This paper explores the character of the ethical and political obligation that Judith Butler has argued arises from the shared condition of precarious life. Criticism of Butler’s recent (post 9/11) work sees the ethical claims she articulates in terms of precarious life as making a problematic invocation of universal humanity. Even accounts sympathetic to Butler struggle to describe the relationship of ethics and ontology she proposes. Here I focus on the inspiration Butler draws from Benjamin’s essay, “Critique of Violence”, to tease out what is at stake in her invocation of precarious life to organise a series of critical reflections on the nature of violence within contemporary frames of war.



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