Habitus-driven action is necessary passion, not chosen responsibility.

Evidence

Habitus, in contrast to this political model of ethics, is not something one accepts or rejects, it is part of what one essentially is and must do. (The ethics of passionate necessity encompasses tragedy.) Oedipus puts out his own eyes not because his conscience or his god considers that he deserves to be punished for failing to be responsible—or because he thinks he does—but because (as he says) he cannot bear the thought of having to look his father and his mother in the eyes when he joins them beyond the grave, or to see his children, “begotten as they were begotten.” He acts as he does necessarily, out of the passion that is his habitus. I am therefore puzzled by Dillon’s representation of Oedipus as a paradigm of moral “responsibility.” — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 468

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes habitus ethics from a political/contractual model of responsibility, using Oedipus as the touchstone case.
• XREF: Resonates with the Bourdieu-derived habitus concept and with tragic ethics in Greek drama; connects to Williams’ critique of the morality system. — connects to: Motives of action are linguistically interpreted needs, not unconscious impulses. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2682; Respectable behavior was deliberate political strategy, not unconscious Bourdieu-style concession. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 883