Michel Foucault: Ethics

The French philosopher and historian Michel

Foucault (1926-1984) does not understand ethics as
moral philosophy, the metaphysical and
epistemological investigation of ethical concepts
(metaethics) and the investigation of the criteria for
evaluating actions (normative ethics), as Anglo-
American philosophers do. Instead, he defines
ethics as a relation of self to itself in terms of its
moral agency. More specifically, ethics denotes the
intentional work of an individual on itself in order to
subject itself to a set of moral recommendations for
conduct and, as a result of this self-forming activity or “subjectivation,” constitute its own
moral being.

The classical works of Foucault’s ethics are his historical studies of ancient sexual ethics
in The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self, in addition to the late interviews “On the
Genealogy of Ethics” and “The Ethics for the Concern of Self as a Practice of Freedom.”
The publication of his final three lecture courses at the Collège de France in 1982-3
considerably enhance how those texts are to be understood and provide original
resources. The Hermeneutics of the Subject provides greater insight into the ancient
ethics of caring for self and how Foucault perceives it in relation to the history of
philosophy. Both The Government of Self and Others and The Courage of Truth – his
final courses, respectively – make it manifest that he considered the ancient ethical
practice of parrhesia or frank-speech central to ancient ethics and, indeed, important to
his own philosophical practice.

The significance of this so-called ‘ethical turn’ for Foucault’s philosophy is displayed in
the controversial terms through which he ultimately expressed the purpose of his work.
He lays claim to the spirit of the tradition of critical philosophy established by Immanuel
Kant, and Foucault purports to exemplify this spirit by disclosing, or telling the truth
about, the historical conditions of the contingent constraints that we impose on ourselves
and, in doing so, opening possibilities for autonomous ethical relations. Foucault’s claim
to the spirit of critical philosophy has received, and continues to receive, criticism and
considerable discussion in the scholarly literature. Of central concern are the
compatibility of his claim to critical philosophy as an ethical practice and his broader
views about subjectivity, and whether his critical analysis of modern ethics is meant to be
merely descriptive or also evaluative.

The primary focus of this article is the nature of ethics as Foucault conceives it, and it is
unpacked by discussion of his published historical studies of ancient Greek and Roman
ethics. The article then considers his treatment of the ancient ethical injunction of the
care of the self and parrhesia, transitioning into a presentation of, and opinions about, his
alleged ethical turn and the contentious role that ethics might play in his critical
philosophy.

Table of Contents
1. The ‘Ethical Turn’
2. Morality and Ethics
3. The Elements of Ethical Relations
a. The Ethical Substance (Ontology)
b. Mode of Subjection (Deontology)
c. Ethical Work (Ascetics)
d. Telos (Teleology)
4. The Care of the Self
a. Caring for Oneself and Knowing Oneself
b. Parrhesia (Frank-Speech)
5. Ethics and Critical Philosophy
a. Kant and Foucault
b. Critique and Parrhesia
c. Parrhesia and Self-Legislation
d. The Problem of Normativity and the Aesthetics of Existence
6. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Sources and Abbreviations
b. Select Secondary Sources
1. The ‘Ethical Turn’
As important as ethics becomes in Foucault’s later thought, prior to 1981 he rarely
touches on themes directly related to either ethics or morality. One rare, short, but not
unimportant analysis occurs in The Order of Things. There, Foucault maintains that
modern ethical thought attempts to derive moral obligations from human nature and yet
modern thought also holds that human nature can never be, given the fact of human
finitude, fully given to human knowledge. Consequently, modern thought is incapable of
coherently formulating a set of moral obligations (OT 326-7; see also PPC 49). This
argument is, essentially, one piece of his larger attack on modern humanism and its
conception of the human being as subject, a being that supplies for itself the foundations
of knowledge, value, and freedom. Discipline and Punish and the first volume of The
History of Sexuality further this line of criticism, insisting on the historical constitution
of the subject by discursive practices and techniques of power (see, for example, FL 67,
PK 117, EW3 3-4, DP 30). In short, his writings through the 1970’s comprise a
multifaceted attack on the modern notion of self-constitution.

It is surprising to many commentators, then, that by 1982 Foucault elaborated a

framework for his work that grants self-constitution considerable importance. He
explains his “history of thought” as a history of “focal points of experience,” the
persistently occurring ways in which humans conceive and perceive themselves – as mad,
diseased, sexual, and so forth. These focal points are studied along three axes: the axis of
knowledge, or the rules of discursive practices that determine what counts as true or
false; the axis of power, or the rationalities and techniques by which one governs the
conduct of others; and the axis of ethics, or the practices of self through which an
individual constitutes itself as a subject (GSO 1-5). Richard Bernstein aptly characterizes
the scholarly reaction to Foucault’s introduction of ethics when the former states the
ethical thematic seems to presume the concept of a self-constituting subject that latter’s
earlier work sought to criticize (Bernstein 1994; see also Milchman and Rosenberg 2007).

Foucault never did articulate a clear position on the conceptual fit between his critique of
the modern subject and his account of ethics. Nevertheless, he does provide some clues
as to the nature of his mature position. Late in his life he admits that his earlier work was
too insistent on the formation of subjectivity by discursive practices and power-relations
(EW1 177, 225). Now, his focus is on the subject as both constituted and self-constituting,
or the point at which discursive practices and power-relations dovetail with ethics. Of
course, this does not decisively resolve the problem, but it does suggest a rereading of his
earlier works more conducive to the notion of self-constitution. In fact, in later writings
and interviews Foucault supports this interpretation when he explains that all the axes of
analysis existed in a confused manner (EW1 262); he even retrospectively interprets his
work as fitting one or more of those axes (EW1 202-5). By admitting that, first, all three
axes of analysis existed in earlier works, and, second, that the goal of his work is to study
the connection of knowledge and power with ethics, Foucault suggests that there is no
ethical turn. Of course, this does not license the commentator to avoid the potentially
problematic conceptual fit between Foucault’s mature conception of subjectivity and his
earlier critique of the self-constituting subject. However, it does appear to be the case
that Foucault is suggesting that he is best read backwards rather than forwards.

Whatever the case may be, Foucault’s introduction of ethics added an undeniable
richness to his thought that also transformed how his earlier work is to be interpreted.

