How to Make Impossible Decisions

Abstract

In this paper, I propose that Derrida’s writing on the impossibility of justice has the potential for fruitful dialogue with Ruth Chang’s contemporary account of practical rationality. For Derrida, making a just decision must always come with a moment of undecidability, a “leap” into the unknown with an experience of doubt and anxiety that continues to “haunt” the decision-maker. By contrast, in her work on rationality, Chang proposes that hard decisions are difficult to make because the alternatives are “on a par,” such that there are no rational differences between the alternatives that would contribute to choosing one over the other. Hard decisions are made by expressing one’s own rational agency, generating will-based reasons to commit to or “drift” into one of the alternatives. Derrida writes of anxiety, doubt, and impossibility, yet Chang writes of commitment, agency, and rationality. Despite these differences, there are important comparisons and connections between the two accounts that are worth exploring. I suggest that the moment of the decision which Derrida describes as heterogeneous to knowledge can be understood as a moment of parity in which there is a lack of given reasons, as explained by Chang. Chang’s account of rational agency provides an interpretation of how decision-making is possible despite the undecidability as described by Derrida. This notion of commitment and agency as explained by Chang is not incompatible with Derrida’s insistence that the responsible decision is haunted by anxiety and doubt. Instead, I suggest that Derrida’s writing highlights uncertainty as central to understanding the nature of hard choices and how to navigate the demands of justice.

Keywords:

• Derrida
• Ruth Chang
• decision
• hard choice
• rationality

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2022 Derrida Today conference in Washington, DC. I am grateful to the participants of the parallel session on “Ethical Response” for their helpful comments during the question session of my talk. I am particularly grateful to Matthias Fritsch for his valuable feedback and suggestions, as well as Steven Gormley for his inspiring lectures at the University of Essex in 2017, which were central to shaping my interpretation of Derrida's ethical turn. Any mistakes in interpretation are my own.

Notes

1 See, for example, passages in Derrida, “Force of Law” 16; Negotiations 200; Paper Machine 20; Of Hospitality 45.

2 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this quotation.

3 See also Geoffrey Bennington’s 2011 interpretation of Derrida’s use of the term “madness” as borrowed from Kierkegaard.

4 See, for example, the passages in Derrida and Düttmann 7; Derrida and Roudinesco 53; Derrida et al. 34; Derrida, Rogues 145; Deconstruction in a Nutshell 19.

5 For a similar iteration of these questions, see Derrida, “Force of Law” 23; Psyche: Inventions of the Other 166.

6 Chang also rejects the view that a choice is hard in virtue of either “incomparability” or “incommensurability” of the alternatives (see “Are Hard Choices”; “Hard Choices” 6–10). For the purposes of the discussion here I leave aside an explanation and analysis of these arguments. Even if the alternatives in a choice were comparable with respect to justice, and commensurable in terms of a shared unit of measurement that could be used to determine the extent to which an alternative is just, I take it that Derrida would still insist the moment of decision is heterogeneous to knowledge, including the rules and calculations that would be involved in determining the comparability and commensurability of alternatives.

7 Some might object to Chang’s view on the basis that relying on will-based reasons results in the plausibility of justifying one’s choices ad hoc or retrospectively, akin to hindsight bias or wrongful justification. As such, Chang must quality that the will-based reasons that generate either a commitment to or drifting acceptance of one of the alternatives must not be generated after the fact. However, this objection can similarly be brought against traditional views of attributing reasons to a decision, so the objection is not unique to Chang’s account. Thanks to Matthias Fritsch for raising this point during the question session of the 2022 Derrida Today conference.

8 See, for example, passages in Derrida, “Force of Law” 24; Politics of Friendship 219; Specters of Marx 65.

9 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this quotation and point of difference.

10 See, for example, Derrida’s mention of the “pledge” in Specters of Marx (47, 51) and For What Tomorrow (Derrida and Roudinesco 53). For interpretations of Derrida’s use of the term, see Kronick and Evink.