Foucault and Individual Autonomy

Abstract

What does it mean, to be ‘autonomous’, and more specifically, is it still possible to discern a modicum of ‘autonomy’ on the part of people in contemporary ‘carceral’ society to a significant degree — that is, a degree not limited to a handful of individuals whose autonomy one may discern in their ‘critical’ actions vis-à-vis mainstream discourses and behaviour? Is there indeed evidence, as implied by the question above, that the majority of people today function as ‘docile bodies’, in Foucault's words? In this paper it is argued that Foucault — especially in his study of ancient sexuality — provides one with a model for autonomy in a psychical as well as ethical sense, which can be articulated in terms of what Hellenistic thinkers termed ‘the care of the self’. Further that, for various reasons, this model is worth emulating, given the disciplinary, ‘panoptical’ structure and functioning of contemporary society, which tends to reduce individuals to ‘docile bodies’. It is noteworthy that, according to Foucault, psychology has been historically complicit in this process.