Beyond Good and Evil

Beyond Good and Evil: The Ethical Sensibility of Michel Foucault
Author(s): William E. Connolly

Source: Political Theory, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 365-389
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
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BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
The Ethical Sensibility of Michel Foucault
WILLIAM E. CONNOLLY
Johns Hopkins University
To be ashamedof one's immorality-that is a step on the staircaseat whose end one is

also ashamedof one's morality.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
THEEVILOF GOODNESS
Is Foucault, who continues to live among us, a creative carrier of a

generous sensibility?Or a dangerousthinkerwho threatenspoliticalrestraint
by scrambling fundamentalparametersof morality?He is both. He chal-
lenges established morality in pursuit of a higher ethical sensibility, but
dangeris inscribedin the effortto shift the termsandbases of these doctrines.
For to challenge fixed conceptionsof will, identity,responsibility,normality,
and punishmentis to be cruel to people (and aspects of oneself) attachedto
establishedmoralcodes; it is to open up new uncertaintieswithinestablished
terms of judgment; and, sometimes it is to incite punitive reactions among
those whose sense of moral self-assurance has been jeopardized. The
Foucauldiansensibilitysharesthese characteristicswith every experimentin
morality,includingthose enactedtodayin courts,families,schools, churches,
hospitals, armies, welfare offices, prisons,and workplaces.
Foucault'sethical sensibility of "care"amidstsocial conflict and coordi-
nation operates,then, within a series of paradoxesthat threatento derail it.
But, as I receive his political spirituality,the most promising route is to
struggle to overcome resentmentagainst the paradoxicalcircumstancesin
which we are set (for no god guaranteeslife withoutparadox;indeed, most
AUTHOR'SNOTE:I would like to express my appreciationto Jane Bennett,David Campbell,

TomDumm,Dick Flathman,Bonnie Honig, and TracyStrongfor criticismsof thefirst draftof
this essay.
POLITICALTHEORY,Vol. 21 No. 3, August 1993 365-389
? 1993 Sage Publications,Inc.
365
366 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1993
of the ones I have encounteredembody it), and to negotiate this slippery

terrainwith intellectual care and political daring. (Or vice versa? I'm not
sure.)
Let me considera recentessayby JamesMillerto introducethe Foucauldian
sensibilityI admire.Miller seeks to protecta liberalpolitics of limits against
Foucauldian assaults on the morality of good and evil. He thinks that
liberalism,with its commitmentto ruleof law, rights,and individualrespon-
sibility providesthe conditionsfor a politics of limits. Foucaultblurs these
limits and threatensthose moralstabilizations.In Foucault's1971 interview
withActuel,"themost freewheelingmagazineof the Frenchcounter-culture,"
Miller finds Foucaultrunningroughshodover the limits that freedom and
orderrequire.2Millerinformsus thatthe interviewis entitled"BeyondGood
and Evil," thatFoucaultattackshumanismbecause it "restrictsthe drive for
power," (a fragment from Foucault), and that Foucault wages "total war
againstsociety"(Miller'sphrase).This soundslike a refusalof self-limitation,
alright-one, as Miller puts it, that Foucaultreconsideredin his later work
when he moved closer to liberalism.
But I find this same 1971 interview to embody an admirableethical
sensibility, one in which ingredients crucial to a future perspective are
outlined with insufficient introductionof reservationsand cautions that
become installed later.Foucaultfinds a covert problemof evil to be lodged
within the conventional politics of good and evil. Evil not as actions by
immoral agents who freely transgressthe moral law but evil as arbitrary
cruelty installed in regularinstitutionalarrangementstaken to embody the
Law, the Good, or the Normal. Foucault contends, along with Nietzsche,
Arendt,andTodorov,thatsystemiccrueltyflows regularlyfromthe thought-
lessness of aggressive conventionality,the transcendentalizationof contin-
gent identities, and the treatmentof good/evil as a duality wired into the
intrinsicorder of things. A modernproblemof evil resides, paradoxically,
within the good/evil dualityand numerousdualitieslinked to it. Evil, again,
not as gratuitousaction by free agentsoperatingin an innocentinstitutional
matrix but as undeserved suffering imposed by practices protecting the
reassurance(the goodness, purity,autonomy,normality)of hegemonic iden-
tities. To reach"beyond"the politics of good andevil is not to liquidateethics
but to become ashamedof the transcendentalization of conventionalmoral-
ity. It is to subjectmoralityto stripsearches.
There is cruelty involved in such strip searches. But they also take a
precarious step toward a social ethic of generosity in relations among
alternative,problematic,and (often) rival identities.They promotea politics
of limits throughgenealogiesof ambiguityandarbitrarinessin culturalnorms
Connolly/ BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 367
that have become naturalized. This agenda can be heard in lines from the
essay in question:
The campaignagainst drugs is a pretextfor the reinforcementof social repression;not

only throughpolice raids,but also throughthe indirectexaltationof the normal,rational,
conscientious, and well-adjustedindividual.3
We emphasizethe fear of criminals;we brandishthe threatof the monstrousso as to
reinforce the ideology of good and evil, of the things that are permittedand prohib-
ited-precisely those notions which teachers are now somewhat embarrassed to
communicate.
And then, in response to a suggestion that the distinction between the

normal and the pathological is today more fundamental than that between
good and evil, Foucault says,
They reinforceeach other.When ajudgmentcannotbe framedin termsof good andevil,

it is stated in termsof normaland abnormal.And when it is necessaryto justify this last
distinction, it is done in terms of what is good or bad for the individual. These are
expressions that signal the fundamentaldualityof Westernconsciousness.5
What, then, is the ethical point of genealogies of good/evil and normal/

abnormal? Foucault, at a later stage, suggests it:
We have to dig deeply to show how things have been historicallycontingent, for such
and such a reason intelligible but not necessary.We must make the intelligible appear
againsta backgroundof emptiness,anddeny its necessity.We mustthinkthatwhatexists
is far from filling all possible spaces.
Several elements in the Foucauldian ethical sensibility are discernible here:
1. Genealogical analyses thatdisturbthe sense of ontological necessity, histor-

ical inevitability, and purity of discriminationin established dualities of
identity/difference,normality/abnormality,innocence/guilt, crime/accident,
and responsibleagency/delinquentoffender.
2. Active cultivation of the capacity to subdue resentmentagainst the absence
of necessity in what you are and to affirm the ambiguity of life without
transcendentalguarantees.
3. Development of a generous sensibility that informs interpretationsof what
you are and are not and infuses the relationsyou establish with those differ-
ences throughwhich your identityis defined.
4. Explorationsof new possibilities in social relationsopened up by genealogy,
particularlythose thatenablea largervarietyof identitiesto coexist in relations
of "studied"indifferenceon some occasions, allianceon others,and agonisticrespect

duringperiodsof rivalryand contestation.
Togethertheseelementssuggestthe"politicalspirituality"of Foucauldian-
ism, or if you thinkI projecttoo muchintothesetexts,Fou-connoism.Indeed,
in what follows I use Nietzsche to fill out Foucaultand Foucaultto fill out
Nietzsche until we reacha perspectiveI am willing to endorse.
TOETHICS
FROMMORALITY
If you think that a stubbornsource of evil resides in the paradoxical

relation of identity to the differences throughwhich it is constituted,you
mightdeploy genealogy to expose the constructed,contingent,andrelational
characterof established identities. Doing so to contest the conversion of
difference into othernessby individualsand collectivities striving to erase
evidence of dependencyon the differencesthey contest.Doing so to open up
other relationalpossibilities between interdependent,contendingidentities
by subtractingthe sense of necessity from every identity.
But many moralists find such a strategy to be self-defeating. Every
neo-Kantian and teleocommunitarian in North America, for instance,
has issued this charge against Foucault (and those lumped with him as
"postmodernists")at some point during the decade of the 1980s. Those
who pursue genealogy for ethical reasons, it seems, are caught in a
pragmatic contradictionor trappedin a (unique)pit of incoherencies;as a
result, they emerge either as nihilists who refuse ethical restraintor as
parasiteswho arekilling the moralhost they suck sustenancefrom.How can
you have a moralitywithoutgroundingit in the Law or the Good, or, at the
very least, in the Contract, the Rational Consensus, the Normal, or the
Useful?
From my (Foucauldian)perspective,these responses too often reflect a
transcendentalegoism that requirescontestation.Each is egoistic because it
silently takes its own fundamentalidentityto be the source that must guide
moral life in general;it is transcendentalbecause it insists thatits identityis
anchoredin an intrinsicPurposeor Law or potentialconsensus that can be
known to be true.In Nietzsche's language,such transcendentalegoists insist
"I am moralityitself and nothingbesides is morality."They veil egoism in
the demandto universalizewhat they are by presentingit as what they are
commandedto be by the Law or elevatedto by experienceof the Good. They
presentthemselvesas disinterestedservantsof the Law or the Good, andthey
respondto each challengeto theirego-idealismthrougha ritualof reiteration,

