When Foucault’s theory of power and its possible omniscient presence in everyday life is evaluated, the issue of morality, in my opinion, has to be considered. Foucault argues strongly that power is the present throughout society. He suggests that whilst it may not be seen, it is always there. Foucault uses Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon as an example as to how power can control and manipulate, ‘Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’. (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, Part 3 Chapter 3). However, is it the case that power controls in such an overarching way? Could it be that morality plays a more fundamental role than power?
Foucault believes that we, as a society, are controlled by a government through power. He states that the highest form of power is where we, as members of the society, self-regulate. Essentially, we control ourselves because of our constant exposure to power, ‘the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary’. (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, Part 3 Chapter 3). However, it could be argued that Foucault mistakes self-regulated power for morality and each individual’s morals. It is possible that an individual within society does not commit a murder, not because of the punishment or because of the control of power, but more because of each individual’s moral knowledge that that is wrong. I believe that individuals do not commit a crime because they view it as morally wrong. For example, the majority of individuals will download music illegally, simply because they do not view it as morally wrong. The punishment or the control of power does not deter people from downloading illegally, thus demonstrating how power is not quite the controlling entity that Foucault argues that it is. Power may be present, however, each individuals morals is the aspect that controls. We self-regulate ourselves because of morals, not because of power.
It does appear that power is not omniscient presence that Foucault has argued that it is. It does play role within social situations and society. However, Foucault does not account for morality within his theory of power. I believe that each individual’s morality is, in actual fact, what controls us.Any Thoughts?
Ian Millman
I suppose Foucault would underline that power is the idea of observation and normalisation of judgement and consequence of deviance of actions. Downloading illegally now is quite common, its even called peer-2-peer, so i guess the normalised judgment of downloading removes the power of being observed and by share pettiness or extragance it would take to sue each individual it has become decriminalised. I think power would come by controlling a large number of people and creating what psychologists call 'Group Think'. I'll try and find a source to cite for 'Group Think' what this space
ReplyDeleteNice work Ian. A good and well considered blog post. It seems that the issue for Foucault is that is how morality is an effect of power. We cannot have morality without power relations, even if individual morality dictates does dictate what we do, we would not be able to excercise this without certain elements of power having been put in place prior to our individual decisions. So for example, we can be moral in a university situation but not without the institution called university being there in the first place setting up relations of domination and resistance. But also I do think that you are on to something, there is a sense in which morality is itself invisible. If we think in the Hobbesian sense of morality as the tacit acceptance of societal norms we can get a sense that it is morality which is binding us. Although, this is complicated for the fact that morality is something we agree to in order to stave off the state of nature. It is very difficult to extricate power from morality, and you are certainly in good company Ian. Kant thought pretty much the same thing.
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