Law of Tact

Derrida's name (in *On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy* §4, p. 77) for the quasi-transcendental commandment to touch without touching, prior to any religion, culture, or ritual abstinence. The law of tact is "the law itself, the law of the law": "one must touch without touching. In touching, touching is forbidden: do not touch or tamper with the thing itself, do not touch on what there is to touch. Do not touch what remains to be touched, and first of all law itself — which is the untouchable, before all the ritual prohibitions that this or that religion or culture may impose on touching" (p. 76). The law of tact is therefore not a derivative cultural or religious commandment but the structure of any commandment whatsoever — a Kantian respect before any specific religion, the regard / Achtsamkeit of guarding-against. Connects structurally to touching-the-untouchable (the law presupposes the untouchable) and to haptocentrism (which forgets the law and posits immediate contact).

What the Concept Does

The concept performs three argumentative tasks:

Names the quasi-transcendental structure of any commandment as a "law of tact." The Kantian Achtung / respect-for-the-law is structurally the law of tact: respect requires keeping one's distance, not touching the law, guarding against touching/affecting/corrupting (p. 76). "Tact, one could say, is what confines to the origin and the essence of law" (p. 77). The law commands its own untouchability; tact is the structural form of obedience to the law's law.
Reads Aristotle 435b on excessive touch as the origin of the law. Aristotle: animals die from excessive intensity of touch — "tangible excess, 'hyperbole,' comes to destroy the organ of this touching, which is the essential mark of life" (De Anima 435b, cited p. 58). Derrida glosses: "A certain tact, a 'thou shalt not touch too much,' 'thou shalt not let yourself be touched too much,' or even 'thou shalt not touch yourself too much,' would thus be inscribed a priori, like a first commandment, the law of originary prohibition, in the destiny of tactile experience" (p. 58).
Distinguishes the quasi-transcendental law of tact from empirical religious/cultural prohibitions. "Ritual prohibitions would then come to be determined, afterward, and only on the background of an untouchability as initial as it is vital, on the background of this 'thou shalt not touch, not too much,' which wouldn't have awaited any religion, ritual cult, or neurosis of touch" (p. 58). The empirical prohibitions presuppose the structural law.

What It Rejects

The reduction of "do not touch" to cultural, religious, or psychoanalytic-pathological prohibition. The law of tact is prior to any taboo, prior to the noli me tangere, prior to the Mosaic prohibition, prior to the Freudian neurosis of touch.
Naive immediacy of touch: any model that treats touch as the sense of unmediated contact ignores the constitutive abstinence at the heart of touch.
Reductions of tact to politeness or social grace: tact is a quasi-transcendental, not a virtue or skill. The "law of tact" is structural-philosophical, not psychological.
Touch as ethical-neutral: there is no ethically-neutral touch; touch always already commits perjury against its own law of abstinence.

Stakes

For ethics: the law of tact grounds Kantian Achtung / respect in a touch-structural register. Respect-for-the-law is structurally homologous to keeping one's distance from the untouchable.
For political-juridical thinking: the immunity / untouchability of the law, the sovereign, the sacred — these inherit the structural law of tact, not specific religious prohibitions.
For the deconstruction of Christianity: the noli me tangere of John 20 ("do not touch me") is, on the deconstructive reading, not an originary commandment but an empirical instance of the structural law. Christ's "touch me not" is conditioned by the prior law of tact.
For psychoanalysis: the "neurosis of touch" Freud names is a late phenomenon — the structural law is prior to any pathologization.
For Levinas's caress: the caress as "intimate proximity that never becomes possession" partially recognizes the law of tact; the naked exposition to the ungraspable is the Levinasian register of the same insight.
Confidence: high. Explicitly named in §4 ("There is a law of tact", p. 76) and developed with Aristotelian anchor at 435b (p. 58).

Connections

named by derrida-2000-on-touching-nancy — §4 p. 76, with Aristotelian anchor at p. 58 (Aristotle De Anima 435b on excessive touch).
condition of intelligibility of touching-the-untouchable — the law presupposes that there is an untouchable.
contrasts with haptocentrism — the haptocentric tradition forgets the law of tact and posits immediate contact.
grounds haptical-differance — the structural abstinence is the différance of contact.
develops aristotle — De Anima 435b on tangible excess and the destruction of life.
shares mechanism with Kantian Achtung / respect — the regard keeping distance from the untouchable law.
re-grounds the noli me tangere topos — Christ's "touch me not" (John 20:17) as empirical instance of the structural law.
engages hand-of-god — the divine hand that "touches" the soul is structurally the hand of the law that commands its own untouchability.
anchors claims#haptocentric-tradition-as-metaphysics-of-presence (live, supporting register).

Open Questions

What is the precise relation between the Aristotelian hyperbole (excessive touch destroys the organ) and the quasi-transcendental law of tact? Aristotle's claim is biological (excessive touch kills); Derrida reads it as structural (the a priori of abstinence). Is the structural reading philologically warranted, or does it project a deconstructive reading onto Aristotle?
Does the law of tact apply to the self-touching? "Thou shalt not touch yourself too much" — Derrida glosses (p. 58). The Freudian-Levinasian register of autoerotism / narcissism is gestured at but not developed.
Is there a positive law of tact (a "touch enough") corresponding to the negative law (not too much)? The Levinasian caress and the Nancean exasperated consent both suggest a positive register; the relation to the structural law remains underdeveloped.
Does the law of tact have a politico-juridical form? Sovereign immunity, the sacred, the taboo — the political-anthropological register of untouchability could be developed.

Sources

derrida-2000-on-touching-nancy — primary attestation. §3 p. 58 (Aristotle 435b anchor, the a priori of abstinence); §4 pp. 76–77 (explicit naming of "law of tact" and the Kantian Achtung register); §13 (transgression / perjury / confession as structural form).