restating the external, necessary,intrinsic characterof the fundamentthey
serve.7
But so what?How does this rejoinderspeak to the fundamentalquestion
posed to the genealogist?Thatis, "Howcan a genealogist cultivatean ethical
sensibility?And whatmakessucha sensibilityethical?"A Foucauldianline of
reply mightbe to challengetheoriesof intrinsicmoralorderwith a competing
ethical sensibility:to createa little space between moralityand ethics-with
appropriateapologies to Hegel.
A moralistoften (butnot always) thinksthata moralcode can be separated
from other elements in social and political practice and presentedmore or
less systematically,whereasa post-Nietzscheanthinksthat,at best, an ethical
sensiblity can be cultivatedthatinformsthe qualityof futureinterpretations,
actions, and relationships.More definitively,a moralistexplicitly or implic-
itly gives priority to the idea of a fundamentalorder of identity, gender,
sexuality,and so on governingculturalformations.One type accentuatesthe
verb form "toorder,"construingmoralityto be obedience to a god or nature
or the dictates of reason or a transcendentalargumentor a categorical
imperative.Anotheraccentuatesthe noun form "order,"construing"moral
order" now as an inherent,harmoniousdesign of being. Both types often
anchormoralorderin a god, eitheras a commanderof last resort,a postulate
requiredto give virtueitsjust rewardin the last instance,or an ultimatesource
of the harmoniousdesign discerniblein being. Those who eschew a theolog-
ical story present narrativesin which the fundamentalnatureof things is
supposedto be highly compatiblewith strongconceptionsof identity,agency,
rationality,autonomy,responsibility,andpunishment.The moralist,to put it
briefly, finds some way or other to smooth out Nietzschean conceptions of
"life,""will to power,""differance,"andso on in the nameof a smoothmoral
economy of equivalences, by projectingan intrinsicpurpose, a law, or the
plasticity of nature/bodiesinto the orderof things.8
Moralorderas inherentcommandor harmoniouspurposeor as (inter)sub-
jective impositionby humanswhose subjectivityacts uponplastic bodies and
nature-often these are united in some unstable combination. Sometimes,
such perspectives are explicitly articulated,but more often today they are
implicitly installedin narrativesof nature,identity,gender,sexuality,agency,
normality,responsibility,freedom, and goodness.
A post-Nietzscheanethical sensibility might, first, claim that most con-
temporarymoralistsare implicatedin one or several of these moral econo-
mies, and, second, contest the sense thatthey exhaustthe rangeof admirable
alternatives.As the contestationproceeds,instructivepoints of convergence
unfold between one traditionaltype of moral orderdelineated above-the

design/teleologicalconception-and a post-Nietzscheansensibility.
Consider a few intersections between a teleological morality and an
antiteleologicalethic. First,bothchallengeauthoritarian temptationsresiding
withinthe commandtradition.Second,bothconstruethe self to be a complex
microsocial structure,replete with foreign relations,ratherthan a "disen-
gaged"unitsolid or universalenoughto anchormoralityin itself. Third,both
oppose, though differently,plastic conceptions of natureand bodies often
presupposedby commandtheories,paying attentionto how humanpowers
of agency and masteryare inflated by these presumptionsof plasticity and
"disembodiment."Fourth, both pursue a morality/ethicsof cultivation in
place of one of command or rational demonstration:neither attempts to
isolate a systematic"moraltheory";each cultivates a sensibility that enters
into the interpretationsand actions it endorses.9
Itis thislastintersectionI willpursue.Boththegenealogistandtheteleologist,
then, advancean ethics of cultivation.What is cultivated?Not a Law or a
categorical imperative but possibilities of being imperfectly installed in
establishedinstitutionalpractices.Wherearethesepossibilitieslocated?How
aretheycultivated?Thesearethe difficultquestionsfor bothperspectives.10
Charles Taylor, to my mind the most thoughtful and flexible among
contemporarydefendersof a teleocommunitarianmorality,speaksof "moral
sources" ambiguouslylodged between establishedpractices and a higher,
fugitive experienceof intrinsicpurposefloatingabove them.Taylor's"moral
sources"areneithersimple objectsto be representednortranscendentallaws
to be deduced.A "source"changes as it is drawninto discursivepractice,but
it also providesindispensablesustenancefromwhichmoralarticulationdraws:
Moralsourcesempower.To come closer to them,to have a clearerview of them, to come

to graspwhatthey involve, is forthose who recognizethemto be movedto love or respect
them, and through this love/respect to be better enabled to live up to them. And
articulationcan bring them closer. Thatis why words can empower;why words can at
times have tremendousmoralforce.ll
If you substitutegenealogy for articulation,affirmfor recognize, ethical

sensibility for moralforce, and (readingbetween the lines) "the abundance
of life" for "a purposivegod," you have at once markedmomentarypoints
of convergenceand fundamentallines of divergencebetween a teleocom-
munitarianmorality and an agonopluralisticethic. These two orientations
produceeach otheras competitors;they manufacturea competitionin which
neither is in a good position to write its adversaryoff as inconceivable,
incoherent,or unthinkablebecausethe elementsof strengthandweakness in
each are too close for comfort to those in the other.These two sensibilities
are well-suited-to use termsto be redeemedlater-to enterintocompetitive
relationsof agonistic respect.
Taylor almost recognizes this momentof affinity within difference with
respect to Nietzsche, but he fails to do so with respect to Foucault and
Derrida. Nonetheless, the line of demarcationhe draws between a viable
moralsensibility and the amoralismof "postmodernism" cannotbe sustained
once Nietzsche has been admittedinto the charmedcircle of ethics. Taylor
anchors his highest moralityin an ambiguousrelationbetween two dimen-
sions: an identitydeepeningitself throughprogressiveattunementto a higher
purposein being. A post-Nietzscheanmight drawcorollarysustenancefrom
a contingentidentityaffirmingthe rich abundanceof "life"exceeding every
particularorganization of it. In the Nietzschean tradition, such fugitive
sources as "life," "bodies,""earth,""will to power,""theoblivion of differ-
ence," "differance,""resistances,"an "untamedexteriority,"and "untruth"
play a structuralrole remarkablyclose to the roles that "a god," "intrinsic
purpose,""a higher direction,"and "the essentially embodied self' play in
the teleological tradition that Taylor invokes. Several of the anarchistic
sources on the first list serve, in Nietzsche's texts, as contestable "conjec-
tures"or projectionsinformingthe ethical sensibility he cultivates. Geneal-
ogy takes you to the edge of the abyss of difference,even though it cannot
bringthis surpluswithin and aroundthe organizationof thingsto presence.'2
Taylor'ssources also embody this ambiguous,fugitive characterbecause
the higherdirectioncultivatedis never fully articulableby finite beings and
because humanarticulationalways changes the inchoatesourceit drawsinto
the (revised) linguistic web. Nietzsche, Foucault,and Taylor(almost) con-
verge in graspingthe productiverole of excess in ethico-politicalinterpreta-
tion, separatingthemselves from a host of realistsandrationalistswho either
have yet to plumb this dimension of their own practicesor (as Taylormay
do) are driven to treat the experience of excess as a "lack"or "fault"in a
divided self always yet to be remedied.
In Nietzsche's work, as I read it, "life," and other terms of its type,
functions as an indispensable,nonfixablemarker,challengingevery attempt
to treat a concept, settlement, or principleas complete, without surplus or
resistance.This projectionchallengesalternativesthatprojecta commanding
god, a designing god, an intrinsicidentity,or the sufficiency of reason. The
case for it is closely linked to recurrentdemonstrationsof the operational
failure of the other contendersto achieve the presence theirrepresentatives
(sometimes) promise.'3The excess of life over identityprovidesthe fugitive
sourcefrom which one comes to appreciate,andperhapsto love, the an-archy
of being amidst the organ-izationof identity\difference.
Genealogy by itself can lead either to repression of the experience of

