The Foundational Structure of Self-Identity and Moral Criticism: An Analytical Study of Judith Butler’s Philosophy

Abstract

      Judith P. Butler (1956) is a contemporary American philosopher, writer, and gender supporter. She has had many takes on various social, global, political, and personal issues in modern-day philosophy and ideology. She, also, served as a chair in different literary and academic positions in the United States and in Europe. This paper, accordingly, draws on Butler’s contributions to philosophy, mainly those issues of identity and moral criticism.  In Butler's philosophy, there is a deep alignment between two aspects: the first relates to the continuous research into non-personal conditions that are active in the formation of self-identity, and the second relates to the role of such conditions in promoting moral responsibility. Butler considers human reality objectively and comprehensively the various aspects of its fragility and vulnerability. It is not written on the basis of an optimistic and naïve vision that characterized many philosophies described as human, It also refuses to succumb to the pessimism of structural philosophies. If there is any hope possible, it is a responsible hope that carries not so many promises as to acknowledge the bitterness of reality and to induce action. It is an indefinite, ambiguous, and unclear moral project, likely to succeed and possibly fail as well, and if it fails, it does not give up, but reverts, it is up to our sincere intentions. The problem with this research is a set of real ethical questions relating to the ability to live freely in a world created and restricted by the conditions of necessity, is that possible? What are the possible linkages between the formative blindness to self-identity and the establishment of responsibility-based ethics and the power of non-violence? Finally, this has affected social theory, that is, the relationship between moral criticism and social theory.