Barthes and the Contract: sex, friendship, love
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1984-1124.i30p344-364Keywords:
Personal relationships, Contractualism, Ethics, Politics, PhilosophyAbstract
The French philosopher Roland Barthes (1915-1980) proposes the contract as a way of regulating personal relationships. By specifying the form and content of each relationship, Barthes tries to avoid two opposite and extreme positions that distort the exchange: the selfish, who takes and does not give; the saint, who gives and does not ask. Both figures block or frustrate the equality and reciprocity by which the interaction in personal relationships should be governed. Now, what contract or contracts is it? And what would its characteristics be? In this paper, I will try to answer these questions by examining three types of relationships, sex, friendship, and love, as they appear in Barthes's writings. I will look at these questions from the point of view of moral philosophy and focus on the ethical and political aspects.
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