(De)construction of Identities and the Limits of Ethics

Abstract

In contemporary philosophy, especially Anglo-American, it is often taken for granted that in various fields, such as politics, economy and law, human conduct can be guided by ethical rules. It is also widely held that it is a legitimate philosophical task to seek and find such rules. The article shows that the possibility of an ethical standpoint depends on certain conditions that may or may not be present in a given situation. Namely, in order for an ethical standpoint to be possible, the identities of the participants in the situation must be determined and must not be contested. Otherwise, an ethical perspective on the situation becomes problematic for both the participants themselves and observers. To the extent that identities are ethically relevant they are grounded in certain performative acts and, therefore, they can end up being put into question or rejected if those acts are not performed or simply fail. When this is the case, there appears a situation, which it is difficult to treat in terms of ethics or normative theory in general, for the situation consists precisely in the questioning of the source of existing norms.