Self-Constitution and Folds of Subjectivation in Foucault

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Foucault’s final key notion of subjectivation in the light of the Baroque metaphor of fold(ing). According to Deleuze, two distinct sources, Heidegger’s memory of Being and Leibniz’s monadology, are in a way brought together in this Foucauldian notion. I try to highlight the importance of the concept of subjectivation in the context of a performative turn in contemporary philosophy and various historical ways of conceiving this concept. A technical yet crucial aspect that has to be emphasized is the complex interplay and mutual co-dependence between active subjectivation and subjection (assujettissement). Understanding the «mode of subjection» as one of «the four folds of subjectivation» in Foucault provides us with a compelling argument for ethical pluralism. Finally, this gives us the vital clue for adjusting Deleuze’s interpretation of Foucault, revealing Nietzsche’s violent memory rather than the Heideggerian memory of Being as decisive in the process of subjectivation, and also a necessary conversion of «negative» freedom into positive liberty as autonomy and self-discipline, likewise in agreement with Nietzsche’s project of making «asceticism natural again».

Interpretative Pros Hen Pluralism: from Computer-Mediated Colonization to a Pluralistic Intercultural Digital Ethics

Intercultural Digital Ethics (IDE) faces the central challenge of how to develop a global IDE that can endorse and defend some set of (quasi-) universal ethical norms, principles, frameworks, etc. alongside sustaining local, culturally variable identities, traditions, practices, norms, and so on. I explicate interpretive pros hen (focal or “towards one”) ethical pluralism (EP(ph)) emerging in the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century in response to this general problem and its correlates, including conflicts generated by “computer-mediated colonization” that imposed homogenous values, communication styles, and so on upon “target” peoples and cultures via ICTs as embedding these values in their very design. I contrast different kinds of ethical pluralisms as structural apparatus for understanding what differences may mean and allow for, as these emerged in the 1990s forwards with EP(ph). As interwoven with phronēsis, a form of reflective judgment and virtue, EP(ph) more radically preserves irreducible differences and so fosters positive engagements across deep cultural differences. I show how EP(ph) emerged in the context of empirical research on “Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication” (CATaC) beginning in 1998, and then in specific applications within Internet Research Ethics (IRE) beginning in 2000. I summarize its main characteristics and trace how it has further been taken up in ICE, IRE, Intercultural Information Ethics, and virtue ethics more broadly. I respond to important criticisms and objections, arguing that EP(ph) thus stands as an important component for a contemporary IDE that seeks an ethical cosmopolitanism in place of computer-mediated colonization.

A Contemporary Analysis of Kant’s Concept of Goodwill and the Categorical Imperative

This paper makes a contemporary appraisal of the concepts of the ‘Goodwill’ and the ‘Categorical Imperative’ in Kant’s formalistic, deontological ethics. Kant posits that the rightness of an act does not depend at all on the value of its consequences. For him, in order to know whether an act is right or wrong, we need only see whether it is in accordance with a valid moral rule. The test for a valid moral rule, as he conceives it, is purely formalistic. For a moral rule to be valid, it must pass the test of the foundational, supreme principle or ultimate criterion of morality, which Kant calls the “Categorical Imperative”. On this score, the paper, seeks to address the problem of ethical formalism and foundationalism associated with Kant’s theory in view of the contemporary challenge of ethical pluralism and destructive postmodernism. The objective of the paper is to reconcile with Kantianism with the contemporary shift from moral foundationalism and universalism to anti-foundationalism and relativism.

THE CHALLENGE OF ETHICAL-CULTURAL PLURALISM TO THE UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

One of the main criticisms directed against the legitimacy of internationally recognized human rights is that they are ethnocentric or parochial. The examination of this objection leads to the conclusion that it is not relativism but cultural-ethical pluralism the main challenge to the universal validity of human rights. Ethical pluralism queries that the justification of human rights that has prevailed since the approval of the UDHR has arbitrarily given, under a deceptive appearance of universality, a weight far superior to individualistic values than to collectivistic. After examining some of the main attempts to overcome this challenge (the constructive theory of human rights and justificatory minimalism), the one based on the defense of a kind of ethical individualism compatible with a moderate ethical objectivism is defended as a preferable alternative.

Ethical Pluralism in Economics

Traditional approaches to understanding morality, through evaluating outcomes, analyzing rules, principles, and duty, and adhering to notions of virtue and character, offer competing but also complementary ways of framing conduct in a social setting. Ethical pluralism is the claim that all three methods are, to some degree, useful to positive economics because each provides distinctive insights into human behavior. Each is also useful in normative economics because a single framework has limitations that are solved by introducing elements from the others. The neoclassical economic approach, concerned ostensibly with outcome goals, must consider how economic agents are motivated by duty and virtue ethics considerations. Adam Smith’s virtue ethics, for example, arise from moral sentiments, not rational calculation. In considering the morality of efficiency, a Paretian approach derives ultimately from Kantian considerations, and the Kaldor-Hicks approach relies on background conditions of human rights and other non-outcome based elements.

Regulating Genome Editing: For an Enlightened Democratic Governance

How should we regulate genome editing in the face of persistent substantive disagreement about the moral status of this technology and its applications? In this paper, we aim to contribute to resolving this question. We first present two diametrically opposed possible approaches to the regulation of genome editing. A first approach, which we refer to as “elitist,” is inspired by Joshua Greene’s work in moral psychology. It aims to derive at an abstract theoretical level what preferences people would have if they were committed to implementing public policies regulating genome editing in a context of ethical pluralism. The second approach, which we refer to as the democratic approach, defended by Francoise Baylis and Sheila Jasanoff et al., emphasizes the importance of including the public’s expressed attitudes in the regulation of genome editing. After pointing out a serious shortcoming with each of these approaches, we propose our own favored approach—the “enlightened democracy” approach—which attempts to combine the strengths of the elitist and democratic approaches while avoiding their weaknesses.