This essay develops a remark Foucault made in passing at the end of the first volume of The History of Sexuality (1976), linking the emergence of bio-power and the nineteenth-century sociological fascination with suicide. Foucault traced the origins of bio-power in his Collège de France courses of 1977—1978 and 1978—1979, but never returned to the relationship between the sociological appropriation of suicide and this uniquely modern form of power. Using the recently published lectures from these courses, this essay interprets two nineteenth-century sociological treatises on suicide as historical examples of the development of ‘governmentality.’ The first text is a commentary on suicide from the Mémoires (1838) of Parisian police administrator Jacques Peuchet, which the young Marx translated and published in 1846. This proto-sociological text is interpreted as an early manifestation of governmentality, while the second text, Durkheim’s Le Suicide (1897), is presented as a classic of sociology and governmental rationality. Aside from the light it sheds on the historical relationship between sociology, governmentality, and suicide, this essay also illuminates some often-overlooked implications of the current ‘right to die’ movement.
Agamben G. ( 1988) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Heller-Roazen D. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
2.
Alvarez A. ( 1990) The Savage God: A Study of Suicide. New York: Norton.
3.
Anderson K. ( 1999) Marx on suicide in the context of his other writings on alienation and gender. In: Marx K, Marx on Suicide, ed. Plaut EA and Anderson K.Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 3-27.
4.
Augustine (1948) The City of God. In: Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Volume II, ed. Oates, WJ.New York: Random House.
5.
Bosman M. ( 2004) Judicial treatment of suicides in Amsterdam. In: Watt JR (ed.) From Sin to Insanity: Suicide in Early Modern Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 9-24.
6.
Cahn ZG ( 1998) Suicide in French Thought from Montesquieu to Cioran. New York: Lang.
7.
Crocker LG ( 1952) The discussion of suicide in the eighteenth century. The Journal of the History of Ideas13: 47-72.
8.
Durkheim É. ( 1951) Suicide: A Study in Sociology, trans. Spaulding JA and Simpson G. Glencoe, IL: Free Press .
9.
Dworkin R., Nagel T., Nozick R., Rawls J., Scanlon T., and Thompson JJ ( 1997) Assisted suicide: The philosophers’ brief. The New York Review of Books, March 27, pp. 41-47.
10.
Edwards C. and Osborne T. ( 2005) Scenographies of suicide: An introduction. Economy and Society34(2): 173-177.
11.
Fedden HR ( 1972) Suicide: A Social and Historical Study. New York: Benjamin Blom.
12.
Foucault M. ( 1980) The History of Sexuality: Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Hurley R. New York: Vintage.
13.
Foucault M. ( 1988a) The political technology of individuals. In: Martin LH, Gutman H, and Hutton PH (eds) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 145-162.
14.
Foucault M. ( 1988b) Social Security. In: Foucault M, Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-1984 , ed. Kritzman LD.New York: Routledge, 159-177.
15.
Foucault M. ( 1991) Governmentality. In: Burchell G, Gordon C, and Miller P (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 87-104.
16.
Foucault M. ( 1996a) The simplest of pleasures. In: Foucault M, Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 1961-1984, ed. Lotringer S.New York: Semiotext(e) , 295-297.
17.
Foucault M. ( 1996b) The social extension of the norm, In: Foucault M, Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 1961-1984, ed. Lotringer S.New York: Semiotext(e) , 196-199.
18.
Foucault M. ( 1997) Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Vol. 1 of The Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984, ed. Rabinow P.New York: New Press.
19.
Foucault M. ( 2000a) The birth of social medicine. In: Power, Vol. 3 of The Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984, ed. Faubion JD.New York: New Press, 134-156.
20.
Foucault M. ( 2000b) Governmentality. In: Power, Vol. 3 of The Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984, ed. Faubion JD.New York: New Press , 201-222.
21.
Foucault M. ( 2000c) Omnes et singulatim. In: Power, Vol. 3 of The Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984, ed. Faubion JD.New York: New Press , 312-325.
22.
Foucault M. ( 2000d) The political technology of individuals. In: Power, Vol. 3 of The Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984, ed. Faubion JD.New York: New Press, 403-417.
23.
Foucault M. ( 2000e) The politics of health in the eighteenth century. In: Power, Vol. 3 of The Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984, ed. Faubion JD.New York: New Press, 90-105.
24.
Foucault M. ( 2000f) The subject and power. In: Power, Vol. 3 of The Essential Works of Foucault: 1954-1984, ed. Faubion JD.New York: New Press , 326-348.
25.
Foucault M. ( 2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures from the Collège de France, 1977-78, ed. Sennelart M, trans. Burchell G. New York: Palgrave Macmillan .
26.