contingency it enables or to passive nihilism. Unless genealogy is combined
with tactics applied by the self to itself it may well fuel the very resentment
against the an-archy of being its advocates are trying to curtail. That is why
Nietzsche and Foucault alike are involved serially with the genealogy of
fixed experience and the application of tactics by the self to itself. Both are
crucial to the generous or "noble" sensibility endorsed by each. Neither alone
nor both in conjunction can guarantee the effects sought. This latter acknowl-
edgment is a defining mark of a post-Nietzschean sensibility because the
demand for guarantees in this area is precisely what fosters the most author-
itarian versions of the moralities of Law and Purpose.
Apost-Nietzschean ethical sensibility, then, strives, first, to expose artifice
in hegemonic identities and the definitions of otherness (evil) through which
they propel their self-certainty; second, to destabilize codes of moral order
within which prevailing identities are set, when doing so crystallizes the
element of resentment in these constructions of difference; third, to cultivate
generosity-that is, a "pathos of distance"-in those indispensable rivalries
between alternative moral/ethical perspectives by emphasizing the contest-
able character of each perspective, including one's own, and the inevitability
of these contestations in life; and fourth-as Foucault eventually endorsed-
to contest moral visions that suppress the constructed, contingent, relational
character of identity with a positive alternative that goes some distance in
specifying the ideal of political life inspiring it.'4 I draw these themes from
Foucault and Nietzsche, respectively: the ethical importance of the struggle
against existential resentment is emphasized by Nietzsche, and the politici-
zation of an ethical sensibility is emphasized by Foucault. Before pursuing
Foucault on the second register, let me quote from the madman himself
concerning the basis of an admirable ethical sensibility:
Thus I deny moralityas I deny alchemy,thatis, I deny theirpremises:but I do not deny

thattherehave been alchemistswho believed in these premisesand acted in accordance
with them. -I also deny immorality:not that countless peoplefeel themselves to be
immoral,but that thereis any truereasonso to feel. It goes withoutsaying that I do not
deny-unless I am a fool-that many actions called immoralought to be avoided and
resisted, or that many called moralought to be done and encouraged-but I think that
one shouldbe encouragedandthe otheravoidedfor otherreasonsthanhitherto.We have
to learn to thinkdifferently-in orderat last, perhapsvery late on, to attaineven more:
tofeel differently.
The "we" is a solicitation rather than a command. A new sensibility is

rendered possible through genealogies. Then a set of experiments is enacted
by the self upon its self to revise vengeful sensibilities that have become
fixed. Nietzsche, like Foucaultafterhim, commendsa set of artfultechniques

to modify these contingentinstallations,these "feelings."The sensibilitythat
these techniquesinstallfunctionsas a corollaryto the cultivationof "virtues"
in teleological theories. Thus, to cite one example of such a practice,
Nietzsche in Daybreakmarksthe importanceof "littledeviantacts"in a life
where accumulatedconventionsare always becoming naturalizedand mor-
alized. "Fornothingmattersmore,"Nietzsche asserts," thanthatan already
mighty, anciently establishedand irrationallyrecognized custom should be
once more confirmedby a person recognizedas rational.... All respect to
your opinions! But little deviant acts are worth more."16Ethical generosity
becomes effective whenit is installedin the feelings, andthis involves a series
of tactics patientlyappliedby a self to itself: "All the virtuesand efficiency
of body and soul are acquiredlaboriouslyand little by little, throughmuch
industry,self-constraint,limitation,throughmuch obstinate,faithfulrepeti-
tion of the same labors,the same renunciations."'7 Echoes fromthe Christian
traditioncan be heardhere as elsewhere in Nietzsche, but these techniques
of the self are designed to foster affirmationof a contingent, incomplete,
relational identity interdependentwith differences it contests ratherthan to
discover a transcendentalidentity waiting to be released or to acknowledge
obedience to a commanding/designinggod.
When Nietzsche, and later Foucault, commend the self as a work of art
acting modestly and artfully upon its own entrenched contingencies, the
aim is not self-narcissism, as neo-Kantians love to insist. The point is to
ward off the violence of transcendentalnarcissism: to modify sensibilities
of the self through delicate techniques, to do so to reach "beyond good
and evil," so that you no longerrequirethe constitutionof differenceas evil
to protect a precariousfaith in an intrinsic identity or order.The goal is to
modify an already contingent self-working within the narrow terms of
craftsmanshipavailable to an adult-so thatyou are betterable to wardoff
the demand to confirm transcendentallywhat you are contingently.'8In
Foucault's terms, "careof the self' is the operativepractice.In Nietzsche's
terms,
one thing is needful:thata humanbeing shouldattain satisfactionwith himself, whether

it be by means of this or that poetryand art;only then is a humanbeing at all tolerable
to behold. Whoeveris dissatisfiedwith himself is continuallyreadyfor revenge;andwe
others will be his victims, if only by having to endurehis ugly sight.19
The "ugliness"thatNietzsche opposes, then, reflects the demandto ratify a

contingentidentityby transcendentalmeans. Look aroundat the next faculty
meeting if you need empiricalverificationof this ratificationprocess.
But so farI have merelyoutlinedsome of the aspirationswithinthisethical

sensibility.We have so far only glimpsedthe dangers,paradoxes,and limits
within which it operates.
PROBLEMATIC
THEONTALOGICAL
Foucaultresists the languageof "life"thatNietzsche invokes.20He does

so, I think,to fend off the suggestion such a term conveys to some (though
not to the matureNietzsche) eitherof an elementalenergydirectlyaccessible
to experienceby nonlinguisticmeansor of a vital, purposiveforce thatmust
be allowed expressionregardlessof the implicationsit carriesfor anyone or
anythingelse. But if Foucaultdenies a law or purposein being while also
resisting the languageof life (and "will to power"),does this mean that the
ethicalsensibilityhe endorsesis free of ontological(or "essentialist")dimen-
sions?2'Does this sensibilityliquidateevery semblanceof "theuniversal"?
In a recent essay on Foucault's "cultivationof the self' Pierre Hadot
asserts that Foucaultmisreadsthe Stoics and the Epicureansin a way that
vitiateshis own ethic. To these Greeks,"thepoint was not to forge a spiritual
identityby writingbutto freeoneself fromone's individuality,to raiseoneself
to universality."22Foucault'sreductionof the universalbackinto the individ-
ual, Hadot fears, results in a solipsistic self: "by defining his ethical model
as an ethic of existence, Foucaultmight have been advancinga cultivation
of the self which was too purely aesthetic-that is to say, I fear a new form
of dandyism, a late-twentiethcentury version."23I fear that Hadot, in the
companyof others,collapses the space in which the distinctiveFoucauldian
sensibility is formed, doing so by the way he deploys "the universal"in
relationto "theself," the "aesthetic,"and "dandyism."
Foucault, I want to say, affirms a hypotheticaluniversal that does not
conformto any possibility that-Hadotrecognizes. He affirmsa hypothetical,
ontalogical universal,one designed to disturbthe closure and narcissismof
dogmatic identities, one affirmed to be a contestable projection, and one
treatedas an alternativeto ontologies of Law and Purpose.Foucaultstrug-
gles, againstthe grainof the languagehe uses and is used by, not to project
a "logic"or orderinto the fundamentalcharacterof being. He invokes what
might be called an ontalogy, a "reading"of the fundamentalcharacterof
being that resists imputinga logic to it and affirmsits alogical character.It
is this fugitive, deniable, and contestable experience, always resistant to
articulation,that is approachedthroughthe arts of genealogy and affirmed
throughtechniquesof the self. And it is this criticaltaskthatmustbe renewed
perpetuallybecause of pressuresinstalledin languageand otherelements of

communallife to reinstatethe fundamental"logic"of good and evil into the
experience of being.
Consider again a quotationpresentedearlier.Foucaultsays "we have to
dig deeply to show how things have been historicallycontingent, ... intelli-
gible but not necessary". . ., making "the intelligible appear against a
backgroundof emptiness."A deep contingency,a lack of necessity in things,
a background of emptiness-these themes, inserted into the agenda of
genealogy, gesture toward the ont-alogical universal Foucault would en-
dorse. The "emptiness"of things suggests the absence of a Law or Purpose
governingexistence. In a similarway, numerousexpressionsof"plentitude,"
"doubles," and an "untamedexterior" gesture toward an abundancethat
exceeds any particularset of conventions without assuming the form of a
Law, Identity,or Purposegoverningthings-an emptinesswith respectto an
intrinsic order, an abundance with respect to any fixed organ-ization of
actuality. These are fugitive experiences to cultivate through genealogy,
doing so to enhancegenerosityin rivalriesbetweenidentityandalter-identity
thatprovide each with its ambiguousconditionsof existence.24
In one essay, Foucaultstrivesto expressthis ontalogicalproblematicmost
actively.Herehe makesit clearthatthe ont-alogyinstalledin his researchesis
not one thatis or is likely to become known to be true.It takes the form of a
"happyposit-ivisim"(dashadded)or "criticalprinciple"throughwhich ques-
tions are posed and criticalcomparisonswith otherpositionsare explored.It
sharesthisparadoxicalcharacterwithall otherfundamentspresumedor posited
to date in ethico-politicalinterpretation,even thoughmanyof the latterstrive
so hardto conceal this statusof theirown faith. Allow me to condense a few
pages in "The Orderof Discourse" into a few lines, doing so to underline
how Foucaultboth elaborateshis stance and exposes tactics by which alter-
nativestancesof its type conceal theirposit-ivisticandcomparativecharacter.
"Itseems to me,"Foucaultsays, "thatbeneaththis apparentvenerationof
discourse, underthis apparentlogophilia, a certainfear is hidden.It is just as
if prohibitions,thresholdsand limits have been set up in orderto master,at
least partly,the great proliferationof discourse in orderto remove from its
richness its most dangerouspart."Next, marchingorders are presentedto
those who endorse such semblances: "And if we want to" . .. analyze the
terms of this fear, then "we must call into question our will to truth".. .;
"we must not imagine there is a greatunsaidor a greatunthought... which
we would have to articulateor thinkat last" .. ; "we must not imagine that
the world turns towards us a legible face which we would have only to
decipher."This stack of negative imperatives,stretchedin front of a small
"if,"finally culminates in an affirmativewhose standingat the end of a long
chain of hypotheticals has (almost) been forgotten: "We must conceive

