What does it mean to lead a moral life?
In her first extended study of moral philosophy, Judith Butler offers a provocative outline for a new ethical practice-one responsive to the need for critical autonomy and grounded in a new sense of the human subject.
Butler takes as her starting point one-s ability to answer the questions -What have I done?- and -What ought I to do?- She shows that these question can be answered only by asking a prior question, -Who is this -I- who is under an obligation to give an account of itself and to act in certain ways?- Because I find that I cannot give an account of myself without accounting for the social conditions under which I emerge, ethical reflection requires a turn to social theory.
In three powerfully crafted and lucidly written chapters, Butler demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human. In brillia