2. Morality and Ethics

The most elaborate discussion of ethics that Foucault provides appears in Section Three
of the Introduction to The Use of Pleasure. There, he designates ethics as one of the
three primary areas of morality. In addition to ethics, morality consists of both a moral
code and the concrete acts of moral agents. The former consists of the more or less
explicitly formulated values and rules recommended to individuals by the “prescriptive
agencies” (for example, family, church, work, and so forth) in which they participate. The
latter refers to the actions of historically real persons insofar as those actions comply or
fail to comply with, obey or resist, or respect or disrespect the values and rules prescribed
to them by prescriptive agencies.

In addition to a moral code and the real behaviors of individuals, Foucault claims that
morality also consists of a third area, namely, ethics. He commonly and pithily defines it
as a relation of the subject to itself, but a more technical definition of ethics is the conduct
required of an individual so as to render its own actions consistent with a moral code and
standards of moral approval. For Foucault, conduct is a category that is broader than
moral agency and includes both non-moral actions and the exercising of non-agential
capacities (for example, attitudes, demeanor, and so forth). Ethical conduct, then,
consists of the actions performed and capacities exercised intentionally by a subject for
the purpose of engaging in morally approved conduct. Suppose, for example, that an
individual adopts the prescription of sexual fidelity to her partner. In this case, ethics
concerns not her morally satisfactory conduct that directly satisfies her duty of being
faithful to her partner, but rather the conduct through which she enables or brings herself
to behave in a way that is sexually faithful to her partner.
Consistent with his distinction between moral conduct and ethical conduct, Foucault also
distinguishes between moral obligations and ethical obligations. A moral obligation is an
imperative of a moral code that either requires or forbids a specific kind of conduct,
whereas an ethical obligation is a prescription for conduct that is a necessary condition
for producing morally approved conduct. Foucault understands morally approved
conduct to be a wide category, as it does not designate just those acts that comply with a
moral code – which is, he thinks, a manifestly modern conception of moral approval. As
he is keen to show in his volumes on ancient sexuality, rigorously stylizing one’s daily
existence according to self-imposed standards of conduct was at one time the measure of
moral approval, and such approval was not limited to conformity to a moral code. In this
regard, the moral valorization of conduct might be, as it was with the ancients, weighted
toward the satisfaction of ethical obligations, or, as it is in modernity, weighted toward
the satisfaction of the moral obligations that comprise a moral code.

3. The Elements of Ethical Relations

On Foucault’s account, ethical relations are constituted by four formal elements, the
contents of which are subject to historical variation: the ontological element or “ethical
substance,” the deontological element or “mode of subjection,” the ascetic element or
“ethical work,” and the teleological element or “telos.” His project in The Use of Pleasure
and The Care of the Self is to articulate the sexual ethics in ancient Greece and Rome,
respectively, by describing these elements and uncovering the primary ethical obligations
for sexual conduct for both epochs. These ethical obligations are, Foucault contends,
deducible by analyzing the four primary themes of sexual austerity expressed throughout
all of Western history: the relation one has to one’s own body and health, wives and
marriage, boys, and truth. Although these themes are occasionally mentioned below, the
the focus of this section is on the four elements of ethical relations.

a. The Ethical Substance (Ontology)

The ethical substance is the material or aspect of self that is morally problematic, taken as
the object of one’s ethical reflection, and transformed in one’s ethical work. In The Use of
Pleasure Foucault maintains that the ethical substance of ancient Greek sexual ethics –
an ethics that was exclusively for men of the right inherited social status – was the
aphrodisia or the broad range of acts, gestures, and contacts associated with pleasures to
promote the propagation of the species and considered the inferior pleasures given their
commonality with all animals. The intensity of the aphrodisia induced the majority of
men to behave immoderately with regard to it, and since the moral telos of ancient Greek
ethics was a moderate state in which a man had succeeded in mastering his pleasures, the
immoderate man was considered by ethicists to be shameful and dishonorable for
allowing the inferior part of his soul to enslave his superior part. It was also considered
shameful for a man to experiment or delight in pleasures derived from the passive and
subordinate rather than active and dominant role in sexual relations, the latter assigned
by nature to men and the former assigned to those incapable of mastering themselves of
their own power, namely, women and children. By violating these limits out of a failure
to master himself, the Greek man put himself in the position of compromising his health,
household, social standing, and political ambitions.

Foucault maintains in The Care of the Self that aphrodisia remains the ethical substance
for Roman sexual ethics. But unlike the Greek ethicists before them, Roman ethicists
conceived the aphrodisia as essentially and intrinsically dangerous rather than dangerous
merely because of the fact that their intensity induces immoderate conduct. According to
Foucault, Roman ethicists stipulated that although sexual acts are good by nature, since
nature is perfect in its designs, those acts are nevertheless fraught with a dangerous and
essential passivity that causes involuntary movements of the body and soul and
expenditure of the life forces. Nature has, as it were, designed sex as good and beneficial
but only on the condition that it conforms to its designs. Thus, although sexual acts
themselves were not considered intrinsically bad, when one performed a sexual act
without adequate attention to both its dangers and nature’s limits for it one risked
exposing both body and soul to illnesses; indeed, acting without consideration for these
dangers was a sign that the soul had already been corrupted. Foucault therefore asserts
that the perception of the dangerous physical and spiritual effects of unrestrained sexual
activity led to a moral and medical discourse about sex different in kind than that of
ancient Greek ethical discourse. It focused more on moderated use as a means of
achieving physical and spiritual health rather than excellence.

b. Mode of Subjection (Deontology)

The mode of subjection is the way in which the individual establishes its relation to the
moral code, recognizes itself as bound to act according to it, and is entitled to view its acts
as worthy of moral valorization. The mode of subjection is, as Foucault refers to it, the
‘deontological’ or normative component of ethics. For example, consider the obligation
to help someone in need. The Kantian holds that pure practical reason vis-à-vis the
categorial imperative rationally requires the charitable act and it is praiseworthy to the
extent that it is performed out of respect for reason. The practitioner of Islam, on the
other hand, holds that the charitable act is morally valorized to the extent that it is
produced out of respect for God’s will as revealed in sacred texts.

The mode of subjection for the ancient Greeks was a man’s free, permanent, and noble
choice to fashion his life into a beautiful work according to a program of self-mastery.
The notion of use (of pleasures) was what ancient Greeks used as a standard for
measuring the beauty of a man’s work with regard to his sexual conduct. The use of
pleasures refers to how a man managed or integrated pleasures into his life such that
their use did not compromise but benefitted his health and social standing. Appropriate
management submitted the use of pleasures to three strategies. The strategy of need
demanded that desires for pleasures should arise from nature alone and be fulfilled
neither extravagantly nor as a result of artifice. The strategy of timeliness required the
distribution of pleasures at the right times of the day, year, and life so as to maintain the
well-being of oneself, one’s wife, and potential offspring. The strategy of status
demanded that a man use his pleasures consistent with his inherited status, purposes,
and responsibilities.

