Is There a Right to Sleep?
Duke University Press eBooks October 20, 2023 DOI: 10.1215/9781478027454-002 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that sleep is inherently collective and political, a kind of "flesh" that individuals cannot fully access consciously but that can reorient legal rights and political values. Proposes a concept of legal vigilance derived from the phenomenology of sleep and the political theology of the sleeping king, and uses it to analyze two cases on a right to sleep, finding in one the kernel of a nascent right worth developing. |
Abstract
This chapter probes what lies beyond the enduring rational, conscious, Lockean legal subject by speculatively returning to the disregarded body in sleep. The answer is formulated through studies of the phenomenology of sleep and the political theology of the sleeping king, which converge on a concept of legal vigilance. These inquiries are used to demonstrate the inherently collective and political nature of sleep, a kind of “flesh” to which, individually, we have little conscious access but which has the potential to reorient legal rights and political values. This chapter mobilizes this concept of vigilance to analyze two recent cases, one from the European Union, the other from India, that have grappled with a right to sleep, finding in one the kernel of a nascent right worth development.