The Order of Evils: Phenomenological, Moral, and Political Investigations

Catalog description

A critical reading of "The Order of Evils: Toward an Ontology of Morals" (2000), a “poststructuralist” moral treatise that combines phenomenological and structural analysis and is attuned to the historicity of knowledge and moral matters. The book understands evil as discrete harm, which becomes a moral matter only once it is judged as gratuitous, and an object of critique only once it is grasped in its regularity. The seminar, oriented toward revising the book, reexamines the reasoning that supports these intuitions and their implications: a transformation of moral discourse; a new ontology of “moral things”; the primacy of others over the self; a downgrade of “liberty,” “justice,” and “rights”; and a critical interest in the historical conditions of political action. Seminar participants will also read works by thinkers who inspired the project, including Kant, Marx, Heidegger, Levinas, Lyotard, and Derrida.