Finding the Ethical Relation in Political Representation

Author:

• Shawn M. Snidow (University of Oklahoma)

Abstract:

Much of the literature on political representation focuses on the forms by which one person acts for another person. Whether the view follows Hobbes's (1651/1988) authorization, Burke's (1774/1839) trusteeship, Pitkin's (1967) descriptive, or other formulations of representation, there is present in all forms of representation, a relationship between the representative and the citizen. The question addressed by this paper is: Is this representative relationship an ethical relationship? Instead of creating or referring back to Aristotelian categorical imperatives and virtues, this question is approached using Levinas' (1989a) phenomenological description of the ethical relationship, as the inter-subjective relation, brought about by the mauvaise consciousness and the realization that my condition and the Other's condition are inextricably linked. The use of Levinas's ethical relationship is not for the purposes of setting up political representation for certain failure to achieve such utopian requirements, but to illuminate aspects of political representation that are truly ethical, such as identifying when and where acting for another is a legitimate ethical act and when it is merely a job, duty, or self-interested act. This project that begins as an exploratory exercise leads to provocative insights regarding modernism, its perspectival bias, and ethics.