Foucault M. ( 2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures from the Collège de France, 1978-79, ed. Sennelart M, trans. Burchell G. New York: Palgrave Macmillan .
27.
Frank JP ( 1976) A System of Complete Medical Police, ed. Lesky E.Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
28.
Gay P. ( 1965) Voltaire’s Politics: The Poet as Realist. New York: Vintage.
29.
Giddens A. ( 1965) The suicide problem in French sociology. The British Journal of Sociology16(1): 3-18.
30.
Giddens A. ( 1972) Introduction. In: Durkheim É, Selected Writings, ed. Giddens A.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-50.
31.
Halbwachs M. ( 1978) The Causes of Suicide, trans. Boldblatt H. New York: Free Press.
32.
Healy R. ( 2006) Suicide in early modern and modern Europe. The Historical Journal49(3): 903-919.
33.
Hobbes T. ( 1971) A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England, ed. Cropsey J.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
34.
Hume D. ( 1980) On Suicide. In: Hume D, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and the Posthumous Essays, ed. Popkin RH.Indianapolis, IN: Hackett , 97-105.
35.
Kant I. ( 1963) Lectures on Ethics, trans. Infield L. New York: Harper & Row.
36.
Koslofsky C. ( 2004) Controlling the body of the suicide in Saxony. In: Watt JR (ed.) From Sin to Insanity: Suicide in Early Modern Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 48-63.
37.
LaBerge AF ( 1992) Mission and Method: The Early Nineteenth-Century French Public Health Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38.
Lind V. ( 1998) Skepticism and the discourse about suicide in the eighteenth century: Traces of a philosophical concept. In: Zande J van der and Popkin RH (eds) The Skeptical Tradition around 1800: Skepticism in Philosophy, Science, and Society. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic , 297-313.
39.
Lukes S. ( 1973) Émile Durkheim, His Life and Work: A Historical and Critical Study. New York: Harper & Row.
40.
MacDonald, M. and Murphy TR ( 1990) Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England. New York: Oxford University Press.
41.
Maestro MT ( 1942) Voltaire and Beccaria as Reformers of Criminal Law. New York: Columbia University Press.
42.
Marx K. ( 1999) Marx on Suicide, ed. Plaut EA and Anderson K, trans. Plaut EA, Edgcomb G, and Anderson K. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
43.
Marx K. ( 2000) The difference between the Democritean and Epicurean philosophy of nature. With an appendix. Available at: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/pref_new.htm (accessed July 19, 2010).
44.
Montesquieu Baron de ( 1901) Persian and Chinese Letters, trans. Davidson J. Washington, DC: M. Walter Dunne.
45.
Murray A. ( 2000) Suicide in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
46.
Noon G. ( 1978) On Suicide. The Journal of the History of Ideas39: 371-386.
47.
Peuchet J. ( 1805) Statistique élémentaire de la France. Paris: Chez Gilbert et Compagnie.
48.
Peuchet J. ( 2004) The Diamond and the Vengeance: The Original Crime That Inspired the Count of Monte Cristo, trans. Bair J. Available as an e-book at: http://pages.cthome.net/jbair/diamond.htm(accessedJuly19, 2010).
49.
Reiner R. ( 1994) Policing and the police. In: Maguire M, Morgan R, and Reiner R (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology . Oxford: Oxford University Press , 705-772.
50.
Rogers JR, Gueulette CM, Abbey-Hines J., Carney JV, and Werth, JL, Jr. (2001) Rational suicide: An empirical investigation of counselor attitudes. Journal of Counseling & Development79(3): 365-372.
51.
Rosen G. ( 1974) From Medical Police to Social Medicine: Essays on the History of Health Care. New York: Science History Publications.
52.
Rousseau J-J. ( 1997) Julie, or the New Heloise, trans. Stewart P and Vache J, Vol. 6 of The Collected Writings of Rousseau, ed. Masters RD and Kelly C. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
53.
Sprott SE ( 1961) The English Debate on Suicide: From Donne to Hume. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
54.
Tierney TF ( 1997) Death, medicine, and the right to die: An engagement with Heidegger, Bauman, and Baudrillard. Body & Society3(4): 51-77.
55.
Tierney TF ( 2006) Suicidal thoughts: Hobbes, Foucault, and the right to die. Philosophy & Social Criticism32(5): 601-638.
56.
Voltaire (1882) Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, nouvelle edition. Paris: Garnier Frères.
57.
Werth JL, Jr and Cobia DC ( 1995) Empirically based criteria for rational suicide: A survey of psychotherapists. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior25: 231-240.
58.
Werth JL, Jr and Liddle BJ ( 1994) Psychotherapists’ attitudes toward suicide. Psychotherapy31: 440-448.
59.
Williams G. ( 1966) The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law. New York: Knopf.