Foucault maintains that ancient Greek sexual ethics was stricter than their moral code, as
a man suffered little moral condemnation for his choice of sexual relations, provided he
was neither passive nor partnered with someone under another man’s authority. But
submitting oneself to this mode of subjection meant imposing ethical requirements on
oneself that were not included in the moral code. In fact, submitting oneself to this
rigorous sexual ethics was seen as a noble and fine choice precisely because it was not
morally required.

The mode of subjection for ancient Roman sexual ethics is also an aesthetics of existence,
but Foucault is also clear that it is more austere than the Greek ethics that preceded it.
What this means is that Roman ethical obligations became stricter despite a loose moral
code regarding sex. The increased austerity of this ethics is due in part to the perception
of an intrinsic passivity of sexual acts, and also because the means of responding to this
passivity required greater attention to the rationality of nature (which is not be
understood according to the distinction between what is normal and abnormal). Roman
ethicists conceived that the pleasures of sex were derived by involuntary and dangerous
movements of the body and soul, and that seeking pleasure as the end of an act only
furthered the possibility of corrupting both body and soul. Since for Roman ethicists
nothing in nature seeks sexual pleasure as an end but only as a means to other natural
goods (for example, procreation, health, spiritual well-being), they maintained that the
pursuit of the aphrodisia as an end in itself could arise only from the distortion of the
soul’s desires for pleasure. Consequently, the criterion by which Roman ethicists
evaluated sexual conduct was whether it was born of desire conformed to the wisdom of
nature. So, where the mode of subjection of ancient Greek sexual ethics was the use of
pleasures, where proper use is exemplified as the strategic integration of the pleasures
into one’s life, Roman ethicists understood that nature put universal features into the
aphrodisia that were also the key to discovering the prescriptions for their use.

c. Ethical Work (Ascetics)

The ethical work consists of the self-forming activities meant to ensure one’s own
subjection to a moral authority and transform oneself into an autonomous ethical agent.
Foucault refers to these self-forming activities as practices or technologies of the self, and
also in the ancient sense of askēsis, or ascetic practices. These practices are not to be
conflated with an asceticism that strives for the goal of freeing oneself from all desires for
physical pleasures. To be sure, all ascetic practices are, Foucault thinks, organized
around principles of self-restraint, self-discipline, and self-denial. But not all ascetic
practices aim at eliminating all of one’s desires for physical pleasures.

Foucault maintains that the ethical work to be performed in ancient sexual ethics is that
of self-mastery. For the ancient Greeks, mastering oneself is an agonistic battle with
oneself, where victory is achieved through careful use of the pleasures according to need,
timeliness, and social status. Greek ethicists understood that this battle required regular
training in addition to the knowledge of the things to which one ought to be attracted.
The sort of training a man undertook was aimed at self-mastery through practices of self-
denial and abstention, which taught him to satisfy natural needs at the right time
consistent with his social status. The moral end of such practices was not to cultivate the
attitude that abstention is a moral ideal, but rather to train him to become temperate and
self-controlled. As such, successful self-mastery was exhibited by the man who did not
suppress his desires, but authoritatively controlled them in a way that contributed to his
excellence and the beauty of his life. Foucault suggests that this ideal is exemplified in
the literature about the love of boys, which heroized the man who could express and
maintain friendly love for a boy while at the same restraining his co-present erotic love

Foucault is clear in The Care of the Self that the ethical work in ancient Roman ethics is
also self-mastery, and that the ethicists reconceived the nature of this kind of ethical
work. Instead of an agonistic relationship in which a man struggles to subdue and
enslave his desires for pleasures (rather than be subdued and enslaved by them) through
their proper use, the work of self-mastery for Roman ethics was forcing the desires for
pleasures into proper alignment with the designs of nature. While the same is true for
ancient Greek ethics, the Roman ethicists emphasized it to such a degree that social
status and, to an extent, sexual anatomy were abolished as being relevant factors in
determining one’s ethical duties. What becomes essential for this ethics is grasping that
all pleasures that are not internal to oneself originate in desires that might not be capable
of satisfaction, and whenever one chooses to engage such desires one subjects oneself to
physical and spiritual risk. In all things regarding the aphrodisia, then, careful attention
must be paid to deciphering and testing which of one’s desires originate in nature, or
maintain a consistency with nature, and which transgress the limits set by nature.

The intensification of the austerity of sexual ethics this change in self-mastery produced
is emphasized in marital ethics. Greek men were not morally required to maintain sexual
relations with only their wives, but a man’s sexual conduct was especially excellent when
he restrained his sexual activity to his wife. For the Roman ethicists, however, a man
failed to master himself if he pursued sexual relations with anyone other than his wife,
for nature designed the man and woman to contribute to each other’s physical and
spiritual well-being through their sexual activity together. Their joint spiritual well-being
was considered integral to the harmony of the human community.

d. Telos (Teleology)

The telos of an ethics is the ideal mode or state of being toward which one strives or
aspires in their ethical work. For the ancient Greeks the activity of self-mastery aimed at
a state of moderation that was characterized as freedom in its fullest form, and it was
understood as a man’s enslavement of his desires for pleasures to himself. A man’s
domination of his desires was expressed in domestic and political metaphors: he must
exhibit the constrained strategizing necessary for maintaining an orderly and stable rule
over both his household or subordinates. The man who controlled his use of pleasures
made himself personally prosperous – physically excellent and socially estimable – in the
same way that a household or nation prospers as the result of the careful and skilled
governance of a manager or ruler, and a man was not expected to be successful in
managing his household or exercising political authority and influence without first
achieving victory over his pleasures. The man who failed to master his pleasures and yet
found himself in a position of authority over others was a candidate for tyranny, while the
man who mastered his pleasures was considered the best candidate to govern.

