3. The Genie Speaks for Themself: Subject Formation in Butler
3.4. Chapter Conclusion
conditions of the weather or the vessel also determine what course can and should be taken.
This analogy suggests that while there may indeed be a difference between the levels of analysis taken by Levinas and Foucault, if we step back we see the way in which they in fact can contribute towards a mutual idea. Their differences here are two sides of the same coin, allowing us to account for differing aspects of intersubjective ethical-subject formation.
freedom and autonomy. This address of the Other also presents a fundamental opacity at the heart of the subject; something it cannot explain in itself. At the same time, these investitures and the subject themself are also limited by the socio-cultural and historical context of subject formation. These external factors set a framework of intelligibility that determines what will be counted as subject-creation, in a way not reducible to the subject, and thus also opaque to its account of itself.
In striking a balance between these two positions, we have somewhat moved away from them and Butler’s intended use of them. However, as indicated above, I believe that we should not be perturbed by this. We can take core ideas from these diverse thinkers to construct a broader theory on intersubjective ethical-subject formation. In so doing in the way suggested, we can respond to accusations that critique of the subject undermines the capacity to establish a stable foundation for ethical-subjectivity. As has been demonstrated above, while it may prompt a rethinking of how the subject is formed, such critiques serve as a broad basis for a different view of ethical-subject formation. This also has implications for our conception of ethical responsibility.
Conclusion and Discussion
We now return to the concern that first motivated this thesis. Given the critiques of the liberal-humanist account of subjectivity, how are we to conceive of ourselves as ethical-subjects in our postmodern times? Do such critiques destabilise subjectivity and undermine our capacities as ethical agents? Are we all like the genie, at the whim of another and imprisoned within the limits of a structural lamp? Would it be such a bad thing if we were? I hope that this thesis has answered such questions in at least three ways.
Firstly, by examining subject formation in Levinas and Foucault, I have shown that their ideas do not amount to a simple dismissal of the notion of the subject. There is a fear from some theoretical perspectives that questioning the integrity of subjects “creates a black box or an empty organism, bereft of all subjective life” in their place.268 Emphasising the formation of the subject through others supposedly denies the internal agency of the subject necessary for ethical life. My exposition of Levinas and Foucault sought to allay this fear. Even though these authors are critical of an independent, liberal-humanist subject, they do not subscribe to an entirely socially determined one either. Rather, in both cases, we have seen a middle-ground position on ethical-subject formation in their work; a second-personal perspective between the first and the third. The fear that accounts such as theirs represent a
“destitution of the subject” is simply misplaced.269 While we have rethought the subject to take into account the influence of a direct relation with alterity, and the broader limitations set by socio-cultural and historical context, acknowledging these influences does not equal denying the foundation of the subject. Rather, it sees the subject formed in a dynamic relation with multiple (though specified) factors within a limited background structure of possibility/intelligibility. This is the scene of an address where the subject gives an account of themself. Although called forth by another, like the genie, the subject still has much within the power within the confines of their structural determination.
This may sound too fluid a basis for ethical-subjectivity, and concomitant notions of moral responsibility. Indeed, alongside a fear of structural determinism we can also identify
268 K. J Gergen, ‘The Social Construction of the Self’, in S. Gallagher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Self, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 649.
269 E. Balibar, ‘Structuralism: A Destitution of the Subject?’, Differences, vol. 14, no. 1, 2003, pp. 1-21. This is perhaps most simply because neither of the thinkers we have been
considering are straightforwardly structuralist.
a fear of volatility associated with criticisms of postmodernism - critique of the subject undermines its capacity to be a firm foundation for other dependent concepts of personal identity, moral responsibility, social justice, etc. Yet we cannot do away with these concepts.
As Barresi and Martin put it, this fear is that “as a fragmented, explained, and illusory phenomena, the self can no longer regain its elevated status. Even so, the notion of the self is too important for personal and social purposes to just go away.”270 Critiques of the subject are thus seen to destabilise important ethical concepts, turning is into the volatile and tricky genie (as embodied in Robin Williams’ performance).
This second fear has been answered by the construction of a broad theory on intersubjective ethical-subject formation. If the concern is that theories critical of the liberal-humanist unity of the subject serve only to destabilise, then I hope that the construction of a broad theory on subject formation relieves this. My aim has been to show that although we must question the notion of the subject understood as self-founding (as the ideas of both Levinas and Foucault suggest), this does not mean abandoning the subject to a chaotic constitution. In fact, the limitation of the subject to serve as its own foundation may in fact be the constitutive factor of subject formation. This has been suggested by the reconciliation of Levinas and Foucault in Butler. It is through the giving of an account that the subject forms itself. However, this formation involves two limitations: (1) the cause for this account lying outside of the subject (in the address of an Other), and (2) the background conditions that demarcate the space of this formation being given by normative structures outside of the subject (in the scene of address). We thus have a specified theoretical framework for ethical-subject formation that both denies a liberal-humanist assumption of ethical-subjective essentialism, whilst not abandoning the reality of the subject. Furthermore, we have specified theoretical parameters in the features of this account to assess subject formation.
