Sittlichkeit and Dependency (December 2011)
Abstract: It would seem that at some point the obligation to love my neighbor as myself loses its ethical bearings and becomes servitude. Surely the injunction to show concern for the existential needs, sufferings, and welfare of the other is one that animates the normative imaginary of a wide spectrum of contemporary politics. There is however much disagreement with regard to the point at which such an attitude becomes a threat to the autonomy of the self and a liability to a just and flourishing political order. Indeed, it is precisely the prospect of the latter that has led thinkers to subordinate the respective orientations of "care" and "solidarity" to impartial, reciprocative principles of moral argumentation. Conversely, writers within the deconstructive tradition have positioned the asymmetrical orientation of concern for the irreducible otherness of the other as a standpoint from which social inquiry and criticism must take their ethico-political bearings. This talk will focus on such issues and relate them to customs of hospitality and concern in South Asia.
Dr. Richard Ganis is assistant professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences.
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