discourseas a violence whichwe do things,or in any case as a practicewhich
we impose on them;and it is in this practicethatthe events of discoursefind
the principleof theirregularity."25
Two things. First,Foucault'sconceptionof discourse,containingits own
uncertaintiesand proliferations,is initially presentedas a critical principle
"we"pursuein ourresearches.But as the imperativesthatoperationalizethis
practicepile up, it shortlybeginsto be heardas an imperativeof beingas such.
The posit-ivismon whichit is foundedis all too easy to forget.This contrived
forgetfulness,condensed into the space of a couple of pages, mimics and
exposes the ontological forgetfulnessof moralist-politicaldiscourse. The
hypothetical characterof the fundamentalpresumptionsbecomes buried
beneath the weight of discursive practice,and because it is impossible to
proceedwithoutimplicitlyinvokingsome set of fundaments,this set, too, all
too readilybecomes receivedas a set of absoluteimperativesinstalledin the
order of things. Genealogy breaksup this inertiaof presumptionthat con-
stantly reinstates itself as Nature, God, Law, or Purpose;it scrambles the
sense of ontological necessity implicit in contingentconsolidations.26
Second, Foucault contests implicit and explicit ontologies of intrinsic
orderand plasticitynot simply by showing how each conceals the hypothet-
ical characterand multiplesites of undecidabilityin its own imperativesbut
also by projecting in competition with them an (always underdeveloped)
ontalogy of that which is "violent, pugnacious, disorderly . . ., perilous,
incessant .. , and buzzing"withindiscursivepractice.
If this antilogical logos is hypothetical,comparative,and problematical,
why struggleto operationalizeit throughcriticalcomparisonto otherfamiliar
alternatives?There is unlikely to be a final answer to this question,just as
there is none forthcomingwith respect to the alternativesagainst which it
contends. But one response resides in the fact that every interpretation
presupposesor invokes some such problematicalstance with respect to the
fundamentalcharacterof being; to try to eliminatesuch a stance altogether
from interpretationis either to repress crucial dimensions of one's own
perspective or to lapse into a passive nihilism of resolute silence. Passive
nihilism cedes the activity of interpretationto dogmatic perspectives; it
secretlyconcedes too muchto fundamentalistsby treatingthe problematical
standingof its own projectionsas a sufficient reason to withdrawfrom the
field of interpretation.It still presumesthat this condition of discourse is a
"fault"or "lack"that "oughtnot to be" ratherthan a productivesource of
creativitythatmakes life possible and keeps things moving.
The Foucauldianproblematicelicits fugitive, subterraneanelements in
contemporaryexperience,whereold veritieshave fallen onto hardtimes and
where the sense of violence in them may be more palpableto more people.
Foucault's ontalogical projectionspeaks to a problematicalexperience in-
creasingly available, while contendingagainstinsistencies and resentments
thatpress us to deny, evade, avoid, or defer its fugitive power.Its thematiza-
tion alters the terms of contestationin political discourse. Familiardebates
between the advocates of Law, Purpose, and Normality no longer seem to
exhaust the available termsof debate. The sense of necessity governingthe
old debate is broken,and a set of complementaryassumptionsnot subjected
to debateby these debatingpartnersnow become open to interrogation.Each
alternative,including the one Foucaultadvances, is now more likely to be
received as a "problematic"thanas a "position"or "theory":it is construed
as a particular,tension-riddengatheringof impulses, insistences, presump-
tions, and questions throughwhich interpretationproceeds ratherthan as a
coherentsetof imperativeson whichit "rests."27 Sucha modificationintheterms
canhavesalutaryeffectson thecharacterof ethicaldiscourse.
of self-presentation
Foucault identifies, though more lightly and obliquely than the mentor
who inspires him, ressentimentas a source from which the problematicsof
moral order are constructed.Some of us now begin to hear each of these
orientations as point and counterpointin the same melody of deniable
revenge; more of us refuse to treatthem as The Set thatexhaustthe possible
terms of ethical debate. Foucaultsays,
Nothing is fundamental.Thatis what is interestingin the analysisof society. Thatis why

nothingirritatesme as muchas these inquiries-which areby definitionmetaphysical-
on the foundationsof power in a society or the self-institutionof a society, etc. These are
not fundamentalphenomena.Thereare only reciprocalrelations,and the perpetualgaps
between intentionsin relationto one another.2
It will assist my readingif you readthe first sentence along two registers:
"Nothing is fundamentar'in the sense that no fundamentalLaw or Purpose
or Contract governs things; "Nothing is fundamental"in the sense that
energies and forces exceeding the social constructionof subjects and things
circulatethrough"gaps"in these institutionalizations.
So there is a politics of forgetfulnessbuilt into the characterof language,
the imperatives of social coordination,the drives to revenge against the
contingency of things, and the insecuritiesof identity.Genealogy disturbs
this forgetfulness,in the interestsof drawingus closer to the experiencethat
nothing is fundamental.The results of genealogy are then to be translated
into noble effects, as you reach towarda sensibility beyond good and evil.
But how can this combinationof genealogical disturbanceand noble sensi-
bility ever establishitself securelyin a self or a cultureat any particulartime?
It cannot.The Nietzsche/Foucaultsensibility (takingvariousforms such as

passing by, generosity,agonistic respect, a pathosof distance,the spiritual-
ization of enmity) consists of a set of elements that cannot be combined
togetherperfectlyat any single time. They lack "compossibility"not because
of "weakness of will" or "the crooked timber of humanity,"where the
primordial"fault"resideswithinthe self, butbecausethe accentuationof one
element in this combinationat any momentnecessarilyimpedesthe otherat
that time. The (post) Nietzschean ideals of nobility, a pathos of distance,
agonistic care, and passing by never arrive;they are at best always coming
to be. One elementis always incompletelyarticulatedwiththe otherto which
it must be united. Here we encountera "rift"or dissonance not within but
between humancapacityand the temporalityin which it is set:
Moreandmoreit seems to me thatthe philosopher,being of necessitya manof tomorrow

and the day after tomorrow,has always found himself, and had to find himself in
contradictionto his today.29
This means, I take it, not only that the cultivatorof such a sensibility
regularlyencountersconflict with a cultureinscribedby the logic of good
and evil, but that the pursuer,given the continuingpower of forgetfulness
amidstthe quest to incorporategenerosityinto one's corporealsensibilities,
always hasmoreto do to arrivebeyondthe logic of good andevil. Tocelebrate
such a philosophy is always to offer "A Prelude to a Philosophy of the
Future,"and thatparadoxicalconditiontoo must be affirmedby those who
struggle against ressentiment.Foucaultplaces this Nietzscheantheme on a
political registerwhen he says, perhapsin response to a question posed by
CharlesTaylorduringa collective interview,"the farthestI would go is to
say thatperhapsone must not be for consensuality,but one must be against
nonconsensuality."30 In a Nietzschean-Foucauldianworld, something is al-
ways out ofjoint ethicallybecauseit is impossibleto combineall the elements
of nobility perfectly in one site at one time. The struggle to reach beyond
good and evil is salutary,but the claim to have arrivedthere is always a
falsificationthatreiteratesthe dogmatismof the dualityyou oppose. That is
why, I think,Foucaultcelebratesthe ambiguityof politics andfinds politics,
in one of its registersor another,always to be appropriate.
SPIRITUALITY
AN ETHICO-POLITICAL
An ethical sensibility,anchoredin an ontalogical problematic,rendered