We can thus use this worked-out theory of ethical-subject formation as a basis for other important ethical concepts. This responds to a third and final fear about a more critical account of ethical-subjectivity. For if the subject is constituted intersubjectively by its own limitations, in the manner described, then it is alleged that this subject cannot be morally responsible. Such a failing would seem to count against this conceptualisation of
ethical-270 J. Barresi and R. Martin, ‘ History as Prologue: Western Theories of the Self’, in S.
Gallagher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Self, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 55.
subjectivity. As Kathleen Magnus puts it, “this acknowledgement of the subject’s extreme limitations seems at first to preclude the possibility of moral agency; if subjects are so thoroughly embedded in the social structures which produce them that they can hardly even know themselves, it would seem that they can never be held responsible for anything.”271 However, we can respond here using the account of subject formation to rethink responsibility. This shows that such an account can serve as a coherent ethical theory.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, Butler rethinks responsibility following directly from “an understanding of the subject as nonsovereign, obscure to itself and characteristically dependent on others for social existence” – the understanding of the subject developed in chapter3.272 It is because of its limitations as self-forming subject (at both the direct level of address and contextually), that the subject becomes a responsible one. Indeed, Butler makes this explicit, stating that “responsibility must be rethought on the basis of” the limitations of the subject.273 This responsibility based on limitations will be different to our standard way of conceptualising responsibility.274 Rather than a notion based on the autonomous control exercised by the subject, Butler’s notion is much more Levinasian, taking responsibility as a fact of being. As they state, “I am not primarily responsible by virtue of my actions, but by virtue of the relation to the Other.”275 However, Butler does not follow Levinas in seeing this responsibility as infinite, where the subject is forever subjected to the ‘persecution’ of the Other. Rather, “to take responsibility for oneself it to avow the limits of any self-understanding, and to establish these limits not only as a condition for the subject but as the predicament of the human community.”276 To be responsible is thus to acknowledge one’s own limitations as a self-forming subject and carry this understanding into the social and political sphere. This turns the allegation that a limited subject cannot be responsible on its
271 K.D. Magnus, ‘The Unaccountable Subject’, 2006, p. 92.
272 C. Mills, ‘Normative Violence, Vulnerability, and Responsibility’, Differences, vol. 18, no. 2 2007, p. 123.
273 J. Butler, GAO of Oneself, 2005, p. 83.
274 Indeed, as C. Mills puts it, “Butler’s account of ethical responsibility [stands] in direct contrast with theories of ethics that make autonomy a prerequisite of responsibility”. (C.
Mills, ‘Undoing Ethics: Butler on Precarity, Opacity and Responsibility’, in M. Lloyd (ed.), Butler and Ethics, 2015, p. 52.).
275 Ibid., p. 88.
276 Ibid., p. 83.
head – in fact our responsibility crucially comes from the way in which we are formed as ethical-subject, intersubjectively.
There has been much recent scholarship on the development of this ‘ethical turn in Butler’s work’.277 Some recognises the potential value of rethinking responsibility in more social terms.278 Other responses remain more critical.279 While the debate around Butler’s conception lie outside of the scope of this work, what I hope to have indicated is that the conception of subjection-formation that has been developed here does not hamstring attempts at ethical theorising. Quite the opposite, as the literature on Butler’s notion of responsibility shows, conceiving of the subject as formed intersubjectively in the scene of address presents an opportunity for rethinking our ethical concepts. Alongside other work challenging our ethical assumptions, we may thus be able to use this different conception of ethical-subjectivity to reapproach our attitude to key ethical notions. In this sense, this theory of subject formation presents an opportunity, not the kind of threat that critics of postmodernism often assume. In Butler’s words, to be formed as a subject in this way is “a chance – to be addressed, claimed, bound to what is not me, but also to be moved, to be prompted to act, to address myself elsewhere.”280 As ethical-subjects formed in an address, we are invited to perform on the ethical and political stage. We should all remember our formation as genies, constricted by our own lamp, as we are released into the world.
277 See for instance M. Lloyd’s book, Butler and Ethics, (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), for much discussion.
278 Magnus, 2006, p. 93.
279 A range of problems have been pointed out regarding Butler’s conception of
responsibility. See the chapters by C.Mills, S. Rushing, and S.A. Chambers in M. Lloyd (ed.), Butler and Ethics, 2015.
280 J. Butler, GAO of Oneself, 2005, p. 136.
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