Lacanian Ethics and the Assumption of Subjectivity

A readable and advanced introductory-level text focusing on the ethical dimensions and impact of Lacans thinking. This book argues that a rethinking of the subject necessitates a rethinking of our relation to law, tradition and morality, as well as our understanding of guilt, responsibility and desire. However we conceive of ethics, whether by appeal to an exterior or traditional notion of right and wrong, or by appeal to some form of individual virtue or responsibility, it implies some form of agency. Where there is an ethical act, there must be someone acting ethically. Working from this simple premise, this book argues that the manner in which we conceive that someone is the condition of possibility for our conception of ethics and, consequently, our ethical potential. Against the commonplace conception of the modern individual as self-identical, self-aware and self-governing, the author presents a detailed introduction to the Lacanian subject, a conception of the self as anything but self-identical, self-aware and self-governing. The book goes on to show how such a rethinking of the subject necessitates a rethinking of our relation to law, tradition and morality, as well as a rethinking of our understanding of guilt, responsibility and desire. In short, it necessitates a rethinking of ethics.