ABSTRACT
The poststructuralist disdain for the centered epistemological subject and a strong psychological ego is seen as no less an attack on the responsible moral agent. Even if the existence of such an agent can still be admitted, the poststructuralist belief in the undecidability of interpretations has been taken to imply the impossibility of any informed ethical decisions. The actual status of ethical discourse among poststructuralists themselves may, therefore, come as somewhat of a surprise. Paradoxically, poststructuralist ethics, at least in certain of its guises, and Kierkegaard's fideistic existentialism share another trait, which is in tension with their defense of a weakly autonomous agent able to resist authority. Here the influence of Levinas on Lyotard and other poststructuralists comes into play. Similarly, poststructuralist ethics is based on a rejection of a society of egalitarian mutuality and reciprocity. If, however, poststructuralist ethics seems to privilege art over morality.
