more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
The decision 'to prefer the risk of death to the certainty of having to obey' is the 'last anchor point' for any assertion of rights, 'one more solid and closer to the experience than "natural rights"'.
Gist of Idea
Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them
Source
Michel Foucault (works [1978], EW III:449)
Book Ref
Foucault,Michel: 'Essential Works 1954-1984 3: Power', ed/tr. Faubion,J [Penguin 2002], p.448
A Reaction
I recall a group of Afrikaan men going to face certain death, rather than give up apartheid.
| 21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| 21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| 21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| 21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| 21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
| 21940 | Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault] |