Hand out 4 - Foucault and Anatomy of the hell

Anatomy of Hell (Film) and Foucault

We will use here Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality and its volume 2 The Use of Pleasure

In the introduction of above mentioned book he says: what I planned was a history of the experience of sexuality, where experience is understood as the correlation between fields of knowledge, types of normativity and forms of subjectivity in a particular culture. (P 4 Foucault)

So, it means we can speak construction of ethics and morals in action which vary according to culture and historical period.

Foucault describes ethics as a kind of relation an individual has with him or herself. The essential condition for the practice of ethics is freedom, the ability to choose one action, not another. Morals are connected to ethics. Any moral action, Foucault says, means that one has to work on oneself in some way. (Pp 114-115 O’Farrel)

He suggest that there are four aspects to the way an individual constitutes him or herself as the moral subject of their actions

1. The first aspect relates to the part of the individual which acts as the focus of moral conduct. This is the part of the self that needs to be worked on in order to achieve moral conduct. Foucault argues that for contemporary people in Western society, it is feelings, for early Christians it was desire and for Ancient Greeks it was acts. So, for example, for Ancient Greeks, it was the action of not sleeping with boys that was the moral target, for Christians it was not desiring the boy at all and for contemporary people it is recognizing one’s true feelings and having healthy desires.
2. The second aspect concerns what makes an individual recognize their moral obligation. Depending on the historical period or culture it could be social customs or the harmonious order of the cosmos.
3. The third aspect relates to the means by which individuals transform and work on themselves. Foucault also employs the terms ”ascetics” and “ethical work” in this instance. A whole variety of physical and mental techniques can be employed to this end, for example, self-discipline in the areas of food such as fasting or eating only particular types of food.
4. Finally there is the question of what sort of person an individual might want to be: pure, immortal, free or master of the self. Thus the aim might be eternal salvation or to be somebody who is in control of themselves and not at the whim of every earthy desire. (p 115)



Sources:

O’Farrel, Clare. 2005. Michel Foucault. London, SAGE Publications

Foucault, Michel. 1990. The use of pleasure: volume 2 of The history of sexuality. New York, Vintage Books