Life after Hobbes?, the logic of power from Hobbes to Foucault

grantor: University of TorontoHow and why did life--that is, biological existence--become not only the central category of modern politics but also the central object of modern power? Hobbes was the first to design a political system joining life with politics. Hobbes argued that the preservation of life was the goal of government and that human physiology was the source of all human behaviour. These two arguments placed life at the centre of modern politics: the authority of government was linked to its ability to protect life; governments became concerned with physiology to understand the causes of, and the ways of influencing, human behaviour. Subsequent political philosophers, such as Bentham, radicalized Hobbes's arguments. Bentham claimed the study of physiology highlighted not only the causes of human behaviour but also how this behaviour could be manipulated and transformed. Bentham's Panopticon was a technology that could, by using the physiological "springs and actions" of human behaviour, disassemble and reassemble the individual. Individuals who represent a threat to the happiness of society as a whole should, Bentham insisted, be subjected to the Panopticon, which would transform them into productive members of society. This technological ability to manipulate life, Foucault later argued, created a "strange logic" at the heart of modern power. The possibility of transforming the dynamics of life produced a continuum from the "normal" to the "pathological"; and individuals were related to political power depending on where they fell within this continuum. The normal individual was held up as the model, and the pathological individual was subjected to treatments that aimed to transform him into a normal individual. If the pathological individual resisted, he was to be destroyed. The destruction of the pathological individual reveals the strange logic of modern power: in the name of life (the normal), governments have the right and the duty to destroy life (the pathological). While Foucault failed to develop a persuasive alternative to this strange logic, he outlined how it has become the most significant problem facing contemporary political philosophy.Ph.D