Between Justice and Legality: Derrida on Decision

Abstract

Recent critiques of Jacques Derrida have misunderstood his contribution to political theory and dismiss his work as apolitical or nihilistic. In contrast to this trend, I argue that Derrida’s concept of decision is the most explicitly political moment of deconstruction. Through readings of “Force of Law” and Politics of Friendship as well as some of his other writings, I argue that Derrida’s re-conceptualization of decision expands the way politics is conceived and enables a robust critique of Rawls’s consensus liberalism. Decision energizes citizenship through strategic interfaces between justice and law and foregrounds respect for others in order to make politics more ethical and lively. Derrida does not paralyze political action by taking the ground away at the moment of action but makes political actors more reflective and responsible by shaking up the stability of all political foundations. Not only have critics of Derrida overstated their case but liberals could learn something from his writings on politics.