Normative Foucault

What is it about?

Normative concepts such as sovereignty, right, law and freedom appear in Foucault’s lectures and occasional writings in ways that conflict with the image of a purely descriptive theorist of the mechanisms and technologies of modern power. This chapter examines some of the points at which normative questions about the justification, nature and limits of State power arise, particularly in his ‘governmentality’ lectures in Security, Territory, Population and The Birth of Biopolitics.

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Why is it important?

Foucault is widely considered to be insensitive to normative issues in political philosophy, or confused about such issues. This view is difficult to sustain after the publication of his lectures during the late 1970s.