Vincent Kundukulam
Among the ethical issues dealt by Derrida, the concept of justice deserves our special attention. He explains the notion of justice in relation to law. Justice is, in one sense, nothing other than rule of law. But in another sense, it is the literal application of law that which leads to injustice. Any system of law whether it is divine, human or natural, it cannot in itself adequately say which conduct is just in a given situation. Hence Derrida argues for the need of deconstructing the law when it becomes incoherent in a particular situation. While he considers deconstruction as necessary for the just application of law, he does not improvise any parallel system to law. Man cannot go beyond the laws, which are conceptualizations of ethical obligations. What humans can do is to overcome the limitations of laws by decomposing them wherever they give birth to violence and inequality. Put in other words, to Derrida, justice is deconstruction.
Ethics is related to social life and evidently Derrida has certain feeling of unease about the concepts of community, hospitality and gift, all very close to building up fellowship in society. Analysing the etymology of the word community (cum meaning common and munis meaning defence) he shows that community implies simultaneously sharing and exclusion. Commitment to a specific community requires cutting oneself off from a whole range of other people. Similarly, hospitality might, at first glance, seem to be a solution to the issue of exclusion but in a deeper analysis we observe that the mode of acceptance the guest gets in the house or in the country of host would be short of perfect belongingness. Welcoming guest renders a certain power to the host over the guest. According to Derrida, the act of giving gift also has self-exceeding character. The gift gives certain moral gain to the donor. The donor is better off than before s/he was before giving the gift. The receiver of the gift has the burden of owing a gift until s/he reciprocates with an equal gift to the donor. Having said this, Derrida does not fully negate their value but he points towards the need of deconstructing these acts in order to free them of vested interests and to make them genuine.
Towards the end of his life, Derrida specifically analysed the phenomenon of religious revival, as an essential ethical concern. One of the essential questions he asked was, why the return of religion is marked by an escalation of violent problems of fundamentalism? He admits that religion is at the root of many wars. He found positive religion or dogmatic religion as a danger. To Derrida, there is always more than a return in the process of religious backlash. In his opinion, religion comes back in two different ways: first in the form of a super call and second, in the form of the dangerous super call. The second one indeed brings back another religion: not any particular religious dogma, but faith which produces fanaticism. It would be difficult to criticize the religious revival in the name of reason alone because reason is not independent of belief and knowledge is not independent of faith.
How can we make religion universal without letting it to become a natural religion? was one of Derrida’s ethical concerns at the end of his life. According to him, religion can be universal only if it is open to the arrival of another. It could be open to the coming of the other only with the advent of justice and prophetic foreshadowing. This openness to the other characterizes the messiahship without messianism. The concept of messiah gives hope about the saviour who is to come. It creates a space for perpetual ‘beyond’, for the other that is always imminent but never actually there. It makes us constantly aware of the limits of our experiences. But messianism speaks about one saviour who has already come. It is coloured by the features of a particular period of history and culture. Derrida is for messiahship, which means to live faith without any dogma. The faith without dogma makes one available to the other and demonstrates the confidence in the meeting of the other or encountering the other communities.
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