Expansion and Transcendence: Biopolitics and Political Philosophy

Since the 20th century, the infringement upon life by issues such as capitalism, racism, and local wars has made “life” a significant topic in philosophy and political-social theory. Michel Foucault reshaped the concept of “biopolitics” and developed biopolitics, giving rise to contemporary currents of biopolitical thought. Roberto Esposito points out that Foucault’s work has driven a transformation of the entire framework of political philosophy. Examining the relationship between biopolitics and political philosophy helps clarify the theoretical positioning and effects of biopolitics.

20世纪以来，资本主义、种族主义和局部战争等问题对生命的侵害使 “生命”成为哲学与政治社会理论的重要议题，米歇尔·福柯重塑了“生命政治”概念并发展出生命政治学，催生了当代生命政治思潮。罗伯特·埃斯波西托指出，福柯的工作推动了政治哲学整个框架的转换。对生命政治学与政治哲学的关系进行考察，有利于廓清生命政治学的理论定位与效应。

The Theoretical Paradigm and Debates of Biopolitics

生命政治学的理论范式与争鸣

Biopolitics focuses on the techniques by which power governs life and the possibilities of resistance by the latter. “Governance” has a specific connotation in biopolitics, referring to power adopting various mechanisms and strategies to regulate, shape, appropriate, and extract life at different levels. It has both micro and macro dimensions.

生命政治学关注权力治理生命的技艺及后者抵抗的可能。“治理”在生命政治学中有着特定的内涵，特指权力采取诸种机制与策略在不同层面上对生命进行规制、形塑、征用与榨取，它具有微观与宏观两个维度。

At the micro dimension, power takes the forms of Foucault’s “disciplinary power” and “biopower,” employing the tools of normalization and security apparatuses respectively to manage life at the levels of the individual and the population, making life healthy, docile, and useful, and achieving the overall security and equilibrium of the population, so as to meet the labor demands of the capitalist production system. The biopolitics of Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt also belongs to this dimension; they point out that the empire of capital achieves the real subsumption of labor through the appropriation of “common” cooperative relations, thereby realizing the comprehensive manipulation and exploitation of life.

在微观维度下，权力采取福柯意义上“规训权力”与“生命权力”的形式，分别使用标准化和安全配置的工具，在个体与人口两个层面管理生命，使生命变得健康、驯顺而有用，并达到人口的总体安全与平衡，以满足资本主义生产体系对劳动力的需求。安东尼·奈格里和迈克·哈特的生命政治学亦属于这一维度，他们指出资本帝国通过对“共同性”协作关系的占有实现了对劳动力的实质吸纳，并以此达成对生命全面的操控与剥削。

From the macro dimension, Foucault indicates that the micro-level operation of biopower does not dissolve sovereignty; rather, sovereignty functions to govern life in the form of racial war, i.e., eliminating those lives that threaten the security of the overall population. The biopolitics of Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Rancière, and Roberto Esposito belongs to this dimension. Agamben’s “bare life” and “state of exception,” Rancière’s “police order” and “the part of no part,” and Esposito’s “debt contract” and “immunity” all reveal that the foundation and precondition of life security and political identity within a community is the sovereign’s exclusion of heterogeneous life.

从宏观维度看，福柯指出生命权力在微观层面的运作并未消解主权，主权以种族战争的形式发挥治理生命的功能，即清理那些威胁整体人口安全的生命。吉奥乔·阿甘本、雅克·郎西埃和埃斯波西托的生命政治学属于这一维度。阿甘本的“赤裸生命”与“例外状态”，朗西埃的“感性治安”与“无分之分”，埃斯波西托的“债契”与“免疫”，都揭示了共同体内部生命安全和政治身份的基础与前提是主权对异质生命的排除。

Classical political philosophy concerns the legitimacy of state power and the protection of political rights, while biopolitics focuses on the actual mechanisms of power’s operation and its effects on human biological life. The concepts and paradigms of the former struggle to explain the concrete governance practices of biopolitics, leading to divergence and debate in academia over the relationship between biopolitics and political philosophy. Some scholars argue that the approach of biopolitics differs from that of political philosophy; for example, Miguel Vatter holds that the governance of life cannot be equated with politics, and Lan Jiang contends that biopolitics is a more fundamental issue than Anglo-American normative political philosophy. Another group of scholars, however, affirms the theoretical nature of biopolitics as political philosophy; for instance, Xia Ying argues that biopolitics inherits the Continental European political philosophical tradition, initiated by Plato, in which philosophical ideas take priority over political reality.

