Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 08:48:01 +0100
From: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk (COLIN WIGHT)
Subject: Re: How to (conf)oose boundaries" (1 easy step)


Steve wrote:
>
>In any case, the question of "how one chooses what boundaries are
>worth transgressing" is not a difficult one for Foucault.  One
>examines the situation, possibly deliberates, weighs the pros and cons
>of one course of action or another, perhaps discusses it with others,
>and finally makes a choice (or delays, and chooses later).  Having
>done so, one checks to see whether the outcome of the choice was
>desirable or undesirable, or a little of both.  Presumably one
>thereafter takes the experience into account.  (I assume that one is
>taking the trouble to choose, whereas usually one acts according to
>habit). 
>
>Nothing innovative here.  Foucault's innovation in ethics, if there is
>one (which there isn't), is to say: there is no piece of information
>about human beings (their purpose, their genes, what is normal among
>them, what aids their survival, what makes them happy, what they
>desire deep down) that can settle the ethical -- or moral, or
>political -- questions that arise in their lives.  This is because, he
>says, "the self is not given," which Foucault calls "Sartre's
>theoretical insight."   From this premise, he concludes: we must
>create our selves "as works of art."

OK, now I get it, this is a straight foward positivism, non? With a strong a
priori commitment to 'Hume's Fork'. 

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Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA

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