defines ethical consistency, take an interest in myself, and thus pursue my own interests.”
2. Is Badiou arguing that our use of the word ethics today is completely wrong or just misunderstood by the way it has been altered by societies over the years?
3. His argument that ethics are inconsistent seems wrong and doesn’t he prove this by noting that there are some consistent commonalities over the ideas that the international community has about human rights? How can something be inconsistent if there are consistencies?
1) If Evil-or the negative- is primary: we presume a concensus regarding what is barbarian, is then civilization inherently good? In other words, if the principle of Evil is barbarian is it a valid reason to make civilization good? 2) In the definition of man as the being who is capable of recogbizing himself as a victim, is the victimizer then absolved of his crimes by recognizing himself as a victim? 3) If the argument against euthanasia is that one must protect the right to another person's life and to live with dignity, is the right of dying with dignity then completely ignored? Is it going to far because of the history and Nazism as an extreme they reached with the practice?
1. "'Some-one' can thus be this spectator whose thinking has been set in motion, who has been seized and bewildered by a burst of theatrical fire, and who thus enters into the complex configuration of a moment of art. Or this assiduous student of a mathematical problem, after the thankless and exhausting confusion of working in the dark" (45)
In this passage, is Badiou saying that these elements are what separate us from animals? He identifies 'some-one' as an "animal of the human species." Could we then still considered animals, according to this statement?
2. Badiou says, "opinions are the cement of sociality. They are what sustain all human animals, without exception, and we cannot function otherwise" (50). He also says that "Communication is suited only to opinions (51). What do you think he would have to say about modern debates such as whether evolution is scientific fact or simple theory/opinion? Considering these passages, which side of the argument do you think he would take? Could opinions be responsible for also destroying communication at times?
3. On p.15 in the third section of "Does Man Exist?" Badiou seems to make an argument against the fact that doctors are too often influenced by the Bureaucratic system, in that it prevents them from assisting patients who are financially destitute or do not have all their "legal papers" in order, regardless of how badly they may need medical attention. How could this argument be applied to the current and recent situation of our own health care system?
1. On p. 8, it assumes that people should have good ethics. It goes on to say that people should have good political judgement concerning ethics. What does politics have to do with ethics? Just because something is "politically correct" does not mean it's ethical.
2. I don't understand how there can be an ethics of truth. To me that contradicts everything that the word truth is suppose to mean. How can there be a right/wrong or good/bad of truth? The real truth should not be up for debate.
3. There are many different descriptions and definitions for truth throughout the section. Does the author not believe in an actual truth? Does truth always have to come from an interpretation of an event? Can something just be the truth because it is i.e. the dog sat on the sidewalk ?
1. Why does Badiou consider man as more valuable in his role as victim is worth more than the “animal abjection” of his role as predator?
2. Badiou correlates Bioethics and questions like euthanasia were obsessions of the state under Nazism. Reading ahead a bit, but with knowledge from class one can still know to what I am referring, how does Bioethics fit in with evil (non-event), specifically terror?
3. What does Badiou imply by grouping ‘ethics’ with ‘nihilism’? Nihilism being “the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.”
1. Lacan claimed that it was essential to separate the ego from the subject. But if the two were separated, would it be accurate to say that each of these would be dramatically affected? 2. If you separated the subject from the ego, would it be stripping a person of their ‘human rights’ (right to not be offended, mistreated)? 3. Because ethics defines a man as the ‘victim’, could this definition cause, or be the cause of evil?
1) Sometimes, things that seem evil must be done for the greater good. If this theory is based around the idea that ?good? is the right to ?non-evil?, how would this theory deal with a situation like that?
2) Is Badiou saying that Ethics is what prevents us from finding the ?true good? because it has us so worried about being ?politically correct? or simply ?compliant, in a sense?
