On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Alan C. Hudson wrote:
>
> Ok, still re normativity and power ...
>
> John wrote:
>
> > But to be normative, normative criteria have to have a fundamental basis,
> > don't they? Or at least don't they have to be grounded in this way when
> > we're talking about redeeming validity claims when it comes to morality?
>
> >From my understanding of this, yes. Although of course this grounding can
> be intersubjective re social agreement rather than "physical fact".
>
> > > I'm sorry to ask this obvious and maybe tedious question but what do you
> > > mean by "bad" in your phrase?
> >
> > By "bad" I mean an exercise or kind of power that diminishes human
> > potential and/or violates agreements. But it seems to me it is authors
> > like Fraser who want to retain this distinction between good and bad forms
> > of power -- though of course we're just talking, and the casual terms
> > "good and bad" are inadequate to the task at hand!
>
> Well, OKish I guess.
>
> Violates agreements? Interesting. On what basis then are the agreements
> made?
Agreements are made on the basis of joint interests. Thus if a group of
people decide to form a chess club, and the newly elected President seeks
to turn it into a backgammon club, members of the chess club will revolt
and get rid of the President. Locke's argument in _Second Treatise_ is
pretty much the same. In paragraph 227 of that work, Locke says:
"when either the legislative is changed, or the legislators act contrary
to the end for which they were constituted, those who are guilty are
guilty of rebellion. For if any one by force takes away the established
legislative of any society, and the laws by them made, pursuant to their
trust, he thereby takes away the umpirage which every one had consented to
for a peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the
state of war amongst them. They who remove or change the legislative take
away this decisive power, which nobody can have but by the appointment and
consent of the people, and so destroying the authority which the people
did, and nobody else can, set up, and introducing a power which the people
hath not authorised, actually introduce a state of war, which is that of
force without authority..."
>
> And what does human potential mean without a subject? (I guess I should
> read your book!), although I'm beginning to feel that Foucault's toolbox,
> although fine for crafting interesting descriptions of social systems,
> doesn't contain the tools necessary for criticism and construction of
> better (fairer?) alternatives.
I don't think a subject is required to pursue human potential. On your
second point about constructing fairer alternatives and criticism, I agree
that he's not trying to develop alternatives, but I disagree that he's
unable to contribute to our ability to criticize. What I think he's trying
to do is to separate criticism from the supposed requirement that it must
be accompanied by fully worked out alternative social schemes -- or even
partially worked out schemes, for that matter. In one place, Foucault
describes critique as a virtue -- something worth pursuing for its own
sake.
>
> > I'm not sure he's trying to say something about goodness/badness. For
> > instance, in _Discipline and Punish_, he's not saying that disciplines are
> > bad, is he? Instead, he's saying: "Look at this incredibly productive form
> > of power that has been effectively missed by an over-emphasis on more
> > familiar and more easily identified sovereign forms of power."
>
> Yeh, fair enough.
>
> > > BUT, doesn't it then make it more difficult for the relatively powerless
> > > to produce persuasive arguments for change? The making of distinctions is
> > > a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for making arguments for
> > > change, isn't it?
> >
> > I don't see how it makes it more difficult. You're right, "distinctions"
> > by themselves are informative merely and cannot by themselves persuade us
> > to act. But neither is it necessary for action that a set of distinctions
> > be accompanied by a fully worked out and universally applicable set of
> > norms. To move beyond mere distinctions the workers on an assembly line
> > need not ground their opposition to the way they're treated in a universal
> > ethic of treating others as ends not means. Instead, they can just say
> > "this may be helping you (the factory owner), but it's not helping us (the
> > workers)!"
>
> But, there are more options than:
>
> 1) a "fully worked out and universally applicable set of norms"
>
> or
>
> 2) No normative framework
>
> aren't there?
I think those are the only two options. There is a very strong tendency,
don't you think, for moral claims to become universalistic. Not everyone
who makes a normative claim writes _A Theory of Justice_, but if you push
people who make normative claims they'll come up with some fairly strong
claims about human nature and so on.
>
> So, the workers say "this may be helping you, but it's not helping us" -
> (aren't they saying this is wrong or unfair?) - and the factory owner who
> has more power/domination, or is more able to control the flows of power,
> sacks them or worse. The workers then don't even have a decent argument to
> persuade others to support their cause. In non-Foucauldian terms, the
> powerful remain powerful.
>
> hmmm ... i don't see that Foucault provides a way round this. Perhaps he
> never tried to.
Well, that's one way to look at it, but I think he's trying to get around
a different problem -- namely, the impasse confronted by oppositional
thought at the end of the twentieth century when dreams of root-and-branch
reorganizations of society are revealed as either worse than or as bad as
the social worlds they were meant to replace.
--John
>
> later,
> alan
>
> *****************************************************************************
> Dr. Alan C. Hudson
> University Assistant Lecturer
> and
> IB Director of Studies at Fitzwilliam College
>
> Department of Geography, and Fitzwilliam College,
> University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
> CB2 3EN, CB3 0DG,
> United Kingdom. United Kingdom.
>
> Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333364 (Department - Direct line)
> Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333399 (Department - General Office)
> Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 358354 (Home + Answerphone)
> Fax: + 44 (0) 1223 333392 (Department)
> E-Mail: ach1005@xxxxxxxxx
> Website: http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/achhome.htm
> (Currently, a dull (lack of time), slow (not my fault!), but functional
> (mainly luck), website!)
