The spell of responsibility : labor, criminality, philosophy

Responsibility: Frieder Vogelmann ; translated by Daniel Steuer.
Uniform Title: Im Bann der Verantwortung. English
Language: English. Translated from the German.
Publication: London : Rowman & Littlefield International, [2018]
Copyright notice: ©2018
Physical description: xi, 323 pages ; 24 cm.
Series: Essex studies in contemporary critical theory.

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Call number	Status
BJ1453 .V6413 2018	Unknown

Description

Creators/Contributors

Author/Creator: Vogelmann, Frieder, author.

Contents/Summary

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-316) and index.

Contents

Michel Foucault's practices
The practical regime of labor
The practical regime of criminality
The practical regime of philosophy
Under the spell of responsibility.

Summary

Most people would agree that we should behave and act in a responsible way. Yet only 200 years ago, 'responsibility' was only of marginal importance in discussions of law and legal practice, and it had little ethical significance. What is the significance of the fact that 'responsibility' now plays such a central role in, for example, work, the welfare state, or the criminal justice system? What happens when individuals are generally expected to think of themselves as 'responsible' agents? And what are the consequences of the fact that the philosophical analysis of 'responsibility' focuses almost exclusively on conditions of agency that are mostly absent from real life? In this book, Frieder Vogelmann demonstrates how large parts of philosophy have fallen under responsibility's spell, and he uses a Foucauldian approach in an attempt to break it. The three axes of power, knowledge, and self are used in a detailed analysis of the practical regimes of labour (including the welfare state), criminality (including policing, punishment practices, and criminal proceedings), and philosophy, and of the two subject positions required by 'responsibility' - those of the attributors and bearers of responsibility - within them. The power relations between these positions, which Vogelmann carefully excavates from the grounds of our practices, reveal that the deck is stacked unevenly from the start. The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International - Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Bï¿½rsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publisher & Booksellers Association).
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