throughgenealogiesof the possible, cultivatedthroughtacticsappliedby the
self to itself, embodiedas care for an enlargeddiversityof life in which plural

constituenciescoexistin morecreativeways thansustainedby a communitarian
idea of harmonyor a liberalidea of tolerance,politicizedthrougha series of
critical engagementswith establishedsocial apparatiof good/evil, normal/
abnormal, guilt/innocence, rationality/irrationality, autonomy/dependence,
security/insecurity.Severalof these dimensionscan be heardin the following
celebrationof "curiosity":
I like the word [curiosity].It evokes "care";it evokes the care of what exists and might
exist; a sharpenedsense of reality,butone thatis neverimmobilizedbeforeit; a readiness
to find what surroundsus strangeand odd; a certaindeterminationto throwoff familiar
ways of thoughtand to look at the same things in a differentway ... ; a lack of respect
for the traditionalhierarchiesof what is importantand fundamental.31
Let me locate this sensibility more actively on a political register.I do so,

first, by modifying the received democraticimaginaryto correspondmore
closely to a timely politics of care for the strife and interdependenceof
contingent identity\differencerelations;second, by considering what rela-
tionshipssuch a sensibilitymightstriveto establishwith the fundamentalisms
circulatingthroughcontemporarylife; and, third,by engaging tensions that
persist between an ethic of cultivation and persistent circumstances of
political engagement.
Foucault does not articulatea vision of democracy.His early objections
against political ideals as prisons militates against it; and his later,cautious
affirmationof a positive political imagination never takes this form. But
numerouscomments in the context of his participationin public protestsand
demonstrationsare suggestive on this score. It seems to me that a series of
correspondencescan be delineatedbetween the ethical sensibilitycultivated
by Foucaultand an ethos of democracythey invoke. Considerthree dimen-
sions of democraticpracticein this light.32
1. Democracy within the territorial state. A viable democratic ethos
embodies a productiveambiguityat its very core. Its role as an instrumentof
rule and governance is balancedand counteredby its logic as a mediumfor
the periodic disturbance and denaturalization of settled identities and
sedimentedconventions. Both dimensions are crucial. But the second func-
tions politically to extend the culturaleffects of genealogy, to open up the
play of possibility by subtractingthe sense of necessity, completeness, and
smugness from establishedorgan-izationsof life. If the democratictask of
governanceever buriesthedemocraticethos of disturbanceandpoliticization
underthe weight of nationalconsensus, historicalnecessity, and state secu-
rity,state mechanismsof electoralaccountabilitywill be reducedto conduits
for the productionof internal/externalothers against whom to wage moral

wars of all too familiarsorts.
2. The limits of the state. We live during a time when an asymmetry
between the globalization of relations and the confinement of electoral
institutions to the territorialstate functions too often to intensify state
chauvinismand violence. The nostalgiain political theory(and many other
sites, too) for a "politics of place," in which territoriality,sovereignty,
electoral accountability,nationality,and public belonging must all map the
same space, depoliticizesglobal issues andfostersdemocraticstatechauvin-
ism. During the late-moder time, productivepossibilities of thought and
practicemight be opened up by a creativedisaggregationof elements in the
modern democratic imagination,paying attention,for instance, to how a
democratic ethos might exceed the boundariesof the state, even when
electoral institutionsof democraticaccountabilityare confined to the state.
During a time when corporatestructures,financialinstitutions,intelligence
networks,communicationmedia, and criminalrings are increasinglyglobal
in character,democraticenergies, active below and throughthe state, might
also reach beyond these parametersto cross-national,extrastatistsocial
movements.A new and timely pluralizationof attachments,identifications,
and spaces of politicalaction, alreadyunfoldingbeforeus in the late-moder
era, might eventuallycompromisethe state'sability to colonize the termsof
collective identityat key historicalmoments.Foucault's 1981 declarationat
a press conferenceon behalf of the boatpeople is suggestive on this score in
its protest against treatmentof the stateless by states, in its insistence on
extending political identificationsbeyond the state, and in its identification
of thatwhich diverseconstituencieswithinstates sharethatmight serve as a
contingentbasis for extrastatist,cross-nationalmobilization:
There exists an internationalcitizenry that has its rights,that has its duties, and that is
committedto rise up againstevery abuseof power,no matterwho the author,no matter
who the victims. Afterall, we are all ruled,andas such, we are in solidarity.... The will
of individualsmustbe inscribedin a realitythatthe governmentswantedto monopolize.
This monopoly must be wrestedfrom them bit by bit, each and every day.33
3. Thepoliticization of nonstatistglobal movements.Boundary-crossing

political movements, with respect to, say, gay/lesbianrights,disturbanceof
internationalpatternsof state secrecy and surveillance,contestationof the
state's monopoly over potent symbols of danger and practicesof security,
and the renegotiationof first world patternsof consumptionthatimpinge on
the future of the earth can both contribute to the democratic drive to
participatein the events that define our lives and ventilatedead pockets of
air within contemporarystates. As a variety of cross-national,extrastatist

movements alreadyin motion accelerate,they might extend the democratic
ethos beyond the statethrougha pluralizationof democraticspacesof action.
They might compromisethe stateas the ultimatesourceof collective identity
whenever a crisis arises andcontest its monopolyover the rules of boundary
crossing.
These, then, are some of the elements in the ethico-politicalsensibility of
Michel Foucault:genealogies thatdissolve apparentnecessities into contin-
gent formations;cultivation of care for possibilities of life that challenge
claims to an intrinsic moral order;democraticdisturbancesof sedimented
identitiesthatconceal violence in theirtermsof closure;practicesthatenable
multifariousstyles of life to coexist on the same territory;and a pluralityof
political identificationsextendingbeyond the state to breakup the monopo-
lies of state-centeredpolitics.
But surely, politicization of the Foucauldiansensibility will continue to
meet with opposition and outragefrom the various fundamentalismscircu-
lating throughcontemporarylife. Nietzsche and Foucaultboth teach us how
the more optimistichopes of the Enlightenmenton this score are unlikely to
succeed. Theistic and secularpriestspersist as voices in and aroundus: the
inertia of shared practices, forces of ressentiment,the pressures of guilt
arising from ambivalentidentifications,the effects of social coordinationon
the reification of selves and institutions-all these forces press upon the
effective generalizationof generoussensibilities.They makegenealogiesand
politicizations of dogmatic identities into perpetualtasks. They renderthe
move "beyond good and evil" always a movement and never a secure
achievement.What,then, can be the termsof engagementbetweenan ethical
sensibility affirming care for the contingency of things and those moral
fundamentalismsthat oppose it as nihilistic, relativistic,or parasitic?(As if
everyone, everything, and every institution were not parasitical in some
way!)
One salutarypossibility Foucaultcultivates, I think, is to convert some
relationsof antagonismbetween fundamentalistsand genealogists into those
(as I call them) of agonistic respect. The effective possibilities here are
limited, but they are nonetheless real. Agonistic respect constitutesan ele-
ment in an impossible utopia,worthpursuiteven amidstthe impossibilityof
its final realization.
Agonistic respect, as I construe it, is a social relation of respect for the
opponent against whom you define yourself even while you resist its imper-
atives and strive to delimit its spaces of hegemony. Care for the strife and
interdependenceof contingent identities, in which each identity depends
upon a set of differences to be, means that "we" (the "we" is an invitation)
cannot pursue the ethic that inspires us without contesting claims to the
universalityand sufficiencyof the moralfundamentalisms we disturb-hence
genealogy and deconstruction. But this antagonism can be translatedinto
something closer to agonistic respect in some cases, as each partycomes to
appreciate the extent to which its self-definition is bound up with the other
and the degree to which the comparativeprojectionsof botharecontestable.
We opponents can become bonded together, partially and contingently,
throughan enhancedexperienceof the contestabilityof theproblematiceach
pursuesmost fervently.This is whatNietzsche meantby the "spiritualization
of enmity,"34although he thought the capacity to operationalizesuch a
relationshipwas limited.
Agonistic respectdiffers from its sibling, liberaltolerance,in affirminga
more ambiguousrelation of interdependenceand strife between identities
over a passive letting the otherbe. The lattermay be desirableon occasion,
but it is less available in late-modernlife than some liberals presume.It is
not sufficient to shed "prejudice"because our identities are bound up with
each other in a world where pressuresto enact general policies are always
active. It "cuts"deeperthan tolerancebecause it folds contestationinto the
foundations of the putative identity from which liberal tolerance is often
derivedand delimited.But, still, it remainsclose enough to liberaltolerance
to invite comparisonandcriticalnegotiation,pressingits debatingpartnerto
fold the spirit of genealogy more actively into its characterizationof "the
individual"and arguingagainstthe spiritof complacencyso often lodged in
bifurcationsbetween the privateand the public.
Thereis considerableironyandfoolishness in a call to agonisticreciproc-
ity becauseit invites the fundamentalistto incorporateanelementwe endorse
into its own identity.The invitationmay be refused. But the call is made in
the context of showing him throughgenealogy some of the ways in which
his fundamentstoo arequestionableandcontestable.And we do not demand
that the fundamentalistincorporatethe entire sensibilityof the opponentas
a conditionof respect;we merelycall on the fundamentalist to acknowledgethe
contestabilityof its claimto intrinsicmoralorder and to affirm self-restrictions
in the way it advances its agendain the light of this admission. In this way,
space for politics can be opened through degree a of reciprocity amid
contestation;new possibilities for the negotiation of difference are created
by identifying traces in the other of the sensibility one identifies in oneself
and locating in the self elements of the sensibility attributed to the other.An
element of care is built into contestation and of contestation into care. But,
as I have already said once, such invitations are often rejected.
So the difficultiescontinue.There are, additionally,numeroustimes and
places where the terms of opposition are likely to remainimplacableeven
afterthe initial positions have been softenedby reciprocalacknowledgment

