by Xi Lin

Created on: May 26, 2008

Contemporary notions of justice include fairness, giving each his or her due, among other things. However, none of these theories take into account the impossibility of truly respecting these ideals. What many fail to realize is Derrida's infinite obligation to the other, the necessity of discrimination. It is the purpose of this article to demonstrate why our ideals of justice inherently entails discrimination and violence. Martin Hagglund writes: "Every definition and every measure of violence is itself violent, since it is based on decisions that are haunted by what they exclude. The criteria for what counts as violence are therefore always open to challenge. Indeed, there would be no chance to pursue political critique and to transform the law if the definitions of violence were not subject to possible alteration. A contemporary example is the extension of animal rights. What formerly went unrecognized as violence in the juridical sense- the abuse and killing of animals- has begun to be recognized as an [unjust] illegal violence. A similar transformation of the criteria for what counts as violence is still underway with regard to subordinated classes, races, and genders."

Measurements of justice and violence are synonymous because all principles of justice rely on the extermination and ignoring of other conceptions of violence and justice. Also, life's inherent unpredictability makes violence between people inevitable. Hagglund articulate[s] this link between alterity and violence by following passages in Levinas's own texts. For example, some of the most fascinating pages in Totality and Infinity demonstrate that it is mortality that exposes being to a constitutive alterity. To be mortal is to be susceptible to forces that one's own will cannot finally master. In this context, Levinas admits that violence must be regarded as an essential risk, since the inevitable death to come figures as a relentless threat. Regardless of how tranquil death may appear, it is always a "murder" that one neither can guard against nor prepare for. One can only try to delay death for as long as possible, haunted by an irreducible insecurity as regards one's own future. Interestingly enough, Levinas connects this fundamental vulnerability with the relation to the other. Precisely because of my disquietude before what will happen, I become aware of my limitation and my dependence on others, which cannot be pacified by any transcendent Good. Levinas himself writes that [thus]

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