Roman ethicists conceived the activity of self-mastery as aiming at a conversion of the

self to itself, which they conceived as freedom in fullest form. Through the ethical work
of self-mastery an individual conformed their desires to the rationality of nature, which
resulted in a detachment from anything not given by nature as an appropriate object of
desire. Roman ethicists did not understand the telos of self-mastery as the authority over
pleasures that manifested itself in their strategic use, but rather it manifested itself as a
disinterestedness and detachment from the pleasures such that one finds a non-physical,
spiritual pleasure in belonging to the true self nature intends. Nature does not
recommend the mere pursuit of pleasures; it recommends the pursuit of pleasures
insofar as those acts are consistent with other ends that it wants met. Hence, the end of
self-mastery is achieving a perfect consistency between one’s own desires and those that
nature uses to promote its ends. For this reason the freedom achieved through self-
mastery is an autonomy with regard to that which is within one’s control, namely,
conforming oneself to nature.

4. The Care of the Self

A major theme that emerges in Foucault’s final volumes of The History of Sexuality and
his lectures at the Collège de France is the ethical obligation to care for oneself. Foucault
certainly claims in both those volumes that the care of self is foundational to ancient
ethics (UP 73, 108, 211; CS 45-54), but curiously, and despite his titling of the third
volume The Care of the Self, he does not provide significant discussion of the care of self
in its generality. Yet his final three lecture courses at the Collège de France attest to the
fact that not only did he have a definite view about the care of the self, it is central to the
history of philosophy and critical philosophy that he articulated at the end of his life.
This history emphasizes the integral relation between the care of self and the concern for
truth, notably on display in the practice of parrhesia (frank-speech), as its central mode
of expression.

a. Caring for Oneself and Knowing Oneself

The ancient notion of caring for oneself acquires prominence for Foucault in the first
lecture of his 1981-2 course lecture at the Collège de France, The Hermeneutics of the
Subject. For the ancients, Foucault claims, the care of the self was the foundational
principle of all moral rationality. Today, however, caring for oneself is without moral
content. By explaining the ancient conception of the care of the self and its connection to
the Delphic prescription to know oneself, famously observed by Socrates, Foucault wishes
to diagnose the exclusion of the care of the self by modern thought and consider whether,
given his diagnosis, the care of the self might remain viable in modern ethics.

The exclusion of the care of the self is the result of a reconception of two ancient
injunctions: care for oneself and know oneself. These two injunctions were originally
expressed by Socrates – the exemplar par excellence, Foucault thinks, of the person who
cares for himself – with the care of the self serving as the justification for the prescription
to know oneself. According to Foucault, Socrates and ancient ethicists understood that
caring for oneself was to exhibit an attitude not only toward oneself but also toward
others and the world, attend to one’s own thoughts and attitudes in self-reflection and
meditation, and engage in ascetic practices aimed at realizing an ideal state of being. The
prescription to know oneself was the means through which one cared for oneself, and
Socrates cared for his own soul and the souls of others by using the practice of dialectic to
force the examination of the truth of his own thought and conduct and that of his
interlocutors. The salient point for Foucault is that Socrates did not practice philosophy
merely as a means of arriving at true propositions. Instead, his program was to use
philosophy as a tool for examining and testing the consistency of the rational discourse
he and his interlocutors employed to justify their lives and conduct. Foucault sees this as
a philosophical activity that is fundamentally oriented to the care of the self, for truth is
pursued in philosophy for its own good and the sake of ethical development. Philosophy
is by Socrates’ lights a practice essential to one’s ethical development, for it is a spiritual
commitment to the truth that requires self-disciplined attention to the character of one’s
thinking.

Foucault therefore distinguishes between philosophy simpliciter and philosophy as a

spiritual activity. Philosophy considers what enables, conditions, and limits the subject’s
access to the truth. But philosophy as a spiritual activity – or philosophy undertaken
according to the injunction to care for oneself – is philosophy conceived as ethical work
that must be performed in order for an individual to gain access to the truth. This is not
to say, of course, that philosophy as a spiritual activity does not seek to acquire
knowledge of things as they are. Rather, it is to say that such knowledge requires right
conduct in addition to the justification of a true belief.

The injunction to know oneself was therefore a demand to attend to one’s relationship to
the truth as a function of caring for oneself. A decisive change occurs, however, with the
“Cartesian moment” (HS 14). The kind of self-knowledge that René Descartes seeks in
his Meditations on First Philosophy and Rules for the Direction of the Mind is self-
evidence or that which would decisively determine the truth or falsity of a proposition
through its apparent clarity and distinctness. Now, knowing oneself becomes merely a
necessary epistemic, and not moral, condition for gaining access to the truth. (The
Cartesian moment takes further hold, Foucault explains, in the philosophy of Immanuel
Kant, who argues in his Critique of Pure Reason that features of the subject’s own
thinking must be constitutive of the very possibility of knowledge.) Consequently,
attending to oneself becomes judging the truth of a proposition, and self-knowledge is
not a directive for spiritual and ethical development. In modernity philosophy is, for the
most part (compare HS 28, where Foucault adds some qualification), not the activity of
ethical transformation that aims at the existence transformed by truth.

The modern shift in the construal of self-knowledge as self-evidence required changes in

moral rationality. Modern thought construes moral self-examination as the act of
determining whether one’s intentions or acts are consistent with moral obligations.
One’s moral existence is therefore reduced to whether or not one satisfies one’s moral
obligations, which had the consequence that the care of the self is perceived as either
amoral egoism (because it is unconcerned with the foundations of moral obligation) or
melancholic withdrawal (because one cannot know one’s moral obligations). But this is
predicated upon a fundamental misconception of the care of the self. The care of the self
is the ethical transformation of the self in light of the truth, which is to say the
transformation of the self into a truthful existence.

b. Parrhesia (Frank-Speech)
In the final two years of his life, Foucault began to focus his attention on a particular
ancient practice of caring for the self, namely, parrhesia (alternatively, parresia) or frank-
speech. Parrhesia is the courageous act of telling the truth without either embellishment
or concealment for the purpose of criticizing oneself or another. This practice and its
history are the objects of his final two lecture courses at the College de France, The
Government of Self and Others and The Courage of Truth, in addition to a series of
lectures, “Discourse and Truth” (compiled as Fearless Speech), given at the University of
California, Berkeley in the fall of 1983. The chief object of concern is parrhesia as a
practice of self that is centered on the relation of the subject to truth, and how through
engaging in parrhesia one freely constitutes one’s subjectivity.

