Creation and renunciation in Ricoeur’s political ethics of compromise

Abstract

Ricoeur interpreted the work of compromise as a creative process to imagine a new world by projecting ourselves into other people. The challenge of compromise is to learn to tell our own story differently within the contours of a broader collective narrative, in compliance with the paradigm of translation. As such, Ricoeur’s political ethics of compromise is at risk of highlighting the element of creation, which refers to the social imagination of a shared vision of a better society, at the cost of recognition of the element of renunciation, which refers to the reciprocal shelving of ideas and desires that the other side considers to be truly intolerable. However, I argue that we can read a delicate connection between forgetting, forgoing and forgiving in Ricoeur’s thought. It is, then, the model of forgiveness, as part of the paradigm of translation, that gives due respect to the importance of renunciation through the emphasis on the unjustifiable, for which renunciation even cannot suffice. The ‘poetics of pardon’ brings creation and renunciation together and, by doing so, it highlights that compromise always remains an object of hope.

The Values of the Management of Value Conflict

“…Simultaneously, this is a presupposition in the sense that some vision of it is needed to arrive at a viable compromise (Ricoeur, 2010, p. 210. [For a reconstruction of Ricoeur’s elaboration of compromise, see also Assayag-Gillot, 2018; DeWeer, 2022). ]…”

“…The common good emerges in so far as the compromise opens the way to a future encompassing principle that bridges current disagreement. Simultaneously, this is a presupposition in the sense that some vision of it is needed to arrive at a viable compromise (Ricoeur, 2010, p. 210. [For a reconstruction of Ricoeur's elaboration of compromise, see also Assayag-Gillot, 2018;DeWeer, 2022).] Ricoeur (1992) develops his understanding of the common good in his ethical theory (the so-called "little ethics" in Oneself as Another).…”

Holding It All Together: on the Value of Compromise and the Virtues of Compromising

“…It is a presupposition in the sense that some vision of it is needed to come to a viable compromise (Ricoeur, 2010: 210). Deweer (2022) points out a further topic in Ricoeur's work that relates to compromising and that is relevant here: the topic of memory and forgetting. Compromising means accepting the unacceptable but it might also involve shelving ideas and desires that the other side considers to be truly intolerable.…”