University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series
University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series 2009
Foucault, anti-humanism and human rights
Article comments
This paper may be referenced as [2009] UNSWLRS 39.
Abstract
Responding to recent engagements with Foucault, and in part to the provocation of this conference (‘… antifoundational humanism …’), this paper argues that in his late work Foucault does not submit to the ‘moral superiority’ of humanism and introduce a liberal humanist subject. Rather, Foucault’s late investigations of subjectivity constitute a continuation and not a radical departure from his earlier positions on the subject. Such a reading helps us to assess Foucault’s late supposed ‘embrace’ of, or return to, human rights – which is here re-interpreted as a critical anti-humanist engagement with human rights, conducted in the name of an unfinished humanity. In this way, the paper engages not only with the way in which mainstream accounts of human rights tend to assimilate anti-foundational and post-structural challenges, but also with the quality of Foucault’s own political legacy and future in the age of human rights, 25 years on.
Subject Area
General Law, Human Rights Law
Recommended Citation
Ben Golder,
"Foucault, anti-humanism and human rights"
(October 2009).
University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series.
University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series 2009.
Working Paper 40.
http://law.bepress.com/unswwps/flrps09/art40
No readers' reactions have been posted for this article. To submit one, copy the URL for this article (http://law.bepress.com/unswwps/flrps09/art40) and click here.