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This differs from when there is merely a discrepancy between what I want to do
or how I want to live, with what is done around me or is expected of
me. Strong ethical problems hopefully instigate a critical reflection where
previously was unproblematic conviction, practice or the following of a norm.
This talk is about possible responses- from a strong, critical position- for
those who do not wish to accept the world as it was given to them, who want to
work to change it and themselves through one of the greatest tools we have to
do this: our actions. If we are simultaneously constituted and dispossessed by
our relations in situations of strong ethical problems, as I suggest, philosophy
cannot do the living for us. It can, however, provide the critical, reflective space
through which to critique social conditions that limit autonomy. Through a life
of this type of critique, as well as other complementary activities, we, with
greater agency, might be able to work with these conditions, and even begin to
expand or transform them. Taking on only a part of this here, I hope to do some
explanatory work on two points: firstly, how social conditions limit agency and
make its realization an accomplishment, and, secondly, how the risk and
vulnerability embedded in some of our relations play a vital role in constituting
or expanding our agency when we are faced with strong ethical problems.
How we relate to the social norms of our milieu is a big part of what
individuality means in ethics. What is an individual within this dynamic?
These instances where strong problems arise point to a difference, a discrepancy,
expressed through an I that reflects on itself and its situation, norms and various
relations. This could just be reflective consciousness, something that does not
necessarily have to be individuality, and this is where the difference to norms
varies from the mere difference of one person to another. Individuation must
relational, and we, as agents or persons, participate in these relations and the
expressions of power they entail, even if we do not act. They constitute us and
we further constitute them through our participation. Correspondingly, since
we are participatory, we should be able to affect some of them, maybe even
causally. The constitutive elements of conditions and the means of their
transformation or maintenance are why I am interested in agency as a problem.
Forming our lives and, possibly, our society into something closer to what we
actually want instead of what was given to us depends upon reworking these
conditions.
1
For the purposes of this paper, I am not going to engage in the debate on free
will. Instead, I consciously assume it to begin a discussion on agency within
relationality.
2
Foucault, Concern for Self, p. 282.
3
I threw that in there to more or less say that experiencing beauty is
unpredictable. There is something singular about the experience of beauty.
so, if we ever do. They are exposed, to the gaze of others, but also to touch, to
violence, and bodies put us at risk of becoming the agency and instrument of all
of these as well. 5 The social relations that form us are not only descriptive and
historical facts but also ongoing normative forces in our social lives.
One of the most important aspects of what makes social relations
normative in our constitution has to do with how their ability to limit and
condition affects what autonomy is and means for us. Butler asserts that,
When we think about who we are and seek to represent ourselves, we
cannot represent ourselves as merely bounded beings, for the primary
others who are past for me not only live on in the fiber of the boundary
that contains me, but they also haunt the way I am, as it were,
periodically undone and open to becoming unbounded.6
The others that made up, and those who continue to make up, our primary
social relations, are a part of us in that they form- along with other factors- the
boundaries that bind us. They are also part of the reason for the ongoing risk
and vulnerability that continually make up social life: firstly, through, the way
we care for those closest to us, and, secondly, by the fact that so many others are
responsible for my becoming a thinking and feeling a creature who continues to
rely on people outside of me for a variety of needs. This might seem obvious,
but in that our hearts and minds as well as our bodies are formed within social
relations- as I willingly assert- we risk them when we move away from
homogeneity or the dominant view: something which is often essential when
4
Butler, Vulnerability, 23.
5
The body has its invariably public dimension. Constituted as a social
phenomenon in the public sphere, my body is and is not mine. Given over from
the start to the world of others, it bears their imprint, is formed within the
crucible of social life; only later, and with some uncertainty, do I lay claim to my
body as my own, if, in fact, I ever do.(26)
6
Butler, Vulnerability, 27-8.
faced with strong ethical problems. As we address and possibly reshape these
relations, our risk and vulnerability affect the power/knowledge of our milieu.
7
Michel Foucault, On the Genealogy of Ethics, in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth,
ed. Paul Rabinow and trans. Robert Hurley, et. al. (New York: The New Press,
1997), 262.
8
Foucault, Concern for Self, 286. A persons ethos was evident in his
clothing, appearance, gait, in the calm with which he responded to every event,
and so on. For the Greeks, this was the concrete form of freedom; this was the
way they problematized their freedom.But extensive work by the self on the
self is required for this practice of freedom...
9
Foucault, Concern for Self, 287. The care of the self is ethical in itself; but
it implies complex relationships with others insofar as this ethos of freedom is
also a way of caring for others The care of the self is ethically prior in that the
relationship with oneself is ontologically prior.
10
Foucault, Fearless Speech, 166.
11
Vulnerability, 27.