Persecution and Morality

This book shows how persecution is a condition that binds each in an ethical obligation to the other. Persecution is functionally defined here as an impinging, affective relation that is not mediated by reason. It focuses on the works and personal lives of Emmanuel Lévinasa phenomenological ethicist who understood persecution as an ontological condition for human existenceand Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis who proposed that a demanding superego is a persecuting psychological mechanism that enables one to sadistically enjoy moral injunctions.

Scholarship on the work of Freud and Lévinas remains critical about their objectivity, but this book uses the phenomenological method to bracket this concern with objective truth and instead reconstruct their historical biographies to evaluate their hyperbolically opposing claims. By doing so, it is suggested that moral actions and relations of persecution in their personal lives illuminate the epistemic limits that they argued contribute to the psychological and ontological necessity of persecuting behaviors. Object relations and intersubjective approaches in psychoanalysis successfully incorporate meaningful elements from both of their theoretical works, which is used to develop an intentionality of search that is sensitive to an unknowable, relational, and existentially vulnerable ethical subjectivity.

Details from Freud's and Lévinas' works and lives, on the proclivity to use persecution to achieve moral ends, provide significant ethical warnings, and the author uses them as a strategy for developing the reader's intentionality of search, to reflect on when they may use persecuting means for moral ends. The interdisciplinary nature of this research monograph is intended for academics, scholars, and researchers who are interested in psychoanalysis, moral philosophy, and phenomenology. Comparisons between various psychoanalytic frameworks and Lévinas' ethic will also interest scholars who work on the relation between psychoanalysis and The Other. Lévinas scholars will value the convergences between his ethics and Freud's moral skepticism; likewise, readers will be interested in the extension of Lévinas' intentionality of search. The book is useful for undergraduate or graduate courses on literary criticism and critical theories worldwide.

Presents the facts of Freud and Levinas' lives, reframing their personal biographies in light of their theories Questions traditional narratives and neoliberal values of self-sufficiency, mastering oneself on a psychic level Examines individuated ontologies of self that have historically disadvantaged vulnerable populations

Autorentext
Valerie Giovanini is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at California State University, Northridge, USA. She earned her PhD in Philosophy, Art and Critical thought from The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, with Judith Butler as her advisor. She has taught at Mt. St. Mary's University and for various colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed and published journal articles and book reviews. Her work concerns applied ethics, moral philosophy, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Life and Work: A Historical Horizon.- Chapter 3. Getting Personal: Persecution in Freud's Personal Life.- Chapter 4. The Uncanniness of Conflicting Moral Norms.- Chapter 5. Freud's Vulnerability to the Social Ideals of His Time & Moral Skepticism.- Chapter 6. A New Kind of Psychotherapy for Ethical Subjectivity.- Chapter 7. Intermission From Freud to Lévinas.- Chapter 8. Life and Work: A Historical Horizon.- Chapter 9. Epistemic Gaps: Freedom and Mutual Dis-identification.- Chapter 10. Freedom and Existential Vulnerability: Lévinas's Vulnerability to His Cultural Ideals.- Chapter 11. Intentionality of Search: Vulnerability, Persecution, and the Ethical Bind.- Chapter 12. Conclusion: Ethics Reconsidered Always Only a Proximate Response.