Abstract
This article examines the reasons why Foucault thought that morality based on the care of the self died out in the modern age. I pay special attention to his contention that modern political thought was a key player in bringing about this demise. The essay consists of two parts. In Part One, I overview Foucault’s conception of the care of the self and situate it within his later work on ancient philosophy and culture. In Part Two, I turn to his remarks on the incompatibility between the ancient tradition of the care of the self and an ascendant modern political philosophy based on the notions of rights and the juridical subject. To conclude, I suggest that while Foucault may have overstated this compatibility he opened the door to consider how the care of the self could be taken up in the context of modern and contemporary political theory.
Highlights
MoralityConduct, and Ethics “Care of the self” (“le souci de soi-même,” in French) is the defining concept of Foucault’s later period (1981–1984)
This article examines the reasons why Foucault thought that morality based on the care of the self died out in the modern age
By “moral code” Foucault means, “a set of values and rules of action that are recommended to individuals through the intermediary of various prescriptive agencies.” ([18], p. 25)
Summary
Conduct, and Ethics “Care of the self” (“le souci de soi-même,” in French) is the defining concept of Foucault’s later period (1981–1984). It is clear that when Foucault uses the term “ethics” he does not mean something interchangeable with “morality,” as we often do in ordinary language Neither does he refer to what that word designates in Anglo-American philosophy, namely the metaphysical and epistemological examination of ethical concepts (metaethics) or the investigation of the criteria for evaluating actions (normative ethics). For Foucault, rather, “ethics” designates the relation the self establishes with itself through a moral code, and, the work the individual undertakes on him- or herself in order to become a subject of that code. We could look at the degree to which marital fidelity is honored in a given society To consider this precept only from the perspective of code and conduct misses something essential about how morality functions, namely how individuals take up the code to constitute themselves as moral subjects in the first place. “Ethics” is the name he gives to this process of self-constitution
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