Abstract
This paper reconsiders J. Butler’s concept of “ethics” from the perspective of “otherness” in her theory of performativity.
Since the 2000s, Butler, a feminist theorist, has focused more on the “vulnerability of life” than she did previously and topicalized ethics, in particular, by referring to E. Lévinas. Her concept of ethics implies responsibility for the “other.” This responsibility is sustained by a subject’s opacity to itself. Butler’s sense of danger with respect to the political tension in the United States and the global military situation after 9/11 urged her to topicalize ethics. Some studies consider this topicalization as Butler’s “turn” to ethics from gender performativity.
In contrast, this paper examines Butler’s argument of ethics from the perspective of her theory of performativity to clarify the relationship between social theory of the “other” and political practices. Moments of subversion are always already inherent in performativity. A normative evaluation of performative subversion results in the ethical necessity of apprehending vulnerability, as well as distributing it fairly. Furthermore, this paper discusses the transformation of power in late modernity, and argues that in the era of neoliberalism, the fair distribution of vulnerability is abandoned through the denial of vulnerability.