3) On page 9, it says that the foundation of the ethic of human rights is based partly on the idea that Good is derived from Evil because what is determined to be ?good? is the right to ?non-evil?. But then, if good is derived from evil, how can one identify evil to begin with? To work, this idea assumes a clear demarcation between good and evil. But, if evil precedes good, then there cannot be a difference. One cannot know it is dark until one has perceived the light, nor can one know light until one has perceived the darkness. Good and evil, like light and darkness depend on each other to exist. They must exist simultaneously for perception of a difference to be possible. That is the inherent nature of difference. If there is no good without evil, it follows that man must instinctively know what is evil based on some universal principle that, according to this theory, cannot exist because evil, if it is to be universal, must be the same in time as it is in space, if one is to believe the time/space equivalency of the Postmodern (?) theory. Therefore, it requires that man, who is to determine what is evil spatially must also determine it temporally. And, if such a determination is to be universal, it must be constant, extending through all space and time. That would require that man see the same thing as evil all thoughout time, meaning that there would have to be some constancy in human nature. And since, according to theory, man cannot be held to be the same creature throughout all of time, does it not hold true then, that, according to this particular theory, there canot be any universal determinant of evil?
From page 33: If the general consensus says that it is so, can any action be deemed ethical; who is it that determines what is ethical?
Are ethics something that varies depending on the subject/person on which they are being applied?
From page 9: Why is it that Badiou states that evil is the form from which the good is derived, not the other way around; could it not be that the good is first and the evil derives from that good?
1. On page 7 of Badiou’s piece, he states that the “theme of ethics and of human rights is compatible with the self-satisfied egoism of the affluent West, with advertising, and with service rendered to the powers that be.” He says that to clarify this we must utilize the foundations of today’s ethics regarding human rights. How are today’s ethics compatible in this sense?
2. Badiou gives a list of four presuppositions regarding natural rights on page 9. The last one states that “‘human rights’ are rights to non-Evil.” These include the right not to be offended by execution, torture, and famine and the degrading of sexes, races and sexuality. What can we say about these inborn “human rights” in relation to the U.S. Constitution’s outline of natural and inalienable rights in a political sense?
3. How does Badiou’s discussion on euthanasia on pages 35 and 36 correlate with the idea of human rights?
1 - What kind of credentials must one have in order to declare something so sweeping as “The Death of Man?” (p 5) While I can see the problem with the previously discussed phantasmagoria of particular subjects, why is man not a “timelessly self-evident” being? I suspect that if one were to take a man from our time and a man from 300 BCE and raise them under the same circumstances, they would come out similar.
2 - Why is modern ethics more concerned with preventing Evil than with doing Good? Why must Good be derived from Evil? (p 8-9) More importantly, has there been a time or place where the ethical system is more concerned with Good, and focuses on doing Right rather than simply preventing Wrong?
3 - Baidou contends that several concepts that were previously taken as unchanging through time, such as history and mankind, cannot be categorized by such sweeping generalizations. (p 5) His ethics, though, seem to make the same sort of sweeping generalizations about all states and people in the modern world. I don’t understand what his ethics have to say about the individual, as opposed to the nameless, teeming masses.
13 Comments:
3 Questions for Alain Badiou
1. What does Badiou mean when he says at the very beginning on pg. 5 “This return to the old doctrine of the natural rights of man is obviously linked to the collapse of revolutionary Marxism, and of all the forms of progressive engagement that it inspired”? Was Marxism not concerned about natural rights? What does he consider to be those natural rights?
2. On p. 32, Badiou says that “a truth, in its invention, is the only thing that is for all, so it can actually be achieved only against dominant opinions, since these always work for the benefit of some rather than all.” Is this Badiou’s justification for the way history is written? Does he believe that there do exist universal truths in any form, or is it always the inscription from the larger group?
3. Badiou explains on pg. 36 that “Ethical discourse is thus both fatalist and resolutely non-tragic: it allows death to ‘go about its business’, without opposing to it the Immortal of resistance.” Could ethics, therefore, be time? Reality? Live itself? Or is Badiou, rather, indicating that it is a principle of endurance while life continues to move on?
1. Badiou offers some alternate theses about ethics. I feel that Thesis 3 makes the most sense and seems to be the only one needed. Isn't ethics, what is good or bad, deteremined situation by situation? As one culture views a situation another culture may view it in an entirely different way. When is there ever a situation that is universally accepted as right or worng?