Foucault stipulates that there are five features of the parrhesiastic act. First, the speaker
must express his own opinion directly; that is, he must express his opinion without (or by
minimizing) rhetorical flourish and make it plain that it is his opinion. Second, parrhesia
requires that the speaker knows that he speaks the truth and that he speaks the truth
because he knows what he says is in fact true. His expressed opinion is verified by his
sincerity and courage, which points to the third feature, namely, danger: it is only when
someone risks some kind of personal harm that his speech constitutes parrhesia. Fourth,
the function of parrhesia is not merely to state the truth, but to state it as an act of
criticizing oneself (for example, an admission) or another. Finally, the parrhesiastes
speaks the truth as a duty to himself and others, which means he is free to keep silent but
respects the truth by imposing upon himself the requirement to speak it as an act of
freedom (FS 11-20; see also GSO 66-7).

It is in Socrates, Foucault says, that the care of the self first manifests itself as parrhesia.
(But not only Socrates; Foucault considers parrhesiastic practices throughout the ancient
Greek and Roman epochs.) The essence of Socratic parrhesia is located in his focus on
the harmony between the way one lives (Greek: bios) and the rational discourse or
account (Greek: logos) one might or might not possess that would justify the way one
lives. Socrates himself lived in a way that was in perfect conformity with his statements
about how one ought to live, and those statements themselves were supported by a
rigorous rational discourse defending their truth. Because Socrates bound himself in his
conduct to his own philosophically explored standards, his interlocutors understood him
to be truly free. Socrates’ harmony is the condition of his use of parrhesia in identifying
and criticizing the lack of harmony in his interlocutors, with the aim of leading them to a
life in which they will bind themselves in their own conduct to only those principles that
they can put into a rational discourse. Socratic parrhesia therefore manifests the care of
the self because its intent is ethical, for it urges the interlocutor to pursue knowledge of
what is true and conform their conduct to the truth as ethical work.

5. Ethics and Critical Philosophy

Ethics and critique emerged nearly simultaneously as objects of Foucault’s interest (1981
and 1978, respectively). Whether or not that was accidental is an interesting area of
scholarship. But Foucault explicitly links them together in the much discussed essay,
“What is Enlightenment?”, explaining that his project is critical philosophy precisely
because it contributes to our abilities to autonomously fashion and constitute ourselves.
Thus, around Kant, Foucault combines critical philosophy and ethics, and that
connection provides greater insight into just how Foucault conceives of ethics and the
history of ethics in relation to his own project. But his self-alignment with the tradition
of critical philosophy has become the most contentious issue in the scholarship. The
criticisms are diverse, but all offer some version of the thesis that Foucault either rejects
or lacks the normative criteria required for critique.

a. Kant and Foucault

Late in his life Foucault often claimed to be a descendant of the tradition of critical
philosophy established by Kant. However, it is evident that Foucault always maintained
an interest in Kant’s philosophy, which is verified by his secondary thesis for his
philosophy doctorate, a close reading of and commentary on Kant’s Anthropology from a
Pragmatic Point of View (see Foucault 2008). Additionally, Foucault casually aligns
himself rather broadly with critical philosophy in two other works from the 1960’s, The
Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966) (BC xix; OT 342). The received
view of this period of his work, especially the secondary thesis and The Order of Things,
is that it provides decisive evidence of his rejection of Kant’s attempt to place all rational
conditions and constraints in the subject (for example, see Habermas 1986, Schmidt and
Wartenburg 1994, Han 2002, Allen 2003). Although Kant disappears from Foucault’s
work as an object of explicit discussion, there is some indirect evidence found throughout
his explicitly ethical writings that strongly suggests that the self-constituting subject is his
target (see again PK 117, EW3 3-4, DP 30).

Kant reappears in Foucault’s thought in the 1978 address “What is Critique?” and he
remains an object of attention until Foucault’s death in 1984. In the later work Kant is no
longer discussed seemingly negatively as the philosopher that grounds thought, action,
and freedom in the subject’s self-legislated laws of reason, but rather the philosopher
who in his 1784 essay “What is Enlightenment?” takes aim at the ways in which human
beings arbitrarily constrain themselves in their present actuality. Foucault departs from
the Kantian critical project insofar as he does not seek to provide an “analytics of truth,”
which would guarantee autonomous thinking and acting in universal and necessary
principles (see, for example, “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking,” 8:145,
and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 4:431). Instead, he controversially
claims to promote autonomy by engaging in a critical-historical ontology of the present,
the purpose of which is to disclose the singular and arbitrary constraints that we impose
upon ourselves so that we might, should we possess the courage, constitute ourselves
differently. Or, as Foucault puts it, the goal is to determine “what is not or is no longer
indispensable for the constitution of ourselves as autonomous subjects” (EW1 313). (For
more locations where Foucault aligns himself with the tradition of critical philosophy see
FS 169-173, GSO 1-39, PT 41-82, EW2 459).
The scholarship agrees that there is a prima facie incompatibility in Foucault’s treatment
of Kant, but there is disagreement about whether it is more substantial. Jürgen
Habermas (1986) maintains that Foucault’s alleged critique of the Kantian self-
constituting subject cannot be squared with the conception of the self-constituting
subject that emerges in his ethical writings. Allen (2003) disputes this view, maintaining
that Foucault never rejects the notion of self-constitution, but rather rejects the uniquely
modern conception of self-constitution as it appears in Kantian and post-Kantian
philosophy. A possible alternative is presented by Norris (1994), who claims that
Foucault simply does not have a consistent position on the Kantian philosophy, but that
need not necessarily diminish our appreciation of his later work. (It is relevant to this
discussion that Foucault himself says he is not above changing his mind. See AK 17,
where Foucault famously responds to critics about his perceived shiftiness by asserting
his right to change his mind, which is echoed later in his life at UP 8-9. See also EW1 177,
225, and FL 465, where admits to changing his views about power and other concepts.)

