Between Foucault and Agamben: An Overview of the Problem of Euthanasia in the context of Biopolitics

Yıl 2017, Cilt: 7 Sayı: 2, 15 - 31, 30.12.2017

Gürhan Özpolat

https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.373466

Öz

In this paper, considering
the fact that special forms of dying and killing are mostly seen in a
shadowy zone or blurred boundary between life and death, I shall attempt
to find a compromise between Michel Foucault (bio-politics) and Giorgio
Agamben’s (thanatopolitics) considerations of biopolitics in the case
of euthanasia. In this respect, believing that this article requires a
historical backround, I shall start with a brief history of euthanasia
and suicide in order to understand the present juridico-medico-political
complex from which the sovereign power derives its philosophical
underpinnings and theoretical justifications today; and show that the
relationship power and death has always been very problematic. Secondly,
I will focus on the meaning(s) of the disappearance of death in the
context of Foucauldian biopolitics and conclude that, in contrast to
Foucault’s consideration, something akin to re-discovery of death has
taken place in the Western world since the mid-twentieth century.
Finally, in the third and last part of the article, I will put forward
that Agamben, by introducing the concept life unworthy of being lived,
was successful in completing what is missing, that is the politics of
death, in Foucault’s notion of biopolitics with reference to the problem
of euthanasia.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Assisted suicide, death, euthanasia, biopolitics, thanatopolitics, power, sovereignty

Kaynakça

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