Review State violence and moral horror Jeremy Arnold SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 2017, xxv+187pp., ISBN 978143846675 Contemporary Political Theory (2019) 18, S56–S59. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296- 018-0247-y; published online 6 August 2018 State Violence and Moral Horror is a work of political theory that is both compelling and frustrating. Combining provocative insights and strong readings of complex theories (for example, Jean Luc Nancy’s thought on singularity) with accounts of common topics in contemporary political theory (for example, the ‘paradox of politics’), Arnold’s volume attempts to revisit the relationship between political violence and moral justification by affirming a radical position on violence and offering a new perspective on ethics and politics. The compelling part of Arnold’s study is the radical claim he advances: there is never any possible moral justification for state violence. Moreover, any attempt at deploying a justificatory logic for acts of violence is itself violence. The more frustrating part of Arnold’s study has to do with the concept of ‘moral horror’. While this is an intriguing concept that enables him to engage important theoretical literatures, it is unfortunately not as carefully developed as it could be. ‘Moral horror’ is the condition that we, humans, face when we realize that, despite all possible moral justifications, state violence can never be sanctioned or accepted, and yet, this violence is often excused or justified, and this justification morally implicates us all. Key to this volume’s central claims is Nancy’s philosophy of the singular plural (or his concept of singularity, more generally). To Arnold, Nancy’s singularity is what is threatened by acts of violence, including state violence. Singularity is the main guarantee – and the foundation – for political and ethical life. Derived from Heidegger’s concept of Mitsein (p. 55), singularity is a ‘primordial mode of being’ (p. 63) that is always open to other beings. Singular being is being-always-with- others. It is about sharing being. To allow singularity to thrive means always to maintain the plural in the singular, the openness of being to other and all forms of life. The violence done to singularity is the product of seeking to define, fix, or appropriate the singular, for example, by wishing to give it an identity, or by reducing it to a subject position. Thus justifications for violence, even on moral grounds, are problematic or, as Arnold would have it, conducive to moral horror. Ó 2018 Springer Nature Limited. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 18, S1, S56–S59 www.palgrave.com/journals