Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil

Rating:
Summary: very low level bs
Review: Badiou is a joke. Ultimately his definition of Evil is that it's simply anything he wants it to be. It's like sophomores throwing the word "fascist" around. Capitalism causes every sex murder, every murder by a mother of her child. And Mao was a "genius" whose ideas have been insufficiently explored. Sure.

Rating:
Summary: An erudite and expressively written collection
Review: Ethics: An Essay On The Understanding Of Evil by political activist and philosopher Alain Badiou is an informed and informative indictment of currently prevailing ethical principles. Explaining that the widely distributed ideology of good and evil is actually used to benefit the status quo while neglecting a true understanding of evil, Ethics wrestles with the quintessential problems of evil itself, the existence of man, the ethics of truths, and more. An erudite and expressively written collection of linked and well-reasoned propositions, Ethics is a very strongly recommended addition to Philosophy & Ethics reading lists and library collections.

Rating:
Summary: Sooo Bad
Review: This book largely consists of bad reasoning and rhetorical, statetist platitudes. It has little to do with evil and a lot to do with leftover propaganda from the era of Marcuse and other peddlers of communitarian/Marxist nonsense. For a much more thorough and rational consideration of evil, ethics, and economics, read M. Berumen's Do No Evil.

Rating:
Summary: More about Radical Politics than Ethics
Review: This is in reality only a pamphlet-sized work inflated in size by an appendaged introduction by the translator over 40 pages long and an interview also conducted by the translator about 50 pages long. Though short, this pithy little work remains important just by virtue of how widely read it is, comparable to the role of THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO to Marx's Âœuvre.

The introduction describes this work as a bit of a manifesto, and indeed, its contents are written with such bravado and conviction, combined with a laconic lucidity and concluding summaries, which one would expect to see in a manifesto. Being written by a scholar who has already written a decent sized book on Badiou, the introduction is actually key to the entire publication insofar as it situates the work itself and its author within the intellectual currents which produced both.

One becomes increasingly clear, however, is that "ethics" is throughout a word equivocated with the current global politico-economic system, which Badiou is really trying to subvert here. Hence, he hopes to supplant this order, embodied in human-rights discourse, with his own neo-Marxist, radical politics. His ethics is, therefore, an attempt to put the revolution back into "revolutionary Marxism". Though ostensibly about ethics, this is, indeed, Alain Badiou's chief of concerns

Some of his ideas are ingenious, but others are a bit loony. Predominant throughout is the theme of Truth as event which defines 'the Good'. This revolutionary intervention initiates and creates subsequently a truth-process which creates and ethical good as such. Evil is not autonomous here but merely a perversion, abuse, or betrayal of the truth event. This posits as the alternative to Kantian, natural law tradition which reifies "evil" and thereafter nihilistically, in Badiou's eyes, constructs a negative ethics that is essentially conservative. Themes present in the works of Kant, Lacan, and Lévinas [whom he criticizes quite often rejecting his ethics of 'the other'] often intersect, and they remain his main phantom interlocutors throughout the extended essay.

The interview at the end moves from issues particular to contemporary France like *les sans-papiers* and the status of immigrant communities to philosophical questions giving opportunity for caveats and discussions of other works besides *Ethics*.

Overall, Badiou offers some interesting ideas in this book, but writers such as Alisdair MacIntyre who are really concerned with ethics and not so much with reviving some nostalgic revolutionary politics offer much more enlightening critiques and examinations of modern ethics such as human rights, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Sneak Peak at a Major Player
Review: Unfortunately, only a few of Alain Badiou's books have been translated to English, but that won't be true for long. While many philosophers since Nietzsche have been declaring the end of philosophy, Badiou revives the field in his delightful, stimulating work. Sick of hearing unoriginal applications Derrida, Deleuze, and Lacan, without hearing any truly novel philosophical thought? What has been called the "post-structuralist critique of subjectivity" has become cliché, but fear not: as more of Badiou's work is translated into English, expect a revival of lively critical debates over ethics and subjectivity.

Two chief elements distinguish Badiou's philosophy. First, his writing is incredibly lucid, so even though some of his arguments are pretty complicated, a reader with a good mind can easily follow his thought. This is really refreshing, since what makes a lot of French philosophy difficult is not its profundity, but the poor quality of the writing. With Badiou, you're not wading through unexplained terms: you're wading through remarkably intelligent argumentation. Second, rather than rehearsing cliché critiques of capitalism, psychoanalysis, logocentrism, etc., Badiou immerses himself in Philosophy proper, and takes seriously the ethical claims of contemporary humanism. Rather than engaging in an anthropological/cultural studies critique of humanistic culture, as Foucault and Baudrillard do, Badiou is willing to question the logical contentions of humanism. He's able to enter into the old-school debates over ethics and actually come out ahead.

Defenders of the Enlightenment, such as Habermas, Nussbaum, and Rorty, have argued persuasively that French critical theory lacks a solid ethical foundation, and argue that modern human rights focus can be the only responsible ethical culture. Enter Badiou. Starting with a rigorous attack on the philosophical foundations of modern ethics, Badiou questions whether an ethics that tells us only what injustices we cannot suffer is adequate to appreciate possibilities for truly ethical life. He then interrogates the way in which modern ethics informs modern practices ranging from domestic policy to military intervention.

Badiou's application of Lacan is of particular interest, and his theory of situations is a unique development of his thought. ETHICS is short, very readable, and contains a great deal of stimulating perspectives on ethics, subjectivity, and modern politics. It's also a great introduction to one of the great emerging thinkers of this century's philosophy.

I recommend this book especially to readers who take a left-wing stand on many political issues, not because Badiou's philosophy lends itself to left-wing thought, but, rather, because Badiou's critique of modern ethics paves the way for a theory of politics that can conceive of solutions to the abuses of capitalism that can defend itself against legitimating conservative notions of 'freedom' and 'justice.'

Excellent book. Excellent book for anyone interested in philosophy and ethics.