经典政治哲学关注国家权力的正当合法性与政治权利的保障，而生命政治学关注权力的实际运作机制及其对人的生物性生命的作用，前者的概念与范式难以解释生命政治的具体治理实践，这导致学界在生命政治学与政治哲学关系的问题上产生了分歧与争鸣。有学者认为生命政治学的路径不同于政治哲学，例如，米格尔·瓦特认为生命的治理不能等同于政治，蓝江认为生命政治学是相较于英美规范政治哲学更为前提性的问题。而另一部分学者则认同生命政治学作为政治哲学的理论性质，例如，夏莹认为生命政治学继承了柏拉图开创的哲学理念优先于政治现实的欧陆政治哲学传统。

Overlap and Displacement of the Fundamental Questions of Biopolitics and Political Philosophy

生命政治学与政治哲学基本问题的重叠与错位

The key to understanding the relationship between biopolitics and political philosophy and to clearing up the divergence lies in examining the fundamental questions they address. Mainstream Anglo-American normative political philosophy, while affirming the legitimacy of the existing capitalist system, seeks to patch up society, focusing more on issues of rights and distributive justice within the system. However, the theory of sovereignty and the state is also an important topic in political philosophy and is emphasized by Continental European political philosophy. Chris Thornhill, for instance, points out that German political philosophy pays greater attention to issues of sovereignty, the state, and the state of exception, viewing them as the precondition for the guarantee of individual rights, and adopts a critical stance toward natural law and capitalism. Therefore, Western political philosophy has two traditions: the Anglo-American tradition emphasizes norms, rights, fairness, and justice, while the Continental European tradition emphasizes sovereignty, the state, and the state of exception.

理解生命政治学与政治哲学的关系并清理分歧，关键是考察它们要处理的基本问题。主流的英美规范论政治哲学在肯定既有资本主义制度合法性的前提下对社会进行修补，更多关注系统内部的权利与分配正义问题。但主权与国家理论同样是政治哲学的重要议题，并被欧陆政治哲学所重视。克里斯·桑希尔就指出，德国政治哲学更加关注主权、国家与例外状态问题，视其为个人权利的保障性前提，并对自然法与资本主义持批判态度。因此，西方政治哲学具有两种传统，英美政治哲学传统重视规范、权利、公平与正义问题，欧陆政治哲学传统重视主权、国家和例外状态问题。

Although the specific issues emphasized by different traditions of political philosophy vary, they all address a common fundamental question: “What is the good common life?” Political philosophy deduces the ought-to-be form of human common life on the basis of knowledge about human beings and realizes this form through concrete institutional arrangements. Classical Western political philosophy regards humans as rational animals; therefore, humans must participate in the political life of the polis and escape the state of animal existence, for only thus can the soul attain metaphysical supreme good. Modern Western political philosophy acknowledges the legitimacy of life’s sensuous desires and individual-centeredness; the secular morality it follows regards security, comfort, and wealth as goods, and the state becomes a tool for maintaining security, prosperity, stability, and individual rights. “The good common life” implies that political philosophy possesses both a value dimension and a commonality dimension, and to promote a certain common value in public life, it must simultaneously adopt mechanisms of coordination and coercion. Carl Schmitt points out that liberalism follows two basic principles: the principle of distribution of rights and the principle of organization of power. Anglo-American political philosophy emphasizes coordination mechanisms such as rights, fairness, and justice, while Continental European political philosophy emphasizes coercive mechanisms such as power, the state, and the state of exception.

虽然不同政治哲学传统重视的具体议题有差异，但它们都关注共同的基本问题，即 “何为好的共同生活”。政治哲学在关于人的知识的基础上推导出应然的人类共同生活形式，并以具体的制度安排实现这一形式。西方古典政治哲学将人视为理性动物，故人必须参与城邦政治生活并摆脱动物的生存状态，唯此灵魂才能达至形而上学的至善。西方现代政治哲学承认生命感性欲求和个体本位的合法性，其依循的世俗道德将安全、舒适与财富等视为善品，国家成为维护安全、繁荣、稳定与个人权利的工具。“好的共同生活”意味着政治哲学兼具价值性与共同性，而要在公共生活中推行某种共同价值，就必须同时采取协调与强制的机制。卡尔·施密特指出自由主义遵循两条基本原则：权利的分配原则与权力的组织原则。英美政治哲学强调权利、公平与正义等协调机制，欧陆政治哲学看重权力、国家与例外状态等强制机制。

The development of modern Western political philosophy has accompanied the rise of the capitalist mode of production, which has incorporated the entire society into the market system, making economics the core issue of politics, and political philosophy has had to construct itself around economics. This has transformed politics into biopolitics, because economic issues are closely related to the biological body of human beings, and capitalism inevitably intervenes in the question of “how life lives.” Classical political economy, closely linked to liberal political philosophy, is the primary knowledge form of biopower; it produces life as the subject of modern society—the economic rational man.

