The Most Difficult Task On the Idea of an Impure Pure Nonviolence in Derrida

While my work on this aspect of Derrida's thought—his late lecture courses on the death penalty in particular—is motivated by general political concerns about prisons and the death penalty, what really motivated me is the idea of forgiveness. It seems to me that, if somehow, we were able to abolish the death penalty all over the earth, this event would imply a worldwide forgiveness of criminals. This connection between the abolition of the death penalty and forgiveness led me back to the problem of the gift. For Derrida, one cannot conceive forgiveness without conceiving the gift. So, the majority of the paper that follows considers the gift, but with an eye toward forgiveness. As is well-known Derrida says that forgiveness (or an act worthy of that name) takes place only in relation to an unforgiveable injury. If the injury can be forgiven, then the injury can be measured, and if it can be measured, then the forgiveness is commensurate with the injury. For Derrida, this is not forgiveness; it is an exchange. Forgiveness must be unconditional just as gift-giving must be unconditional: if I expect reciprocation for a gift I have given you, then we have an exchange. We have a commercial transaction. Derrida argues that the unconditionality of the gift and forgiveness is a conceptual necessity, but I also think he intends this necessity as an ethical necessity. I have found this double necessity of unconditionality (and Derrida will say at times without sovereignty) to be very attractive, just as I have found Kant's moral philosophy attractive: never treat others as a means to an end (i.e., never treat them as a condition for your action), but only ever treat them as an end in themselves (treat them unconditionally). This search for unconditionality—even though it is impossible since there seems always to be conditions—has motivated a lot of my work over the last fifteen years.