Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil (Wo es war) [Paperback]

This is a very worthwhile text for anyone interested in ethical theory, or drawn to appeals rooted in human rights. It begins with a strong critique of the dominant strands of Western ethical theory (rights based, virtue-based and utilitarian; also deontology, though there are elements of Kantian theory that Badiou respects) -- that if nothing else should serve as a kind of gadfly to provokes theorists to reconsider the upshot of their labors. In a nutshell, Badiou's critique suggests that ethics as we know it merely serves the status quo -- whether by proposing an unrealizable "ought" or by limiting its prescriptions to what is realizable within the status quo and leaving politics and economics untouched. He argues (taking his cue from a rough approximation of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals) that what is really wrong/dangerous/weak in Western ethics is that it takes for granted the existence of evil (reality is such that there will be innocent suffering, people are such that they will inflict suffering on others in the pursuit of their own aims) and defines its good negatively as what would mitigate this evil. These theories have no positive conception of the good. His critical observations are quite powerfully stated and constitute a very reasonable challenge, that ought to be addressed.

In the positive side of his "doctrine," things get a little more muddled. It seems like he is trying to do two things: (1) formulate another ethical system that would begin from a positive conception of the good, and define evil as that which hinders or distorts that good; (2) articulate the ethical implications of his thinking regarding "events," developed elsewhere over the period of several years, and only partially clarified in this text (his master work: "Being and Event" has not yet appeared in English translation, but it will appear soon -- I can't say anything about that book though I have read a couple of other things by Badiou that have already appeared in English). The combination of these two aims is, I think, partially successful here but remains pretty vague. It is most successful (and most significant for contemporary thinking about issues like terrorism) in its description of the evils that pervert the good.

Roughly what he wants to say is that there can be no ethics within the "situation" -- this is a loose application of the is-ought distinction we find already in Hume: the situation is the world as it is, as it is understood by a present age and while this understanding gives rise to expectations and demands and limitations, it doesn't carry with it an "ethical" dimension. Ethics has to involve something more -- but since Badiou doesn't believe in a transcendent moral reality, he puts this something more into the "future," and not merely the temporal future but the radical possibility of bringing something new into the world -- the something more is the "event" that brings something new into the world, that opens up a new horizon of meaning that is irreducible to the mere situation. It makes possible relations that were not foreseen or foreseeable in the situation as it was. He mentions events like "falling in love": when someone falls in love all of a sudden we have not merely a situation but a relation between elements (two people) of the situation that in the event becomes absolute, for the lovers it is not merely a bare fact but an undeniable "truth" (a word he uses in a sense that is not well defined, but is more or less clear; it is emphatically not "truth as correspondence"). The question then becomes whether and how they will adhere to this "truth." The good, or the positive ethical "precept" for Badiou is "be faithful to the event" or "keep going, don't let this event fade, don't let it become a merely historical fact". The evil would be to either deny this truth, to be unfaithful to the lover, or alternately to treat this truth as an absolute fact -- with the possible consequence in this case that the lover terrorize his beloved, refusing to acknowledge her freedom to break away. He addresses politics (where an event would be a revolution) and science (where the event would be something like a Kuhnian paradigm shift) as other areas where events might generate a truth that can be either held to or despised.

So far, so good. There's a lot here that is worth taking seriously and thinking about. The water gets a bit murky though, in a number of places. For example, he wants to insist that the "truths" that arise from "events" are in some way universal or eternal, and what is particular is the question how the individual who finds herself compelled by the truth will live out her fidelity to that truth in the situation. It's hard to see, though, how the truth that emerges from the event of MY falling in love becomes a universal truth - unless he means something very peculiar by "universal" or unless he means that the "same" thing could happen to anyone even though it will be unique to each in the event, or that in loving another person I love what is universal, that which enables them and all human beings to be faithful to events. Some things he said suggested something like that, but other things he said make me think he'd resist such a reading. There's a lot to sort out, and I'm still not sure what to make of his positive ethic -- but it's intriguing enough and there is enough interesting material here to make me want to try and go back again and figure it out. His book on Paul makes a worthwhile companion text to this one, that helped me clear up some (but not all) of the murky areas of this text.

I enthusiastically recommend this book to those that are ready to examine a another way of being in this world and for those that can move beyond narrow clingings to their safe and dominant worldviews. Badiou asks the question about our Western identity politics and prescriptive ethics "how is it working out for us?!" Upon the answers that we receive: war, unsustainable environmental harm, implicit and explicit oppression, etc. Badiou offers another way of being. It concerns being faithful to a truth process- fluid, individuated, and NOT transcendent universals, morals, and ethics. The argument against ethics is that it places one person as an "other or lessor" and another as "benefactor". Example: it is the ethical thing for me (the benefactor) to help the poor (lessor/other) homeless. Another: A claim such as "You should not drink alcohol" puts ME in the righteous position (a non-drinker) and looks down on YOU (who chooses to drink)essentially is essentially a claiming that I am better (when in reality I am not).

Instead of "othering" people in our hubris that we are ethical and saintly, Badiou speaks of fidelity to a truth process. With truth as the focus and not our ethical, moral, and saintly wonderful self, transcendent evil is changed. Evil is reconceptualized as three forms: 1.being faithful to a false image of truth, 2."cheating on" your truth by giving up because of the difficulties associated with fidelity to truth, and 3. abusing the power of the truth to control others and/or amass power. What is most interesting in this book to me is the discussion of the truth process. This book is accessible yet difficult because it really pushes the ideas that we hold dear to account for themselves. Badiou writes the book because these ideas are structurally weakened under such scrutiny. I would recommend that upon reading you identify where you are afraid and push through the fear to follow the ideas and see where they take you. A stubborn proud mind will be frustrated with this text because it threatens one's current paradigm and the way we live in the Western world. Hope this helps you.

Ethics: An Essay On The Understanding Of Evil by political activist and philosopher Alain Badiou is an informed and informative indictment of currently prevailing ethical principles. Explaining that the widely distributed ideology of good and evil is actually used to benefit the status quo while neglecting a true understanding of evil, Ethics wrestles with the quintessential problems of evil itself, the existence of man, the ethics of truths, and more. An erudite and expressively written collection of linked and well-reasoned propositions, Ethics is a very strongly recommended addition to Philosophy & Ethics reading lists and library collections.