of the contestabilityof each stance. Debates over the di(per)vesityof sexu-
ality, over abortion,and, perhaps,over the rightto take one's own life when
one decides the time is right might have this characterto varying degrees.
Some fundamentalistswho treat homosexuality as per-verse, for instance,
might be moved to cultivateeithera studiedindifferenceor agonisticrespect
in relationto those who celebratesexualdi-versity.But they will be less likely
to do so with respectto the issue of gay parents.Those who celebratediversity
here will have to try to disrupttheir operationalpresumptionsconcerning
what is "natural,"maintainingconfidence in the possible efficacy of geneal-
ogy and struggle in exposing the social constitutionof the perversitythey
fear.35So, introductionof a Foucauldiansensibility more actively into the
terms of political contestation,first, is likely to be refusedby many constit-
uencies and, second, to encounter obdurateinstances of nonnegotiability
even between constituencieswilling to engage it.
The Foucauldianfaith, if I may put it this way, is that more extensive
cultivation of a political ethos of agonistic care makes a real difference in
private and public life, even if it remainsa minoritystance within that life,
for it is a political problematicof interrogation,engagement,and negotiation,
not a political doctrine of intrinsic identity, consensus, and resolution. Its
impossible utopia is agonistic respect among differences irreducibleto a
rationalconsensus in settings where it is often necessaryto establishgeneral
policies. It locates freedomin the gaps andspaces fosteredby these collisions
and negotiations rather than in a patternof harmonious unity or private
sanctuaryit hopes to realize.It counselsrecurrentdisturbanceandnegotiation
of the numerousparadoxesof political life over attemptsto conceal, resolve,
or repressthem.
These last reflections, linkingan ethical sensibilityto an ethos of politics,
reveal anothertension between these two registersamidst the durablecon-
nection between them. An ethic of cultivation requires attention to the
nuances of life; it applies tactics patientlyand experimentallyto the self; it
affirms ambiguity and uncertaintyin the categories through which ethical
judgment is made. But a politics of engagement and insurgency often
generalizes conflicts so that one set of concerns becomes overwhelmed by
others; it opens up the probabilityof more totalistic definitions of one side
by its opponents;it sometimes foments rapidtransformationsexceeding the
temporal and spatial rhythmsof ethical cultivation.Cultivationof care for
the contingency of things and engagementin politicalcontestation,then, are
locked into a relationof strife amidsttheir mutualimplication.36
There is no way to eliminate these tensions, unless you endorse some
fictive model of political agency thathas never been instantiatedanywhere.
The tension already identified between genealogy and sensibility now cata-
pults into the medium of politics. The struggle against resentment of a world
in which "nothing is fundamental" involves a willingness to act in such
ambiguous circumstances,37 because although these two registers are in
tension with each other, they are also interdependent: the ethical sensibility
requires the ethos as one of its conditions of existence and vice versa. The
aspiration is to draw agonistic respect from the effects of politics and to fold
agonistic respect into the art of politics. The danger flows from suppression
of such tensions and ambiguities in the name of private tranquility, rational
harmony, or consummate political agency.
Perhaps I can allow Foucault to have the last word (for the moment):
There's an optimismthatconsists in saying thatthings couldn'tbe better.My optimism

would consist ratherin saying that so many things can be changed, fragile as they are,
bound up more with circumstancesthan necessities, more arbitrarythan self-evident,
more a matterof complex, but temporary,historicalcircumstancesthan of inevitable
anthropologicalconstants.... You know, to say that we are much morerecentthanwe
think,is to place at the disposalof the workthatwe do on ourselvesthe greatestpossible
shareof what is presentedto us as inaccessible.38
NOTES
1. FriedrichNietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future,

translatedby WalterKaufmann(New York:Vintage, 1966), 83.
2. James Miller, "The Politics of Limits"(paperdelivered at the 1991 convention of the
AmericanPolitical Science Association,September1-4, Washington,DC), para. 13.
3. Michel Foucault,"RevolutionaryAction: 'Until Now,' " in DonaldBouchard,ed., Michel
Foucault:Language, Counter-Memory, Practice (Oxford:Blackwell, 1977), 226.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, 230. I bypass here Miller's crude charge that, in calling in the same essay for an
attackon the "wholeof society,"Foucaultlegitimizesattemptsto eradicateall social institutions.
It becomes clear what Foucaulthas in mind when he says, "I believe, on the contrary,thatthis
particularidea of the 'whole of society' [single quotes in original] derives from a utopian
context."Foucaultattacks"thedream"of "thewhole of society"becausethe dreamof wholeness
and harmonyit pursuesrequiresthe destruction,elimination,or repressionof everythingthat
does not fit in with it.
6. Michel Foucault, "Friendshipas a Way of Life," in Foucault Live, edited by Sylvere
Lotringerand translatedby JohnJohnston(New York:Semiotexte, 1989), 208.
7. I hope it becomes clear as we proceedthat not all those who anchortheir moralityin the
Law or the Good are locked into transcendentalegoism. Only those who insist thatthe "other"
cannot devise a moralityunless he or she accepts these fundamentsare so locked in. Thinkers
like Foucault,Derrida,and Nietzsche are excellent at bringingout the subterraneanfundamen-
talism of many who otherwisedeny it.
8. A world with no commandingor designing god is likely to be markedby discordances,

accidents, and chance. This is exactly the world in which Nietzsche and Foucaultcultivate an
ethical sensibility. Such a world, in turn,is not a likely source of a teleological ethic. A world
with an omnipotentgod, as the nominaliststried to show the Thomists, is unlikely to be one
limited by any priordesign of the world,for an omnipotentgod flourishesin a highly contingent
world it can vary in any way at any time; its omni-potenceis threatenedby any design that
restrictsit. A teleological moralitywithouta god is problematic,then, but it is also difficult to
constructone with anomnipotentgod. Itis not thata god filling the bill is impossibleto construct,
but such a delicate constructionraises the questionas to whetherit is discoveredor inventedto
fill the exact purposeit is supposedto reveal.On the otherhand,an omnipotentgod seems most
compatiblewith a moralitygroundedin a transcendentalimperative,and neo-Kantianshave had
a hell of a time demonstratingthis imperativewithoutrecourseto sucha deeply contestablefaith.
Hans Blumenbergpursuesthese issues, in his history of onto-theologicalaporiasand debates
that have markedthe Westsince the inceptionof Augustianism.Blumenberg,TheLegitimacyof
the Modem Age (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1983). A last "theological"point: Althoughthere are
powerful pressures binding the command and design traditionsto the authorityof a god, a
"post-Nietzschean"ethic need not resist every conceptionof divinity.A god as "absence,"for
instance, might be compatible with a post-Nietzscheansensibility. So might some versions of
polytheism. I prefer"nontheisticreverencefor the ambiguityof being."
9. In these comparisons I take Charles Taylor to representthe "teleological" model. His
version of it, I think, brings out effectively assumptions implicit in the other formulations.
He might resist the title I have bestowed on him, but the language throughwhich his morality
is couched is very teleological by comparison to the Nietzschean/Foucauldian sensibility
defended here. Those are the only terms of comparisonthat interest me at the moment. See
Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers, vols. 1-2 (New York:Cambridge University Press,
1985).
10. Notice how the favorite critiquethat neo-Kantianspose against teleocommunitarians
loses its bite against post-Nietzscheans.They contend that it is impossible to reach universal
agreementon the natureof the good, commendinginsteadthe same quest with respectto rights
or the proceduresof justice. I concur that a groundedconsensus on the good is unlikely, even
though I emphasize much more than neo-Kantiansdo how much established conventions are
treatedimplicitly by neo-Kantiansand teleocommunitariansas if they were so grounded,for
both parties tend to eschew genealogy, limiting their ability to identify limits to pluralismin
establishedregimes.
11. CharlesTaylor,Sourcesof the Self: TheMakingof Modem Identity(Cambridge:Harvard
University Press, 1989), 96. A powerful argument in Taylor's study is that advocates of
"disengaged"morality are unable to account for the sources of their own moral inspirations.
BernardWilliams, in an insightfulreview of this study,points to the strengthof this argument,
while claiming that Taylor's frameworkof analysis is not well suited to come to terms with
Nietzschean thought:"I think that Taylor,in his search for the sources of value, seems not to
have taken seriously enough Nietzsche's thought that if there is, not only no God, but no
metaphysicalorderof any kind,thenthis imposesquitenew demandson ourself-understanding."
New YorkReview of Books, November4 (1990): 48. I concurwith this judgment.
12. In Identityand Difference, translatedby Joan Stambaugh(New York:Harper& Row,
1969), MartinHeidegger speaks of "the oblivion of difference.""We speak of the difference
between Being andbeings.... Thatis the oblivion of difference.The oblivion here to be thought
is the veiling of the difference as such" (p. 50). The thoughtis similar to Nietzsche's elusive
presentationsof life. You never lift the veil of differenceas such, for difference is that which
differs from the organ-ized, conceptualized,fixed, and determinate.But you might encounter
the oblivion of differencethroughartfultechniques;you mightexperiencethe way in which the

