Sovereignty and its Defenses: Psychic Retaliation and the Theologico-Political in Derrida’s Death Penalty Seminars

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn his Death Penalty Seminars, Derrida contends that analyzing the logic of the death penalty requires thinking the logic of the precarious psyche in the theologico-political sovereignty. Working closely with sources from in psychoanalysis and political philosophy, this paper argues that, despite nominally rejecting the ideals of commensurability in punishment and defense around the death penalty, abolitionist critiques of the death penalty remain largely motivated by the same psychic resonances around defense and perceived adherence to lex talionis that also undergird the death penalty itself. It asserts that psychoanalysis does not offer special insight into the theologico-political constitution of the death penalty from afar; rather, it is only because of psychoanalysis’ shared investments in the economic law of retaliation that it grants any understanding of psychic investment in political cruelty, harbored under the veneer of defense.