Worms: primordial jurisprudence and viral being

Gearey, Adam (2023) Worms: primordial jurisprudence and viral being. Legalities 3 (1), pp. 22-43. ISSN 2634-3770.

Abstract

Dasein is radically open to the possibility of viral infection. Thinking through Dasein’s ruined constitution is the task for primordial jurisprudence. Juris-prudence is etymologically the ‘seeing’ of iuris: that which binds or obligates. Prudence is the projection forward from the condition of being bound. Juris-prudence is, of course, conventionally focused on the ways in which legal and moral/ethical rules bind us, but the wager of this paper is that we are bound in a more primordial way to our condition: a condition that is radically open to ill health and to reliance on others. However, this re-reading of Being and Time is not just an exercise in a ‘typology of death’(Heidegger, 1962, 291; 292-3). Viral being connects us with countless others. In the most extended sense, viral being can be seized by Dasein as a resolute response to common suffering. Dasein’s resolute response will enable the link to be made between Heidegger’s notion of conscience, the primordial meaning of hospital and juris-prudence. Primordial juris-prudence thus seeks to understand the ontological articulation of a mode of public responsibility or solidarity for the burden borne by all Dasein.

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