The ethic of truths: Badiou and Pierre Rivière

Drawing on Badiou, 2002 and Badiou, 2009 theory of the subject and his ethic of truths, this paper extends the analyses made by Foucault (1975) of the court documents of Pierre Rivière’s trial. Pierre Rivière wanted to bring about social change. His three murders, along with the Memoir he wrote afterwards, were not only an attempt to solve an intractable problem in his own family, but also to draw the world’s attention to what was wrong with society. Yet immediately after his murderous act, Pierre Rivière thought of what he had done as monstrous and evil. In order to explore his conflicting thoughts and emotions that led to the murders this paper draws on Badiou’s definitions of an event (a movement in thought and action through which the world changes) and of evil (where commitment to an event denies the multiplicity of truths, and sacrifices others to a singular cause). It asks in what way Pierre Rivière’s triple parricide can be thought of as contributing to an event, and how it was that his contribution turned to evil.