Worms: Primordial Juris-prudence and Viral Being

In: Legalities: the Australian and New Zealand journal of law and society, Volume 3, Issue 1, p. 22-43

Abstract

The pandemic provokes a radical thinking of jurisprudence. Drawing on Heidegger's Being and Time, this paper puts forward an argument for primordial analysis. Human being is inescapably bound to viral infection. Juris-prudence is primordially the 'seeing' of iuris: that which binds or obligates. Prudence is the projection forward from the condition of being bound. Viral being can be seized by Dasein as a resolute response to common suffering. Dasein's resolute response enables the fundamental link to be made between Heidegger's notion of conscience and the primordial meaning of hospital. Primordial juris-prudence thus seeks the ontological articulation of a mode of public responsibility or solidarity for the burden borne by Dasein.