Literature and Ethics: Questions of Responsibility in Literary Studies
Powered By Xquantum

Literature and Ethics: Questions of Responsibility in Literary St ...

Chapter 1:  Derrida’s Ethics of “Irresponsibilization”; or, How to Get Irresponsible, in Two Easy Lessons
Read
image Next

This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.

Chapter 1

Derrida’s Ethics of “Irresponsibilization”; or, How to Get Irresponsible, in Two Easy Lessons1

J. Hillis Miller

My signature is the moment of highest responsibility in a deep irresponsibility.

—Jacques Derrida, A Taste for the Secret

L’éthique peut donc être destinée à irresponsibiliser.

—Jacques Derrida, Donner la mort

What in the world does Derrida mean by saying the ethical can therefore be destined to irresponsibilise?