Ethics from the Edge: A Sketch of Precarity from a Philosophy of Communication

This essay offers an interpretation of precarity as a way to think about the fundamental nature of language (communication) to our being-together, which leads in turn to thinking deeply about ethics. The essay shows how our everyday and merely technological use of language has disastrous consequences for ethical conduct because it attacks what is unique to our being-together by way of what is most unique to us (i.e., language). It follows from this, that ethics requires our ability, as difficult as it admittedly is, to say “we” in a careful manner that attempts to use language as a way of showing the world. This “we” includes ethical obligations to past and future generations as well as those living today.