b. Critique and Parrhesia

The recent publication of Foucault’s lecture courses on parrhesia provide further material
for his connection to the critical tradition. In his conclusion to his lectures at Berkeley on
parrhesia Foucault very clearly connects parrhesia to the Kantian tradition of critical
philosophy. He invokes again the distinction between two traditions of philosophy: the
analytics of truth and the critical tradition. Instead of explaining the former as being
merely Cartesian and Kantian, he explains it as a concern with the correct processes of
reasoning in determining whether a statement is true (thus, Descartes and Kant
exemplify a certain kind of analytics of truth, namely, that which grounds truth in the
subject). On the other side is the critical tradition that is concerned with why it is
important to tell the truth and who is entitled to speak it. He then goes on to say that the
seminar on parrhesia is a part of his “genealogy of the critical attitude in Western
philosophy” (FS 170), thus aligning parrhesia with Kantian critical philosophy. In doing
so Foucault establishes that his critical philosophy is a practice of parrhesia in a similar
manner to the Kantian practice of parrhesia. In “What is Enlightenment?” Kant engages
in parrhesia when he encourages his contemporaries to use their own reason, consistent
with universal law, of course, and refuse to merely rely on the authority of others,
including the authority of the monarchy and state, as a guide to their use of reason
(however, one must privately obey institutional authorities while publicly expressing
one’s disagreement with them). Foucault understands his own critical activity as a form
of parrhesia in a sense similar to that which Kant exemplifies in the essay on
enlightenment. Disclosing the historicity and arbitrariness of the previously
unquestioned constraints that we impose on ourselves is, Foucault thinks, a parrhesiastic
act. Determining their precise relations is at the heart of interpreting the nature and
scope of Foucault’s critical project. For more, see Flynn 1987, O’Leary 2002, McGushin
2007, and the ensuing subsection.

c. Parrhesia and Self-Legislation

Ethics, Foucault says, is the form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection,
and by this he means that freedom consists in reflectively informed ascetic practices or
practices of self. These informed practices are imbued with an attitude, ethos, or
relationship to one’s ethical substance that Foucault understands as the activity of
freedom (EW1 284). One reason that he focused on ethical work, then, is to discover how
human beings freely make themselves into moral subjects of their own conduct through
techniques or practices of self-restraint and self-discipline.

In The Government of Self and Others Foucault construes parrhesia as free practice of
self par excellence. “Parrēsia,” Foucault says, “is the free courage by which one binds
oneself in the act of telling the truth. Or again, parrhesia is the ethics of truth-telling as
an action which is risky and free” (GSO 66). The language that Foucault uses to describe
parrhesiastic freedom throughout this lecture hour is incredibly suggestive of its source:
it is the language of Kantian self-legislation. For Kant, autonomy does not consist in
giving oneself the moral law, since the moral law is a necessity of the rational will; rather,
autonomy consists in binding oneself to the law by freely conforming one’s conduct to it
(see, for example, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals 4:31). This connection
suggests that Foucault understands parrhesia as the supreme act of self-legislation and
autonomy, where truth rather than moral law plays the normative role – a point already
suggested in Foucault’s claims about the original meaning of the care of the self. That is
to say, it seems that the truth is for Foucault a moral value or a good one ought to
pursue. Parrhesia is the supreme act of self-legislation because the risk and danger
involved in the act tests one’s self-discipline and courage in their commitment to the
truth.

This casts more light on Foucault’s representation of his project as critical. Because
autonomy is conceived as binding oneself to the truth, truth becomes the practical goal of
Foucaultian critique. This would entail that one is to pursue the truth in both its
propositional and non-propositional (or existential forms) as the highest practice of self.

d. The Problem of Normativity and the Aesthetics of

Existence
The chief objection to Foucault’s self-alignment with the critical tradition is not focused
on his reading of Kant, but whether he has the philosophical resources to support a
properly critical philosophy. When Kant engages in parrhesia by exhorting his peers to
use their own reason he is not issuing merely an exhortation, but, per his moral
philosophy, he is telling them that their own practical reason obligates the use of reason
consistent with universal law. In this regard, Kant’s parrhesia flows from, and his use of
critique is grounded in, his analytics of truth. But Foucault intentionally steers clear of
that project, which raises questions about the legitimacy and force of his critical
philosophy. Now, while criticisms of Foucault’s philosophy are diverse (see especially
Taylor 1986, Habermas 1986, Bernstein 1994, and Fraser 1994), a common complaint is
that he owes his readers some explanation for why one ought to accept his evaluations of
modern ethics.

But it is not at all obvious that Foucaultian critical philosophy is – despite the use of the
term ‘critique’ – in the business of evaluation. It is true, as Bernstein (1994) points out,
that Foucault very often uses a value-laden rhetoric. However, it is also true that his
project is critical in the peculiar sense of the unmasking of some previously concealed
practice or aspect of some practice as an activity of frank-speech. His rhetoric is
therefore charged not because he has some hidden normative criteria already in hand (as
Habermas 1990 alleges), but because, for example, certain individuals operate in a
practice (say, penitential practices) under false opinions about its supposed noble goals
(for example, defending society). To this end Foucault need only unmask the tensions
and inconsistencies in a practice through his historical labors to make his project critical.

While such a maneuver is consistent with a purely descriptive interpretation of Foucault’s

critical philosophy, there is a palpable sense in which he goes beyond mere unmasking to
recommendation. For example, in an interview from 1984, “An Aesthetics of Existence,”
Foucault states that moral approval (or mode of subjection) conceived merely as
obedience to a moral code is not only disappearing but has disappeared, and “to this
absence of morality corresponds, must correspond, the search for an aesthetics of
existence” (PPC 49; see also OT 326-7). On the one hand, this appears to be a
descriptive, historical statement of a matter of fact, namely, that the nature of moral
approval has changed. On the other hand, some commentators (O’Leary 2002) interpret
such statements as evaluations of modern ethics and recommendations for an alternative
standard of moral approval exemplified by an aesthetics of existence. There is no doubt
that Foucault commends those who might undertake an aesthetics or arts of existence
(EW1 261), or those who voluntarily and rigorously elaborate their existence according to
a set of self-imposed standards that aim at what they take to be the good, fine, and
beautiful life. It is unclear, however, if Foucault is merely commending or also
recommending an aesthetics of existence. Foucault’s critics see no binding or
authoritative reason why one ought to pursue an aesthetics of existence instead of, say,
egoism unless one has the resources for sorting out good, fine, and beautiful things. For
this reason, critics (see Thacker 1993 in addition to those noted above) who interpret
Foucault as recommending the aesthetics of existence find it to be an insufficiently
articulated alternative to the alleged decline of modern morality.

