National Network for Equitable Library Service

"What does it mean to lead a moral life? In her first extended study of moral philosophy, Judith Butler offers a provocative outline for a new ethical practice -- one responsive to the need for critical autonomy and grounded in a new sense of the human subject. Butler takes as her starting point one's ability to answer the questions "What have I done?" and ´"What ought I to do?" She shows that these question can be answered only by asking a prior question, "Who is this, who is under an obligation to give an account of itself and to act in certain ways?" In three powerfully crafted and lucidly written chapters, Butler demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human.