organ-izationof experiencedrawson thatwhich is itself not yet organ-ized.
13. Hence the indispensabilityof deconstructionandgenealogyto the sensibilityin question.
14. "But,in the end, I've become ratherirritatedby an attitude,which for a long time was
mine, too, and which I no longer subscribeto, which consists in saying: our problem is to
denounceand to criticize;let them get on with theirlegislation and theirreforms.That doesn't
seem to me the rightattitude."LawrenceD. Kritzman,ed., Michel Foucault:Politics, Philoso-
phy, Culture,translatedby Alan Sheridan(New York:Routledge, 1988), 209.
15. FriedrichNietzsche, Daybreak,translatedby R. J. Hollingdale(Cambridge:Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1982),#103, p. 104. Alan Whitegives an excellent readingof this formulation
in WithinNietzsche'sLabyrinth(New York:Routledge, 1990).
16. Nietzsche,Daybreak,#149,97. In Willto Power,translatedby WalterKaufmannandR. J.
Hollingdale (New York:RandomHouse, 1967), #1019, Nietzsche lists six practicesthat have
been wreckedby the church'smonopolyand misuses of them. They are asceticism, fasting,the
monastery,feasts,the courageto endureone's nature,anddeath.Ineach of thesecases, Nietzsche
would refigurethe practicein questioninto one thatfends off existentialresentmentand fosters
a "nobility"thatreachesbeyondthe ugly narcissismof good andevil. The notes in Willto Power
that focus on the body also focus on the priority of techniques of the self over rational
argumentationor directreformof "thewill" in fosteringa generousethical sensibility.
17. Nietzsche,Willto Power,translatedby WalterKaufmann(New York:Vintage,1968),#995.
18. Narcissusloved not himselfbuthis imagein the pond.The transcendentalnarcissistloves
the image of itself thatit projectsinto a transcendentalcommandor direction.
19. FriedrichNietzsche, The Gay Science, translatedby Walter Kaufmann(New York:
Vintage, 1974), #290, p. 233.
20. Nietzsche himself invokes the vocabularyof life in one way in his early work and in a
modified way in his laterwork. I will not pursuethatissue here, but it is the lateruses thatI am
drawnto.
21. I generallytry to avoidthe languageof "essentialism."It means,variously,a philosophy
that pretendsthat a highest law, nature,or principle can be broughtinto full presence; the
confidence that there is a fundamentallaw or purpose governing existence that can be more
closely approximatedin life throughhermeneuticpiety,andthe claim thatevery actorand every
interpreterinvokes a set of fundamentalassumptionsabout the characterof being in every act
and interpretation.Thus anyone can successfully accuse anyone else of "beingan essentialist"
in some way or another.Foucault,as I readhim, is not an "essentialist"on the first two scores
but is one on the third.He comes close to whatone mightcall the "vagueessentialism"advanced
by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattariin A ThousandPlateaus (Minneapolis:University of
MinnesotaPress, 1970). "So how are we to define this matter-movement,this matter-energy,
this matter flow, this matter in variation that enters assemblages and leaves them? It is a
destratified,deterritorializedmatter.It seems to us that Husserlbroughtthoughta decisive step
forwardwhen he discovereda regionof vague and materialessences (in otherwords,essences
thatare vagabond,inexactand yet rigorous),distinguishingthem fromfixed, metricand formal
essences" (p. 407). Husserldid not pursuethis insight far enough. Deleuze and Guattarido in
Plateau6, "How Do You Make Yourselfa Body WithoutOrgans?"The strategiesthey endorse
there are initially more extreme and dangerousthan Foucaultor Nietzsche would endorse. For
Americanconceptionsthat cultivatea lawless essentialism more cautiously,see Jane Bennett,
UnthinkingFaith and Enlightenment(New York:New YorkUniversityPress, 1986) and Donna
Haraway,Primate Visions(New York:Routledge, 1989).
22. Pierre Hadot, "Reflections on the notion of 'the cultivation of the self,' " in Timothy
J. Armstrong,ed. andtrans.,Michel Foucault:Philosopher(New York:Routledge, 1992), 229.
23. Ibid., 230. Hadotgoes on to say, "Formy part,I believe firmly ... in the opportunityfor
moder man ... to become awareof oursituationas belongingto the universe.... This exercise
in wisdom will thereforebe an attemptto open ourselves up to the universal."
24. This ontalogical level is the one thatHabermasians,to date, havebeen hesitantto engage
in Foucualt. While they do not postulatea Law or Design in being, the terms throughwhich
"communicativeethics" is delineatedseems to presupposea plasticityof bodies and things that
is challenged by Foucault.These two competing "communicativeethics" will enter into more
reflective engagementwith one anotherwhen both partiesactively considerhow differencesin
their most fundamentalprojectionsinto natureand bodies enterinto theirdivergentreadingsof
"discourse."Habermasevinces awarenessof this dimensionwhen he engages communitarians.
In one note, he indicates how Sandel would have to explicate the normative content of
"community,embodied and sharedself-understanding"more carefullyto sustainhis theory:"If
he did, he would realizejust how onerousthe burdenof proofis thatneo-Aristotelianapproaches
must bear, as in the case of A. Maclntyrein After Virtue... . They must demonstratehow an
objective moral order can be grounded without recourse to metaphysical premises."Moral
Consciousnessand CommunicativeAction (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1990). Habermas,in turn,
would have to show how the conception of naturehe presupposesin his discourse ethics is
superiorto the projectionthat Foucaultendorsesin "TheOrderof Discourse"and elsewhere. It
only defers the engagement to reduce Foucault's options to a choice between a morally
obnoxious "vitalism"or the model of communicationHabermashimself invokes. I pursuethis
issue between Habermas,Foucault, and Taylor in "The Irony of Interpretation,"in Daniel
Conway and John Seery, eds., Politics and Irony(New York:St. Martin's,forthcoming).
25. Foucault, "The Orderof Discourse," in Michael Shapiro,ed., Language and Politics
(Oxford:Blackwell, 1984), 125-27, emphasesadded.I find the second half of the last sentence
to be more credible thanthe first. The first might suggest thatthe level of violence is the same
in all instancesand hence that it is always impossibleto curtailviolence.
26. The forgetfulnesspursuedhere runsdeeper than I have so far intimated.It is built into
the very characterof shared vocabularies, where the conditions of existence of a common
languagerequirean impositionof equivalencies withintheconcepts deployedthat"forget"those
excesses that do not fit into these configurations.Nietzsche discusses this level of forgettingin
On the Genealogyof Morals, translatedby WalterKaufmann(New York:RandomBooks, 1967).
In the texts in which this logic of equivalencesis discussed,he also develops linguisticstrategies
that cut against it.
27. See "Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations:An Interviewwith Michel Foucault,"in
The Foucault Reader,edited by Paul Rabinow(New York:Pantheon,1984), 381-89.
28. Foucault, "An Ethics of Pleasure,"in Foucault Live, edited by Sylvere Lotringerand
translatedby JohnJohnston(New York:Semiotext(e), 1989), 267.
29. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, #212, p. 137.
30. Foucault,"Politicsand Ethics:An Interview,"in PaulRabinow,ed., The FoucaultReader
(New York:Pantheon,1984), 379. Foucaultrefusesthelanguageof "regulativeideal"in pointing
out his own double relationto consensus.
31. Foucault,"TheMasked Philosopher,"in LawrenceD. Kritzman,ed., Michel Foucault:
Politics, Philosophy,Culture(New York:Routledge, 1984), 328.
32. These dimensionsare developed more fully in Connolly,Identity\Difference,especially
the last two chapters,and"DemocracyandTerritoriality, Millenium,"December(1991): 463-84.
33. Quoted in Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault, translated by Betsy Wing (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1991), 279. Thomas Keenan, in "The 'Paradox' of Knowledge
and Power," Political Theory (February, 1987), discusses this statement thoughtfully
and extensively.
34. "The Churchhas at all times desiredthe destructionof its enemies: we, we imoralists
andanti-Christians,see thatis to ouradvantagethatthe churchexists ... Inpolitics, too, enmity
has become much more spiritual-much more prudent,much more thoughtful,much more
forbearing. . . . We adopt the same attitudetoward the 'enemy within': there too we have
spiritualizedenmity, there too we have grasped its value." Nietzsche, Twilightof the Idols,
translatedby R. J. Hollingdale(New York:Penguin, 1968), under"Moralityas Anti-Nature,"
43-44.
35. When presentingthese thoughts, I have found that about the juncture someone will
interrupt,charging: "Murderis perverse! Tortureis perverse! Your ethics of 'generosity'
sanctionsthese perversities.Certainlyit lacksthe abilityto opposethem."But, of course,it does
not carrysuch implications.Its governingsensibilityof care for the interdependenceand strife
of identity\differenceobviously opposes such acts. Indeed, very often, murderand torture
expressthe very dogmatismof identityandabstractrevengeagainstlife thatthis sensibilityseeks
to curtail.So why is the charge so predictableat this juncture?I suspect that some who wrap
themselves in a fictive law they cannot demonstratewould like to punish those who keep
pounding away, first, at the paradox of identity and, second, at the cruelties installed in
transcendentalnarcissism.The next time this chargeis issued, examinethe demeanorof the one
who issues it. Does he look like he could kill you? Fortunately,there are still laws to restrain
dogmatistsfromacting on these impulses.
36. These comments on tensions between an ethic of cultivationand a politics of critical
engagementare inspiredfrom one side by a critiquedeliveredto me every other day by Dick
Flathmanand from anotherby a critiqueoffered by StephenWhite of a paperof mine at the
1991 meetingof the SouthernPoliticalScience Association,Tampa,Floridaentitled "Territori-
ality and Democracy."Flathmanis tempted by an antipolitics that expects little of politics
because of its ugly character.This sensibilityis broughtout effectively in Towarda Liberalism
(Ithaca,NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1990) and in a studyof Hobbes soon to be publishedby
Sage in its "Dialogue with Modernity"series. White finds my "ethic of cultivation"to be in
conflict with a "politicsof radicalhope."I find the termsin which he recognizesthe tension to
be too starkfor my position. I do not have "radicalhopes"for a politicaltransformation;rather,
I supportradicalcritiquesthat might open up new spaces for life to be while supportingnew
possibilitiesof democraticchange.Togetherthesetwo put considerablepressureon the position
I seek to inhabit. It is only after I comparethe tensions in my stance with those in their's,
respectively,that my confidence begins to reassertitself.
37. How can resentmentfind expressionagainsta world lackingthe kind of agency capable
of receivingthis animus?It cannot.Thatis what makesexistentialresentmentso dangerous,for
it preservesitself by manufacturingviable substituteson which to displace itself. It (re)invents
the logic of good and evil to locate evil agents to hold responsiblefor an apparentcontingency
of things that should not be this way. But where, asks Nietzsche, comes this last "shouldnot"?
Fromthe same pool of existential resentmentthat keeps refilling itself. The logic of good and
evil keeps returning-hence the continuingneed for genealogy. Not even an "overman"can
simply surpassthis logic. It is timely to laugh at the overman,too.
38. Foucault, "PracticingCriticisms,"in Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture,
256. Does Foucault underplaythe tendency of "God,""the Law," "Nature,"and "Intrinsic
Purpose"to reinstatethemselves offstage even as the contingencieswithin them are addressed
on stage? Probably.But I preferto say that he acts as if these enactmentscan be challenged
throughcounterenactments.Girard,Freud,Lacan,andothersshow how final markersreinstate
themselves even though they lack the transcendentalbasis that their most earnest supporters
yearnfor. In Freud,guilt flows fromthe ambivalentidentificationwith a model thatone hasjust
(perhapsin the imagination)killed; it precedes the God and the Law invented retroactivelyto
explain it. Freud and others challenge moralismsthat translatethe experience of guilt into a
transcendentalsource. But the next step is to develop strategies throughwhich to politicize
violences accompanyingthe conversion process. This is where the genius of Foucaultshines.
WilliamE. Connollyteaches political theoryat Johns HopkinsUniversity,wherehe is a