2. What is an economy? Badiou says an economy is neither good or bad, it is a place of no value and it simply runs more or less well. Is an economy even that? How does the US economy run more or less well, but we are still one of the most powerful countries, despite being trillions of dollars in debt?
3. What does Badiou mean on page 40 when he states, "If there is no ethics "in general", that is because there is no abstract Subject, who would adopt it as his shield"?
Sorry for the accidental post above.
1. Do you believe that Badiou's assessment in Thesis 2 (pg. 16) that our ability to identify Evil comes from our positive capabilities for Good is true? Or do you believe the opposite? Or somewhere in between?
2. When, if at any time, is a violation of ones ethics morally acceptable? Does a violation of your personal ethics by another warrant a punishment that is against your ethics? (Sparked from the topic of euthanasia on pages 35 and 36)
3. What is the basis for one's formation of ethics? What do ethics mainly stem from? Cultural ideas? Religion? A general consensus of what is "wrong"? Experience? Situations?
1. When talking about “ethical ‘consistency’” on pg. 49 what does Badiou mean when he says “For I cannot, within the fidelity to fidelity that defines ethical consistency, take an interest in myself, and thus pursue my own interests.”
2. Is Badiou arguing that our use of the word ethics today is completely wrong or just misunderstood by the way it has been altered by societies over the years?
3. His argument that ethics are inconsistent seems wrong and doesn’t he prove this by noting that there are some consistent commonalities over the ideas that the international community has about human rights? How can something be inconsistent if there are consistencies?
1) If Evil-or the negative- is primary: we presume a concensus regarding what is barbarian, is then civilization inherently good? In other words, if the principle of Evil is barbarian is it a valid reason to make civilization good?
2) In the definition of man as the being who is capable of recogbizing himself as a victim, is the victimizer then absolved of his crimes by recognizing himself as a victim?
3) If the argument against euthanasia is that one must protect the right to another person's life and to live with dignity, is the right of dying with dignity then completely ignored? Is it going to far because of the history and Nazism as an extreme they reached with the practice?
1. "'Some-one' can thus be this spectator whose thinking has been set in motion, who has been seized and bewildered by a burst of theatrical fire, and who thus enters into the complex configuration of a moment of art. Or this assiduous student of a mathematical problem, after the thankless and exhausting confusion of working in the dark" (45)
In this passage, is Badiou saying that these elements are what separate us from animals? He identifies 'some-one' as an "animal of the human species." Could we then still considered animals, according to this statement?
2. Badiou says, "opinions are the cement of sociality. They are what sustain all human animals, without exception, and we cannot function otherwise" (50). He also says that "Communication is suited only to opinions (51). What do you think he would have to say about modern debates such as whether evolution is scientific fact or simple theory/opinion? Considering these passages, which side of the argument do you think he would take? Could opinions be responsible for also destroying communication at times?
3. On p.15 in the third section of "Does Man Exist?" Badiou seems to make an argument against the fact that doctors are too often influenced by the Bureaucratic system, in that it prevents them from assisting patients who are financially destitute or do not have all their "legal papers" in order, regardless of how badly they may need medical attention. How could this argument be applied to the current and recent situation of our own health care system?
1. On p. 8, it assumes that people should have good ethics. It goes on to say that people should have good political judgement concerning ethics. What does politics have to do with ethics? Just because something is "politically correct" does not mean it's ethical.
2. I don't understand how there can be an ethics of truth. To me that contradicts everything that the word truth is suppose to mean. How can there be a right/wrong or good/bad of truth? The real truth should not be up for debate.
3. There are many different descriptions and definitions for truth throughout the section. Does the author not believe in an actual truth? Does truth always have to come from an interpretation of an event? Can something just be the truth because it is i.e. the dog sat on the sidewalk ?
1. Why does Badiou consider man as more valuable in his role as victim is worth more than the “animal abjection” of his role as predator?
2. Badiou correlates Bioethics and questions like euthanasia were obsessions of the state under Nazism. Reading ahead a bit, but with knowledge from class one can still know to what I am referring, how does Bioethics fit in with evil (non-event), specifically terror?
