ONLINE FIRST
published on January 27, 2024
Capucine Mercier
https://doi.org/10.5840/acorn202412328
Nonviolence as a Critique of Individualism in Butler and Gandhi
In this article, I put Judith Butler¡¯s thought of nonviolence in dialogue with that of M. K. Gandhi to show how, for both thinkers, a defense of nonviolence must be grounded in interdependency and equality, which consequently entails a displacement of the individual self and its interests as the focus of ethics. Although Butler¡¯s and Gandhi¡¯s accounts of nonviolence differ in some important respects, both base their defense of nonviolence on a recognition of interdependency in opposition to Western individualism. This critique of individualism as an adequate ethical framework leads each author to question the concept of self-defense and to reject the preservation of individual life as the goal of ethical and political action.