Body, Surveillance and Ethics

Body, Surveillance and Ethics PhD Thesis Mgr. Martin Charvát, Ph.D. Abstract The aim of my dissertation thesis is to analyze the dispositions of non-normative ethics as presented in works of M. Foucault, G. Deleuze and J. Derrida. My hypothesis is that non- normative ethics must be conceived as an interpretation and thematization of the meaning of the relationship between body, surveillance, event and experiment. What brings together Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida is the critique of externally constituted moral codes that are always creating a historically-economically-polico-socially determined subject, or certain norms of conduction and behaviour that are considered to be "good" or "right". However, the above-mentioned authors have based their conceptions on the belief that the human life should be characterized by freedom, or the potential of articulation of an individual (or his behaviour/action), regardless of external moral determinations. Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida distinguish the possibility of a constant crossing of given institutional and socially grounded constraints, with the goal of the constant shaping of ones live that would not be restricted by normative and prescriptive rules. The theme of freedom is given into context of the experimental self-formation that takes place at the moment of..