> *****************************************************************************
>
>
> Ok, still re normativity and power ...
>
> John wrote:
>
> > But to be normative, normative criteria have to have a fundamental basis,
> > don't they? Or at least don't they have to be grounded in this way when
> > we're talking about redeeming validity claims when it comes to morality?
>
> >From my understanding of this, yes. Although of course this grounding can
> be intersubjective re social agreement rather than "physical fact".
>
> > > I'm sorry to ask this obvious and maybe tedious question but what do you
> > > mean by "bad" in your phrase?
> >
> > By "bad" I mean an exercise or kind of power that diminishes human
> > potential and/or violates agreements. But it seems to me it is authors
> > like Fraser who want to retain this distinction between good and bad forms
> > of power -- though of course we're just talking, and the casual terms
> > "good and bad" are inadequate to the task at hand!
>
> Well, OKish I guess.
>
> Violates agreements? Interesting. On what basis then are the agreements
> made?
Agreements are made on the basis of joint interests. Thus if a group of
people decide to form a chess club, and the newly elected President seeks
to turn it into a backgammon club, members of the chess club will revolt
and get rid of the President. Locke's argument in _Second Treatise_ is
pretty much the same. In paragraph 227 of that work, Locke says:
"when either the legislative is changed, or the legislators act contrary
to the end for which they were constituted, those who are guilty are
guilty of rebellion. For if any one by force takes away the established
legislative of any society, and the laws by them made, pursuant to their
trust, he thereby takes away the umpirage which every one had consented to
for a peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the
state of war amongst them. They who remove or change the legislative take
away this decisive power, which nobody can have but by the appointment and
consent of the people, and so destroying the authority which the people
did, and nobody else can, set up, and introducing a power which the people
hath not authorised, actually introduce a state of war, which is that of
force without authority..."
>
> And what does human potential mean without a subject? (I guess I should
> read your book!), although I'm beginning to feel that Foucault's toolbox,
> although fine for crafting interesting descriptions of social systems,
> doesn't contain the tools necessary for criticism and construction of
> better (fairer?) alternatives.
I don't think a subject is required to pursue human potential. On your
second point about constructing fairer alternatives and criticism, I agree
that he's not trying to develop alternatives, but I disagree that he's
unable to contribute to our ability to criticize. What I think he's trying
to do is to separate criticism from the supposed requirement that it must
be accompanied by fully worked out alternative social schemes -- or even
partially worked out schemes, for that matter. In one place, Foucault
describes critique as a virtue -- something worth pursuing for its own
sake.
>
> > I'm not sure he's trying to say something about goodness/badness. For
> > instance, in _Discipline and Punish_, he's not saying that disciplines are
> > bad, is he? Instead, he's saying: "Look at this incredibly productive form
> > of power that has been effectively missed by an over-emphasis on more
> > familiar and more easily identified sovereign forms of power."
>
> Yeh, fair enough.
>
> > > BUT, doesn't it then make it more difficult for the relatively powerless
> > > to produce persuasive arguments for change? The making of distinctions is
> > > a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for making arguments for
> > > change, isn't it?
> >
> > I don't see how it makes it more difficult. You're right, "distinctions"
> > by themselves are informative merely and cannot by themselves persuade us
> > to act. But neither is it necessary for action that a set of distinctions
> > be accompanied by a fully worked out and universally applicable set of
> > norms. To move beyond mere distinctions the workers on an assembly line
> > need not ground their opposition to the way they're treated in a universal
> > ethic of treating others as ends not means. Instead, they can just say
> > "this may be helping you (the factory owner), but it's not helping us (the
> > workers)!"
>
> But, there are more options than:
>
> 1) a "fully worked out and universally applicable set of norms"
>
> or
>
> 2) No normative framework
>
> aren't there?
I think those are the only two options. There is a very strong tendency,
don't you think, for moral claims to become universalistic. Not everyone
who makes a normative claim writes _A Theory of Justice_, but if you push
people who make normative claims they'll come up with some fairly strong
claims about human nature and so on.
>
> So, the workers say "this may be helping you, but it's not helping us" -
> (aren't they saying this is wrong or unfair?) - and the factory owner who
> has more power/domination, or is more able to control the flows of power,
> sacks them or worse. The workers then don't even have a decent argument to
> persuade others to support their cause. In non-Foucauldian terms, the
> powerful remain powerful.
>
> hmmm ... i don't see that Foucault provides a way round this. Perhaps he
> never tried to.
Well, that's one way to look at it, but I think he's trying to get around
a different problem -- namely, the impasse confronted by oppositional
thought at the end of the twentieth century when dreams of root-and-branch
reorganizations of society are revealed as either worse than or as bad as
the social worlds they were meant to replace.
--John
>
> later,
> alan
>
> *****************************************************************************
> Dr. Alan C. Hudson
> University Assistant Lecturer
> and
> IB Director of Studies at Fitzwilliam College
>
> Department of Geography, and Fitzwilliam College,
> University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
> CB2 3EN, CB3 0DG,
> United Kingdom. United Kingdom.
>
> Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333364 (Department - Direct line)
> Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 333399 (Department - General Office)
> Tel: + 44 (0) 1223 358354 (Home + Answerphone)
> Fax: + 44 (0) 1223 333392 (Department)
> E-Mail: ach1005@xxxxxxxxx
> Website: http://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/achhome.htm
> (Currently, a dull (lack of time), slow (not my fault!), but functional
> (mainly luck), website!)
> *****************************************************************************
>