Ungeregelte Zweifel und politische Urteilsbildung bei Judith Shklar und Jacques Rancière

One question raised by the political philosophy of Judith Shklar is whether the prevention of cruelty and injustice can be conceived in a purely negativistic manner. This paper shows, by critically reconstructing Shklar’s theory, that the attempt to identify cruelty and injustice in a negativistic way remains contradictory. Contrasting this theory with Ranciere’s concept of the political underscores this point (1). The avoidance of cruelty, which is partly based on political judgments, presupposes a specific skeptical attitude, namely one that is capable of affirming unregulated doubts (2). These unregulated doubts are inseparably aesthetic and political: not only making tangible the fractures within the given normative frame, but also keeping alive the sense for injustice, which always remains in need of renewal (3).