西方近现代政治哲学的发展伴随着资本主义生产方式的兴起，后者将整个社会都纳入市场体系中，使经济成为政治的核心问题，政治哲学也不得不围绕经济展开与建构。这就使政治转化为生命政治，因为经济问题与人的生物性身体息息相关，资本主义必然介入生命“怎么活”的问题。与自由主义政治哲学息息相关的古典政治经济学就是生命权力主要的知识形式，它将生命生产为现代社会的主体——经济理性人。

The structure of traditional society was relatively simple, and political philosophy mainly focused on issues of sovereignty, political institutions, law, and rights. As capitalism has developed into the contemporary era, Western developed countries have entered post-industrial society, consumer society, and the welfare state. Technological development has enhanced means of technical control, government governance increasingly intervenes in social life, power combines with culture, biomedicine, and information media technology, penetrates non-political domains in micro forms and politicizes them, and the boundary between politics and social life becomes increasingly blurred. The concept of “politics” has thus become increasingly complex, pluralistic, and uncertain, being generalized into multi-layered mechanisms of power’s operation and effects of domination. Besides criticizing Western metaphysics and the harm done to life by state power, biopolitics also extensively examines the governance practices of micro-power in fields such as culture, medicine, economics, and technology—that is, how power deals with life as it is connected and interwoven with the aforementioned related elements. This is what Foucault means by cutting off the head of the Leviathan, shifting from the sovereignty-law model of research to studying the capillary deployment of power.

传统社会的结构相对简单，政治哲学主要关注主权、政治制度、法律与权利等问题。资本主义发展到当代，西方发达国家进入后工业社会、消费社会与福利国家，科技发展使技术控制手段得到增强，政府治理日益干预社会生活，权力与文化、生物医学和信息媒介技术相结合，以微观的形式渗透到非政治领域并将其政治化，政治与社会生活的边界日益模糊。“政治”的概念也因此变得日渐复杂、多元与不确定，被泛化为权力多层次的作用机制与支配效应。除了批判西方形而上学和国家权力对生命的戕害，生命政治学还广泛地考察了微观权力在文化、医学、经济和技术等领域的治理实践，即权力如何处理与上述相关要素关联和交织的生命。这就是福柯所说的砍掉利维坦的头颅，从主权—法律的研究模式转向研究权力在毛细血管处的展布。

The Political Philosophical Implications and Contemporary Significance of Biopolitics

生命政治学的政治哲学意蕴与当代意义

Biopolitics focuses on the coercive function of power, expanding and transcending the existing framework of classical political philosophy through a new research paradigm. This is manifested in two aspects: First, from the macro dimension of biopolitics, by examining liberal governmentality and its practices, it uncovers latent coercion within the flexible coordination mechanisms of classical political philosophy. From the perspective of biopolitics, coordination mechanisms such as reason, rights, the rule of law, and market laws are all tools of “knowledge-power” governance and suppression of life, aiming to produce life as a uniform subject. At the same time, the effectiveness of these coordination mechanisms is still guaranteed by the Leviathan as the “night watchman,” which not only discards those lives unable to adapt to the coordination mechanisms but also, when the coordination mechanisms are disrupted, activates the state of exception, using violent coercive mechanisms to strike at enemies, maintain, and rebuild the coordination mechanisms. In this sense, biopolitics belongs to the Continental European political philosophical tradition that focuses on coercive mechanisms such as sovereignty and the state of exception.

生命政治学着重考察了权力的强制性作用，以新的研究范式拓展并跃出了经典政治哲学的既有框架。这表现在两方面：第一，从生命政治学的宏观维度来说，它通过考察自由主义的治理术及其实践，在经典政治哲学的柔性协调机制中发现了隐性的强制。在生命政治学的视角下，理性、权利、法治和市场规律等协调机制都是 “知识—权力”治理和压抑生命的工具，目标是将生命生产为整齐划一的主体。同时，这些协调机制的有效性仍然由作为“守夜人”的利维坦保证，后者不仅会弃置那些无法适应协调机制的生命，还会在协调机制被破坏之时开启例外状态，以暴力性的强制机制打击敌人，维护并重建协调机制。在这个意义上，生命政治学从属于关注主权与例外状态等强制机制的欧陆政治哲学传统。

Second, from the micro-dimension of biopolitics, it discerns the operation of political coercive mechanisms in traditionally non-political fields, incorporating numerous social domains into the scope of political philosophy research. Many topics of biopolitics have already transcended the framework of classical political philosophy, closely integrating and mutually influencing disciplines such as social philosophy, literature and art, anthropology, and philosophy of technology. If the macro-dimension of biopolitics, through its critical examination of sovereignty, law, the state of exception, community, rights, and the laws of the market, participates in the discussion of classical political philosophy topics by means of deconstruction, then its micro-dimension, which investigates the coercive role of biopower in various spheres of social life, leans more toward social theory. Whether this micro-dimension possesses the nature of political philosophy is a highly controversial issue on which no consensus has yet been reached.

第二，从生命政治学的微观维度来说，它在传统的非政治领域看到了政治强制机制的作用，将诸多社会领域纳入政治哲学的研究范围。生命政治学的诸多议题已经跃出经典政治哲学的框架，与社会哲学、文学艺术、人类学和技术哲学等学科紧密结合，相互渗透影响。如果说生命政治学的宏观维度对主权、法律、例外状态、共同体、权利和市场规律的批判性考察是以解构的方式参与了经典政治哲学议题的探讨，其微观维度对生命权力在诸多社会生活领域中强制作用的考察则更偏向社会理论，其是否具有政治哲学的性质，是一个颇具争议且尚未达成共识的问题。

Web editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