3. What does Badiou imply by grouping ‘ethics’ with ‘nihilism’? Nihilism being “the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.”
1. Lacan claimed that it was essential to separate the ego from the subject. But if the two were separated, would it be accurate to say that each of these would be dramatically affected?
2. If you separated the subject from the ego, would it be stripping a person of their ‘human rights’ (right to not be offended, mistreated)?
3. Because ethics defines a man as the ‘victim’, could this definition cause, or be the cause of evil?
on behalf of natasha
1) Sometimes, things that seem evil must be done for the greater
good. If this theory is based around the idea that ?good? is the
right to ?non-evil?, how would this theory deal with a situation
like that?
2) Is Badiou saying that Ethics is what prevents us from finding
the ?true good? because it has us so worried about being
?politically correct? or simply ?compliant, in a sense?
3) On page 9, it says that the foundation of the ethic of human
rights is based partly on the idea that Good is derived from Evil
because what is determined to be ?good? is the right to
?non-evil?. But then, if good is derived from evil, how can one
identify evil to begin with? To work, this idea assumes a clear
demarcation between good and evil. But, if evil precedes good,
then there cannot be a difference. One cannot know it is dark
until one has perceived the light, nor can one know light until
one has perceived the darkness. Good and evil, like light and
darkness depend on each other to exist. They must exist
simultaneously for perception of a difference to be possible. That
is the inherent nature of difference. If there is no good without
evil, it follows that man must instinctively know what is evil
based on some universal principle that, according to this theory,
cannot exist because evil, if it is to be universal, must be the
same in time as it is in space, if one is to believe the
time/space equivalency of the Postmodern (?) theory. Therefore, it
requires that man, who is to determine what is evil spatially must
also determine it temporally. And, if such a determination is to
be universal, it must be constant, extending through all space and
time. That would require that man see the same thing as evil all
thoughout time, meaning that there would have to be some constancy
in human nature. And since, according to theory, man cannot be
held to be the same creature throughout all of time, does it not
hold true then, that, according to this particular theory, there
canot be any universal determinant of evil?
on behalf of Patrick
From page 33: If the general consensus says that it is so, can any action be deemed ethical; who is it that determines what is ethical?
Are ethics something that varies depending on the subject/person on which they are being applied?
From page 9: Why is it that Badiou states that evil is the form from which the good is derived, not the other way around; could it not be that the good is first and the evil derives from that good?
3 questions on Badiou
1. On page 7 of Badiou’s piece, he states that the “theme of ethics and of human rights is compatible with the self-satisfied egoism of the affluent West, with advertising, and with service rendered to the powers that be.” He says that to clarify this we must utilize the foundations of today’s ethics regarding human rights. How are today’s ethics compatible in this sense?
2. Badiou gives a list of four presuppositions regarding natural rights on page 9. The last one states that “‘human rights’ are rights to non-Evil.” These include the right not to be offended by execution, torture, and famine and the degrading of sexes, races and sexuality. What can we say about these inborn “human rights” in relation to the U.S. Constitution’s outline of natural and inalienable rights in a political sense?
3. How does Badiou’s discussion on euthanasia on pages 35 and 36 correlate with the idea of human rights?
1 - What kind of credentials must one have in order to declare something so sweeping as “The Death of Man?” (p 5) While I can see the problem with the previously discussed phantasmagoria of particular subjects, why is man not a “timelessly self-evident” being? I suspect that if one were to take a man from our time and a man from 300 BCE and raise them under the same circumstances, they would come out similar.
2 - Why is modern ethics more concerned with preventing Evil than with doing Good? Why must Good be derived from Evil? (p 8-9) More importantly, has there been a time or place where the ethical system is more concerned with Good, and focuses on doing Right rather than simply preventing Wrong?
3 - Baidou contends that several concepts that were previously taken as unchanging through time, such as history and mankind, cannot be categorized by such sweeping generalizations. (p 5) His ethics, though, seem to make the same sort of sweeping generalizations about all states and people in the modern world. I don’t understand what his ethics have to say about the individual, as opposed to the nameless, teeming masses.
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