The Decision of Hospitality

This chapter is about the decision of hospitality. For a decision to be a ‘true’ or ‘real’ decision, according to Derrida, it cannot be the result of who I am, or of my subjectivity, because in this case the decision is not capable of bringing about the arrival of the other, of what is different from what is expected of me anyway. For Derrida, the decision of hospitality must go beyond what is simply possible for the host, beyond what is desirable or possible for them, and as such the decision of hospitality can only be the decision of the other in the host. In this sense, ‘I make a decision’ as a host would mean that I ‘make’ a decision that is driven by the absolute other in me. This making of decisions is on the side of passivity and heteronomy rather than on the side of activity and autonomy of the subject. Accordingly, the decision of hospitality cannot be the result of knowledge or the enforcement or application of criteria, maxims, or values that not only access the arrival of the other based on the host’s values and reduce the other to what the host knows about them, but they also make the decision a mechanistic process. Even if, in many cases, we are practically forced to make calculations, we must remember that the other and our responsibility toward them can only take the form of that which renounces any calculation.