Nonviolence as a Critique of Individualism in Butler and Gandhi

Abstract

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.