> Ken:
> >that when one acts in the service of God, or country, or
> >capital ... we risk the highest degree of authoritarianism.
> >We can only be responsible for things when we acknowledge
> >their incompleteness, their failure.
> What if by acknowledging 'failure,' 'incompleteness,'
etc., you are acting 'in the service of God, or country, or
capital' & doing so more effectively than otherwise? In
any case, there is no moral principle that prevents what
you call 'authoritarianism.'
For Lacan, there is no Other of the Other. So the idea that one could "opt out" of one Good in the name of another higher and equal Good is incoherent (the result being something like the fatalism of a world generated and sustained by a mad god) (as illustrated by the movie eXistenZ). The network of neuroses involved in taking responsibility, the reality of radical evil, do not entail a further diabolical evil or highest good behind it. As Drucilla Cornell notes, "reality is not interpretation all the way down" (here marks the fundamental difference between eXistenZ and the Matrix or Thirteen Floor). Ethics as a viewpoint from the perspective of evil acknowledges that an ethical awareness of responsibility is only present when we recognize our incompleteness. This incompleteness is not infinite (which would be a leap into the "abyss of freedom / damnation") (the mad god senario). It's about praxis, contingency, and finitude. Structually, what you are noting here is an impossibility however very possible within a linguistic game. So, if one sees responsibility as the highest good, then when one actually thinks they are taking full responsibility, they are acting on behalf of a highest good. Responsibility, in the form of guilt or regret, does not have the same dynamic as being responsible and proud. As for moral principles, no, there is no *substantial* moral principle that prevents authoritarianism. However, any tautological or *empty* principle will. Kant's categorical imperative, as it has been re-read by the Slovene Lacanian School, forbids any and all kinds of authoritarianism - systematically. That is why Kant is a crucial thinker in the defense of radical enlightenment and radical *human* (practical!) freedom.
my $#^&*@ printer is out of ink, ken