ABSTRACT
In Harold Bloom's words – a little emphatic to tell the truth –Barnardine offers us the 'marvelous image' of a man who 'gives us a minimal hope for the human as against the state, by being unwilling to die for any man's persuasion'. Barnardine acts de potentia ordinata: he cannot die because he does not want to die, in accordance with some "laws" that are no longer the laws of Vienna, but the laws of the sovereignty of the subject Barnardine who rises up alongside the State, disputing its presumption to kill him. His are laws that today we would say are contained in the "canon" of human rights. Of course, Barnardine's call is not the same as an oath, but if, with his response, Barnardine had consented to his killing, it would have given that recognition of sovereign power that would have included him in the political community.
