ROBERTO ESPOSITO'S DEONTOLOGICAL COMMUNAL CONTRACT

Abstract

This article underlines and draws attention to critical insights that Esposito makes regarding the prospects of rethinking community in a globalized world. Alongside Agamben and Nancy, Esposito challenges the property prejudice found in mainstream models of community. In identity politics, collective identity is converted into a form of communal property. Borders, sovereign territories, and exclusive rights are fiercely defended in the name of communal property. Esposito responds to this problem by developing what I call a “deontological communal contract” where being and ethics are prioritized over having and economics. I examine this new perspective on community in relation to mainstream models found in contemporary and classical social theory.

Keywords:

• community
• contractualism
• deontology
• existentialism
• property
• Esposito
• Nancy
• biopolitics

Notes

I would like to thank Kathy Bischoping, Kristin Hole, Anne O'Byrne, and Jon Short for providing thoughtful feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. Thank you also to the anonymous peer-reviewers for constructive feedback and to the editorial team at Angelaki.

1 For a brief overview of this topic see C.B. Macpherson's work on the “possessive individual” (Political Theory; “Liberalism”; and “Meaning”), Vandana Shiva's critique of the Western property prejudice, and Étienne Balibar's critique of Heideggerian efforts to deconstruct this political economy (“‘Possessive Individualism’”). For an examination of the relationship between Lockean political economy and colonialism see Armitage; and Pateman.

2 This is not to say that political theology does not play an important part in Esposito's analyses of communitas or its constitutive other, immunitas. A full chapter called “The katechon” is dedicated to political theology in Immunitas and it is addressed in the opening pages of Communitas. This theme is also present in Eposito's writings on the impersonal, such as Third Person, “For a Philosophy of the Impersonal,” and “The Dispositif of the Person.” For further commentary see Campbell; Goodrich; and Barkan.

3 For an excellent discussion of Esposito's use of “im-” in his writings on the “impolitical” as both a position internal to politics and against politics see Bosteels. Esposito likewise uses this double sense when writing about the improper. It is a spacing, a gap, even a hole inscribed within the very political economy of the proper that is essential to its core functions. To appropriate and close it off is to put an end to politics, which, Esposito claims, results in “totalitarianism” (“Totalitarianism”). Esposito seeks to exploit this space to circumvent and traverse it. He employs this deconstructive motif across most of his writings.

4 See Esposito, “Community, Immunity, Biopolitics.”

5 See both Bosteels and Neyrat for critiques of Esposito on this score; see both Norris and Elliott for similar critiques of Nancy.

6 Gerard Delanty is referring to a collection of essays on communitarianism edited by Fred Dallmayr in 1978.

7 The first footnote of Communitas praises Nancy's The Inoperative Community, which Esposito claims in an allegorical fashion is “a text to which I owe an unpayable debt, as is the case for every munus given us in the form of the most unexpected gift” (Communitas 1 fn. 1). The full significance of these words should be apparent from the examination in this section. It is also noteworthy that the last footnote of the work is dedicated to Nancy's The Sense of the World (Communitas 148 fn. 14).

8 “Finite existence is necessarily divided/shared (partagée). ‘Politics’ must designate what interests us in the ‘common’. The stakes are the interest (that which matters) of inter-esse (simultaneously: ‘to be between’, ‘to be separated’, ‘to differ’, ‘to be amongst’, ‘to participate’)” (“La Comparution” 94).

9 The Heideggerian strains in this debate have been well documented. See Bird; Bernasconi; Critchley; Gratton; James; O'Byrne; Raffoul.

10 Nancy remains reluctant to treat community, even compearance, in an ethical formulation; however, for Esposito ontology is ethical (see Esposito and Nancy). Nancy focuses on the compulsion and force of the event itself, while Esposito employs a deontological formula.

11 Of course, Bataille serves as the third person in the debate between Blanchot (Unavowable Community) and Nancy (Inoperative Community) (see Bird; Bernasconi; and Critchley). Esposito's placement of this chapter at the end of this book is significant in this regard, which he clearly signifies by placing a reference to Blanchot's Unavowable Community in the first footnote of this chapter.