Foucault’s Ethic of Power Subjects, politics and the critical attitude by Frances Bridget Eleanor Healy, B.A. (Hons) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Tasmania November, 2013 This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis. Frances Bridget Eleanor Healy November 2013 This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. Frances Bridget Eleanor Healy November 2013 iii Abstract Michel Foucault’s later work contains the foundations of an ‘ethic of power.’ This ethic, I suggest, provides an alternative approach to the question of what it means to ‘resist’ power. ‘Relations of power’ for Foucault describes an inalienable feature of social interaction. This account continues to cause debate among scholars with diverging views about its critical and political implications. In addressing these concerns I make the point that many of Foucault’s critics assume certain interpretations of terms such as ‘power’ and ‘freedom’ that locate these criticisms in the very traditions Foucault was attempting to overcome. Consequently, their evaluation of Foucault’s critical and political contributions are made from within these same traditions. Re-reading these concepts in light of his later work on ‘government’ and on ancient ethics requires a renewed approach to understanding a Foucaultian concept of politics. In turn, this requires a re-thinking of the relationship of ethics to politics and the nature of the political field itself. In disassociating political power from the state, Foucault disrupts the usual alignment between the public and political spheres. By arguing that power relations extend throughout society, Foucault posits the political field as co-extensive with networks of power relations. The subject thus emerges as a constitutive element of the political field. In this way, Foucault posits aesthetic practices of self-stylisation firmly in the domain of politics. In this way, the constitution of the subject takes its place as an integral part of Foucault’s idea of politics. In light of these points, I argue that in understanding what Foucault means by ‘resistance’ we should look to his account of the ‘critical attitude’—the right to qualified refusal of forms of government. This is not to say that resistance to power is limited to this refusal, but that the latter founds resistance to power. As such, an ethic of power would not describe how to exercise power, nor would it determine some exercises of power as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad.’ Rather, it would be an ethic that governs how we constitute ourselves as ethical subjects, in relation to ourselves and in relation to others, following the recognition that we are each subjects of, and subject to, power. Acknowledgements A small amount of material in Chapters Two and Three emerged from the research contained in my honours thesis Caring for the Other as an Extension of the Self, submitted to the University of Tasmania in August 2007. This material has been substantially revised. First, my sincere thanks to my supervisors: to Dr Lucy Tatman and Professor Jeff Malpas, for reading and commenting on initial drafts. To Dr Ingo Farin I owe special thanks: not only for his close readings, comments, and suggestions, but for his continual enthusiasm, encouragement and forbearance. I would also like to thank my two anonymous examiners for their useful comments and suggestions. Thanks, too, to the academic and administrative staff and post-graduate students – especially Justin Shimeld, James Stewart, Leesa Wisby, Ani Sonam – in the School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania, for their ongoing support and community. A very special thanks to my good friend Brendan Churchill, not only for his support and collegiality throughout the process of writing his own thesis, but for his acceptance, frankness, and good humour. I am also indebted to my colleagues at the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing – especially Leo Kennedy, Penny Lucas, Phillippa Rodgers, Ingrid Penberthy, and James Benson – whose encouragement, flexibility and support made the final stages of this project possible. Finally, my thanks and gratitude to my family – especially my father and brother Paul and Thomas Healy, Joanna Healy, Bernadette Healy, Chris, Amy and Jacob Erlandsen – and friends – Rahni Allan, Mary Cunningham, Ashley Bourne, Kumudu Stewart, Anna Grey, Pete Waller, Laura Hindmarsh, and Josh Forkert – who have all supported me in their own way. Their strength, continual encouragement, support, cooking, vegetables, chicken, cups of tea, phone calls, cards, belief and acceptance have made all the difference. Finally, to David, for these things, and for everything else. This work is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Cathleen Anne Healy. v Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ v Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... vi Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Critical perspectives .............................................................................. 11 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 11 Forms of power: normative foundations .............................................................. 14 Resisting bodies ................................................................................................... 19 The politics of a ‘self-centred’ ethics ................................................................... 28 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 33 Chapter Two: Resisting ‘power’—foundations of an ethic ......................................... 36 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 36 Theoretical Frameworks .......................................................................................... 38 Archaeology, genealogy, ethics ........................................................................... 38 Critical Attitudes: the politics of truth ................................................................. 47 Power: ethical foundations ....................................................................................... 53 Beyond the juridico-discursive model ................................................................. 53 The analytics of governmentality ......................................................................... 57 Questions of power: is ‘resistance’ possible? ...................................................... 61 Questions of power: what is freedom? ................................................................. 70 Freedom and liberalism: technologies of government ......................................... 73 Relations of freedom ............................................................................................ 78 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 83 Chapter Three: Subjects of power and ethics .............................................................. 86 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 86 Powerful Subjects .................................................................................................... 87 Foucault’s subject ................................................................................................ 87 Political subjects: what is ‘man’? ........................................................................ 91 Powerful body-subjects ........................................................................................ 96 Body-subjects: docility and recalcitrance .......................................................... 100 Ethical subjects ...................................................................................................... 107 The constitution of the self as an ethical subject: rapport à soi ........................ 108 The fold of subjectivation: relations with others in the relation to self ............. 116 vi Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 119 Chapter Four: Ethical frameworks ............................................................................. 121 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 121 The politics of Foucault’s ethics ........................................................................ 125 Into the fold: alterity and difference .................................................................. 132 The problem of universality ..............................................................................