Additionally, some criticism of Foucault’s ethical thought is based on a reading that

empties the aesthetics of existence of its robust moral content. While Foucault does not
always help himself out in playing up that content (see EW1 261), it is worth paying
attention to the fact that an aesthetics of existence heeds the ancient injunction to care
for oneself. This means it is ethically oriented by the care of the self and truth, such that
one ought to fashion oneself in accordance with the life that one could reasonably
maintain is truly fine and beautiful, and also that the practitioner of an aesthetics of
existence demands of others, as he or she demands of himself or herself, that they
provide a rational discourse for the life that they believe to be truly fine and beautiful. So,
while Foucault is careful to say that a return to ancient Greek ethics – a male-oriented,
class-centered ethics – is neither a solution to contemporary moral problems nor a
remedy to the alleged decline of modern morality – and indeed expresses pessimism
about its prospects (HS 251-2) – an aesthetics of existence properly reformulated to
modernity might prove worthy of consideration as a mode of subjection. In the end,
however, Foucault supplies only interesting suggestions and nothing too concrete. For
this reason this area of Foucault’s thought, and its critical scope, remains hotly debated
and a fruitful area of research. For a wide range of essays dealing with the manifold of
issues related to ethics and critical philosophy in Foucault’s thought, see Norris 1994,
Kelly ed. 1994, Ashenden and Owen ed. 1999, O’Leary 2002, and McGushin 2007.
6. References and Further Reading

a. Primary Sources and Abbreviations

Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage
Books, 1970 (OT).
Chapters 7 and 9 are important for Foucault’s interpretation of modernity, including modern morality, and
especially for his much discussed interpretation of Kant’s critical philosophy.

Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language, trans. A. M.
Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972 (AK).
Foucault lays out the structure of his archaeological method in both texts.

Foucault, Michel. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A. M.
Sheridan Smith. New York: Vintage Books, 1973 (BC).
Foucault examines the genesis of modern medical perception and experience, which he characterizes in
the Preface as both historical and critical.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan. New York:
Vintage Books, 1977 (DP).
This book is primarily about modern penitential practices, which Foucault understands as one of the most
important practices to develop, not coincidentally, at the same time as reform and liberation discourses.

Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, ed. Colin
Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980 (PK).
This volume contains some of Foucault’s most controversial claims about the interrelations of power of
knowledge and the nature of truth – claims that might be helpfully interpreted in light of his turn to ethics.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, vol. 3: The Care of the Self, trans. Robert Hurley. New
York: Vintage Books, 1988 (CS).
Part Two, “The Cultivation of the Self,” gives an outline of Roman ethics. The rest of the text explores
changes in ancient Roman ethics and the intensification of the problematization of the aphrodisia, focusing
on increased austerity in bodily health, marriage, and the love of boys.

Foucault, Michel. Philosophy, Politics, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings of Michel Foucault,
ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman. New York: Routledge, 1988 (PPC).
A collection of writings and interviews.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley. New
York: Vintage Books, 1990 (UP).
Chapter Three of the Introduction is the most lucid presentation of his theory of ethics. Chapter One is
also noteworthy because it offers some insight into Foucault’s critical-historical project.

Foucault, Michel. Foucault Live (Interviews, 1961-1984), ed. Sylvère Lotringer. New York:
Semiotext(e), 1996 (FL).
A collection of interviews spanning Foucault’s career. Some of the early interviews in this volume contain
some of Foucault’s strongest critical rhetoric about the subject.

Foucault, Michel. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, vol. 1: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth,
ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press, 1997 (EW1).
Items of special note in this volume are “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress”
(253-280), “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom” (281-302), and “What is
Enlightenment?” (303-320).
Foucault, Michel. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, vol. 2: Aesthetics, Method, and
Epistemology, ed. James D. Faubion. New York: The New Press, 1998 (EW2).
The essay, “Foucault,” penned in part pseudonymously by Foucault himself, is worth mentioning because
he provides an overview of his work in addition to straightforward statements about his affiliation with the
Kantian tradition of critical philosophy.

Foucault, Michel. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, vol. 3: Power, ed. James Faubion. New
York: The New Press, 2000 (EW3).
The essay “The Subject and Power” is perhaps Foucault’s clearest presentation of his view on power-
relations and it is relevant to those interested in his ethics.

Foucault, Michel. Fearless Speech, ed. Joseph Pearson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2001 (FS).
Foucault covers political parrhesia in the writings of Euripides, Platonic texts on Socratic and philosophical
parrhesia, and parrhesia in the Epicureans and Cynics.

Foucault, Michel. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981-1982,
trans. Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005 (HS).
This lecture course, especially the very first lecture, is crucial to the development of Foucault’s conception
of ethics and his understanding of the history of ethics.

Foucault, Michel. The Politics of Truth, ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2007 (PT).
This volume contains the important 1978 address, “What is Critique?”, which is the first indication of
Foucault’s shift of focus from power to ethics, although it is not clearly articulated as such. It is also
noteworthy because it is Foucault’s first extended discussion of Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?”

Foucault, Michel. Introduction to Kant’s Anthropology, trans. Roberto Nigro and Kate Biggs. Los
Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008.
Through a reading of Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View and its contextualization with
the critical philosophy, Foucault suggests that Kantian philosophical anthropology is at the very heart of
the critical philosophy.

Foucault, Michel. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France 1982-
1983, trans. Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010 (GSO).
Foucault narrows his focus from the care of the self to parrhesia as a practice of caring for the self.
Foucault devotes the first two hours to discussing primarily Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?” but also
his discussion of revolution in The Conflict of the Faculties.

Foucault, Michel. The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the Collège de France 1983-1984, trans.
Graham Burchell. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011.
Parrhesia is once again the focus of this lecture course.

b. Select Secondary Sources

Allen, Amy. “Foucault and Enlightenment: A Critical Reappraisal,” Constellations 10:2, 2003, pp.
180-198.
Allen contends that Foucault is engaged in a critique of Kantian critique in which Foucault is said to claim
that Kant designs his critical philosophy around the confused doctrine of the subject.

Ashenden, Samantha and David Owens, ed. Foucault Contra Habermas: Recasting the Dialogue
Between Genealogy and Critical Theory. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1999.
A collection of essays on Foucault’s engagement with Habermas.

Bernstein, Richard. “Foucault: Critique as a Philosophical Ethos,” Critique and Power: Recasting the
Foucault/Habermas Debate, ed. Michael Kelly, pp. 211-42. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994.
 Not only does Bernstein do an excellent job summarizing the complaints of critics such as Habermas and
Fraser, he offers some insightful worries about Foucault’s self-alignment with the critical tradition.

Davidson, Arnold I. “Archaeology, Genealogy, Ethics,” Foucault: A Critical Reader, ed. David
Couzens Hoy, pp. 221-33. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1986.
Davidson provides a helpful overview of Foucault’s conception of ethics and situation of that conception
within his archaeological and genealogical methods.

