This is actually my response to last week's reading that I never got around to posting...

Genealogy of Ethics:

I found this week’s reading particularly interesting in the context of my own current project, an analysis of 18thc European and American constructions of virtue. This week I’ve been exploring (and trying to create some sense of) the works of Locke and Rousseau, specifically. Foucault’s discussion about the origins of ethics, especially as it pertains to sex and morality, sheds some light on a few of the more confusing concepts I encountered in the writings of these Enlightenment intellectuals.

Locke’s “Principle of Virtue” states that virtue is self-denial, the ability to quell or ignore your passions. Similarly, Rousseau argues, in his First Discourse on the arts and sciences, that “luxury is diametrically opposed to virtue,” and that those who cannot resist the desire for luxury are immoral. He also argues that the new interest in the arts and sciences will lead to vice – vanity, further desire for luxuries and wealth instead of simplicity, and other “effeminate” behaviors are the result of the renewed interest in the arts and sciences.

What does this have to do with Foucault? I don’t know. It made sense when I was reading it. But I can try to forge some connection anyway –

Foucault says that in antiquity, sex was considered “activity,” whereas, for the Christians, it was considered “passivity,” and he cites this as one of the reasons why Christianity sees sex as sinful. Both Locke and Rousseau characterize passivity as feminine – women are not strong enough to silence their passions, and are therefore less virtuous than men. Men, on the other hand, are active, and those that are passive and unable to engage in Locke’s “self-denial” are considered effeminate. Similarly, Rousseau uses feminine epithets to rail against the desire for wealth and luxury. Either way, it seems that an appetite or desire satisfied means femininity triumphs over masculinity and vice triumphs over virtue.

I also found Foucault’s discussion about desire and pleasure useful, and I would like to discuss it further tomorrow morning (which was last week...ohhhhwell).

- Heather