Between Foucault and Agamben: An Overview of the Problem of Euthanasia in the context of Biopolitics

Year 2017, Volume: 7 Issue: 2, 15 - 31, 30.12.2017

Gürhan Özpolat

https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.373466

Abstract

In this paper, considering
the fact that special forms of dying and killing are mostly seen in a
shadowy zone or blurred boundary between life and death, I shall attempt
to find a compromise between Michel Foucault (bio-politics) and Giorgio
Agamben’s (thanatopolitics) considerations of biopolitics in the case
of euthanasia. In this respect, believing that this article requires a
historical backround, I shall start with a brief history of euthanasia
and suicide in order to understand the present juridico-medico-political
complex from which the sovereign power derives its philosophical
underpinnings and theoretical justifications today; and show that the
relationship power and death has always been very problematic. Secondly,
I will focus on the meaning(s) of the disappearance of death in the
context of Foucauldian biopolitics and conclude that, in contrast to
Foucault’s consideration, something akin to re-discovery of death has
taken place in the Western world since the mid-twentieth century.
Finally, in the third and last part of the article, I will put forward
that Agamben, by introducing the concept life unworthy of being lived,
was successful in completing what is missing, that is the politics of
death, in Foucault’s notion of biopolitics with reference to the problem
of euthanasia.

Keywords

Assisted suicide, death, euthanasia, biopolitics, thanatopolitics, power, sovereignty

References

• Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Amundsen, D. (1978). History of Medical Ethics: Ancient Greece and Rome. Encyclopedia of Bioethics, vol. 3 (ed. W. T. Reich). New York: Free Press, 930-937.
• Arendt, H. (1998). The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Ariés, P. (1974). Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle ages to the Present. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Becker, E. (1973). The Denial of Death. London: The Free Press. Bleakley, A. & Bligh, J. (2009). Who Can Resist Foucault? Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 34, 368-383
• Blencowe, C. (2010). Foucault's and Arendt's ‘Insider View’ of Biopolitics: A Critique of Agamben. History of the Human Sciences, 23 (5), 113-130. Burkhardt, S.; La Harpe, L.; Harding, T-W. & Sobel, J. (2006). Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Comparison of Legal Aspects in Switzerland and Other Countries. Medicine, Science and Law, 46 (4), 287-294.
• Dollimore, J. (2001). Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture. New York: Routledge. Dowbiggin, I. (2007). A Concise History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God, and Medicine. New York: Rowman & Little Field Publishers.
• Freud, S. (1918). Reflections on War and Death. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co.
• Fitzpatrick, P. (2001). These Mad Abandon'd Times. Economy and Society, 30(2), 255-270.
• Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, vol. I. New York: Pantheon Books.
• Foucault, M. (1984). Right o.f Death and Power over Life. The Foucault Reader (ed. P. Rabinow). New York: Pantheon Books.
• Foucault, M. (1997). Michel Foucault: An Interview by Stephen Riggins. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault: 1954-1984, vol. 1 (ed. P. Rabinow). New York: The New Press.
• Foucault, M. (2003a). Society Must Be Defended. New York: Picador.
• Foucault, M. (2003b). The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. London: Routledge.
• Genel, K. (2006). The Question of Biopower: Foucault and Agamben. Rethinking Marxism, 18 (1), 43-62.
• Gillon, R. (1969). Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia: Historical Perspective. Euthanasia and the Right to Death: The Case for Voluntary Euthanasia (ed. A. B. Downing). London: Peter Owen.
• İnceoğlu, S. (1999). Ölme Hakkı. İstanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları.
• Jacobs, J. (1899). The Dying of Death, Fortnightly Review, New Series 72, 264–9.
• Lazzarato, M. (2002). From Biopower to Biopolitics, Pli, 13, 99-113.
• Lamb, D. (1985). Death, Brain Death and Ethics. London and Sydney: Croom Helm.
• Lemke, T. (2005). “A Zone of Indistinction” - A Critique of Giorgio Agamben’s Concept of Biopolitics. Outlines. Critical Practice Studies, [online] 7(1), 3-13.
• Lemke, T. (2011). Biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction. New York: New York University Press. Mills, C. (2008). The Philosophy of Agamben. Durham: Acumen Publishing.
• Orford, A. (2007). Biopolitics and the Tragic Subject of Human Rights. The Logics of Biopower and the War on Terror (ed. E. Dauphinee & C. Masters). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Rancière, J. (2004). Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 103(2), 297-310.
• Patton, P. (2007). Agamben and Foucault on Biopower and Biopolitics. Giorgio Agamben: Sovereignty and Life (ed. M. Calarco & S. DeCaroli). Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
• Ryan, A.; Morgan, M. & Lyons, A. (2011). The Problem with Death: Towards A Genealogy of Euthanasia. Doing Psychology: Manawatu Doctoral Research Symposium, 43-48.
• Szerletics, A. (2011). Paternalism and Euthanasia: The Case of Diane Pretty before the European Court of Human Rights. Diritto e Questioni Pubbliche: Rivista di Filosofia del Diritto e Cultura Giuridica Maniaci (ed. G. Pino & A. Schiavello). 479-496.
• Walter, T. (1994). The Revival of Death. London: Routledge.