Davidson, Arnold I. “Ethics as Ascetics: Foucault, the History of Ethics, and Ancient Thought,” The
Cambridge Companion to Foucault, 2nd Edition, ed. Gary Gutting, pp. 123-148. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Yet another insightful treatment by Davidson of Foucault’s conception of ethics with discussion of the
latter’s analysis of ancient sexuality.

Detel, Wolfgang. Foucault and Classical Antiquity: Power, Ethics and Knowledge, trans. David
Wigg-Wolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
A critical treatment of Foucault’s investigations of ancient ethics, including original discussion of ancient
ethics, and his historical methodology.

Flynn, Thomas. “Foucault as Parrhēsiast: His Last Course at the Collège de France (1984),” The
Final Foucault, ed. James Bernauer and David Rasmussen, pp. 102-18. Cambridge: The MIT
Press, 1988.
A summary and clarification of Foucault’s last lecture course, The Courage of Truth, that connects it to his
views about and attitude towards the enlightenment, and, given the suggested connections, how to read
Foucault as a parrhēsiast.

Fraser, Nancy. “Michel Foucault: A ‘Young Conservative’?”, Critique and Power: Recasting the
Foucault/Habermas Debate, ed. Michael Kelly, pp. 185-210. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994.
Fraser provides a helpful discussion and commentary on Habermas’ criticisms of Foucault.

Habermas, Jürgen. “Taking Aim at the Heart of the Present,” Foucault: A Critical Reader, ed. David
Couzens Hoy, pp. 103-8. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1986.
Habermas maintains that not only does Foucault have an incompatible interpretation of Kant’s critical
philosophy, but that he is also not entitled to engage in critical philosophy because he rejects the
normative requirements of critique.

Habermas, Jürgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, trans. Frederick G.
Lawrence. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990.
Habermas mounts a powerful critique of Foucault’s entire thought in two lengthy chapters (Chapters Nine
and Ten).

Han, Béatrice. Foucault’s Critical Project: Between the Transcendental and the Historical, trans.
Edward Pile. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Han maintains that Foucault argues that Kant is unable to maintain the distinction between the
transcendental and the empirical; however, she contends that Foucault himself is unable to maintain the
distinction throughout his work between the transcendental and the historical.

Kelly, Michael, ed. Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate. Cambridge:
The MIT Press.
This volume includes writings by both Foucault and Habermas in addition to essays dealing with value-
related issues in both Foucault’s thought and Habermas’.

Levy, Neil. “Foucault as Virtue Ethicist,” Foucault Studies, no. 1, 2004, pp. 20-31.
The author maintains that Foucault’s investigations of the care of the self show that his ethical work is
best understood as a virtue theoretic ethics.

McGushin, Edward F. Foucault’s Askēsis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life. Evanston:

Northwestern University Press, 2007.
 McGushin weaves together the various threads of Foucault’s thought as a spiritual practice that is
exercised in the criticism of the Cartesian moment and the confluence of normalizing biopolitics.

Milchman, Alan and Alan Rosenberg. “The Aesthetic and Ascetic Dimensions of an Ethics of Self-
Fashioning: Nietzsche and Foucault,” Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy, no. 2, 2007,
pp. 44-65.
This essay provides a valuable discussion of Foucault’s ‘ethical turn’ and his concept of an aesthetics of
existence, including how it is related to a similar view found in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, a
well-known influence on Foucault.

Norris, Christopher. “‘What is Enlightenment?’ Kant according to Foucault,” The Cambridge

Companion to Foucault, 1st Edition, ed. Gary Gutting, pp. 159-96. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Norris considers the complexity of Foucault’s conception of the subject as it appears throughout the
latter’s writings and in the context of his relationship to Kant.

O’Leary, Timothy. Foucault and the Art of Ethics. London: Continuum, 2002.
O’Leary lays out an account of Foucault’s ethics in which Foucault offers an aesthetics of existence as an
alternative to the failure of modern theory to ground moral obligations. Without denying potential
problems in this ethics, O’Leary maintains that its goal is self-transformation and experimentation.

Schmidt, James and Thomas Wartenberg, “Foucault’s Enlightenment: Critique, Revolution, and the
Fashioning of the Self,” Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate, ed.
Michael Kelly, pp. 283-314. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994.
The authors consider Foucault’s reading of Kant and the former’s relationship to the enlightenment,
concluding that, while Foucault is not immune from criticism, critics of his work might start with the
Kantian ideas that Foucault inherits.

Sharpe, Matthew. “‘Critique’ as Technology of the Self,” Foucault Studies, no. 2, 2005, pp. 97-116.
Sharpe posits that there is a theoretical continuity in Foucault’s thought (that is, there is no ‘ethical turn’)
insofar as Foucault always maintained the value of Kantian critique as a practice of self.

Stone, Brad E. “Subjectivity and Truth,” Foucault: Key Concepts, Dianna Taylor ed., pp. 143-57.
Durham: Acumen, 2011.
The care of the self and its relation to parrhēsia is covered, in addition to exploring possibilities of caring
for the self in the modern age.

Taylor, Charles. “Foucault on Freedom and Truth,” Foucault: A Critical Reader, ed. David Couzens
Hoy, pp. 69-102. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1986.
Taylor argues that Foucault's conception of power-relations assumes views of both truth and freedom that
the latter rejects.

Taylor, Dianna. “Normalization and Normativity,” Foucault Studies, no. 7, 2009, pp. 45-63.
Taylor deals with the issue of normativity in both Foucault and Habermas, maintaining that Habermas’
conception of normativity might in practice constrain (viz. normalization) rather than emancipate.

Taylor, Dianna. “Practices of the Self,” Foucault: Key Concepts, Dianna Taylor ed., pp. 173-86.
Durham: Acumen, 2011.
Taylor examines Foucault’s notion of practices of the self in the context of the Christian practice of self-
sacrifice, which she contrasts with his own critical practice that, she claims, emphasizes innovative and
creative practices of the self.

Thacker, Andrew. “Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence,” Radical Philosophy, no. 63, 1993, pp. 13-21.
Foucault’s notion of an aesthetics of existence is treated, and Thacker maintains that said notion is
insufficiently articulated to stand as a criteria for personal decision-making.
Author Information
Bob Robinson
Email: robert.robinson@lmu.edu
Loyola Marymount University
U. S. A.