professor of political science. He is the Series Editorof Contestations:Cornell Studies
in Political Theory.His books include Political Theoryand Modernity,Identity\Differ-
ence: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox,and The AugustinianImperative:
A Reflection on the Politics of Morality.

Beyond Good and Evil

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Beyond Good and Evil

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Beyond Good and Evil: The Ethical Sensibility of Michel Foucault

Author(s): William E. Connolly

To be ashamedof one's immorality-that is a step on the staircaseat whose end one is

Is Foucault, who continues to live among us, a creative carrier of a

AUTHOR'SNOTE:I would like to express my appreciationto Jane Bennett,David Campbell,

of the ones I have encounteredembody it), and to negotiate this slippery

The campaignagainst drugs is a pretextfor the reinforcementof social repression;not

And then, in response to a suggestion that the distinction between the

They reinforceeach other.When ajudgmentcannotbe framedin termsof good andevil,

What, then, is the ethical point of genealogies of good/evil and normal/

Several elements in the Foucauldian ethical sensibility are discernible here:

1. Genealogical analyses thatdisturbthe sense of ontological necessity, histor-

of "studied"indifferenceon some occasions, allianceon others,and agonisticrespect

If you think that a stubbornsource of evil resides in the paradoxical

respondto each challengeto theirego-idealismthrougha ritualof reiteration,

unfold between one traditionaltype of moral orderdelineated above-the

Moralsourcesempower.To come closer to them,to have a clearerview of them, to come

If you substitutegenealogy for articulation,affirmfor recognize, ethical

Genealogy by itself can lead either to repression of the experience of

Thus I deny moralityas I deny alchemy,thatis, I deny theirpremises:but I do not deny

The "we" is a solicitation rather than a command. A new sensibility is

fixed. Nietzsche, like Foucaultafterhim, commendsa set of artfultechniques

one thing is needful:thata humanbeing shouldattain satisfactionwith himself, whether

The "ugliness"thatNietzsche opposes, then, reflects the demandto ratify a

But so farI have merelyoutlinedsome of the aspirationswithinthisethical

Foucaultresists the languageof "life"thatNietzsche invokes.20He does

perpetuallybecause of pressuresinstalledin languageand otherelements of

chain of hypotheticals has (almost) been forgotten: "We must conceive

Nothing is fundamental.Thatis what is interestingin the analysisof society. Thatis why

It cannot.The Nietzsche/Foucaultsensibility (takingvariousforms such as

Moreandmoreit seems to me thatthe philosopher,being of necessitya manof tomorrow

An ethical sensibility,anchoredin an ontalogical problematic,rendered

self to itself, embodiedas care for an enlargeddiversityof life in which plural

Let me locate this sensibility more actively on a political register.I do so,

for the productionof internal/externalothers against whom to wage moral

3. Thepoliticization of nonstatistglobal movements.Boundary-crossing

air within contemporarystates. As a variety of cross-national,extrastatist

afterthe initial positions have been softenedby reciprocalacknowledgment

There's an optimismthatconsists in saying thatthings couldn'tbe better.My optimism

1. FriedrichNietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future,

8. A world with no commandingor designing god is likely to be markedby discordances,

the oblivion of differencethroughartfultechniques;you mightexperiencethe way in which the

WilliamE. Connollyteaches political theoryat Johns HopkinsUniversity,wherehe is a

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