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SENTENTIA. European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Reference:

Danilenko D.V. Humanism, Punishment and Surveillance. Criticism of M. Foucault’s “Surveiller et punir”

Abstract: This article is devoted to philosophical research on the origins of modern state surveillance, punishment and, more generally, the evolution of modern criminal law. It is presented as a discussion between the author of this article and Michel Foucault. It develops the idea that humanism has played an important role in the softening of state-sanctioned punishment and in the development of state surveillance over the last 300 years. The article deals with the historical origins of the modern state and the evolution of its relations with the individual; the evolution of government functions; the evolution of criminal law; and human rights and freedoms. It contains a critique of Foucault’s analysis of the evolution of the modern system of criminal law and of his concept of surveillance.


Keywords:

punishment, state (government) functions, criminal law, modern law, Michel Foucault, Social philosophy, surveillance, humanism, human rights, freedoms


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References
1. Vladimirova, T.V. Setevye kommunikatsii kak novaya «formula spaseniya» sotsial'nogo poryadka (Network communications as a new “salvation formula” for the social order), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost 2 (2013): 371 – 378; DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2013.02.16
2. Chugaev, V.V. Yuridicheskoe oformlenie rezul'tatov Slavnoy revolyutsii 1688-1689 gg. (Legal arrangement of the results of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689), Pravo i politika 10 (2014): 104-107; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.10.13132
3. There is no better testimony to the fact that the monarch’s right over his subjects was tantamount to a property right that he or she exercised over them than the Magna Carta: “No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right”. Indeed, words such as “destroyed” applying to individuals is a clear example that human beings at that time were no different from an object (article) whose existence in society was governed by the monarch’s property rights.
4. The idea that criminal law reforms were created, and some of the human rights in the sphere of justice were established as a reaction to the sovereign’s abuses power is clearly expressed in the Habeas Corpus Act: “great delays have been used by sheriffs, gaolers and other officers, to whose custody any of the King's subjects have been committed for criminal or supposed criminal matters, in making returns of writs of habeas corpus to them directed, by standing out an alias and pluries habeas corpus, and sometimes more, and by other shifts to avoid their yielding obedience to such writs, contrary to their duty and the known laws of the land, whereby many of the King's subjects have been and hereafter may be long detained in prison, in such cases where by law they are bailable, to their great charges and vexation…”
5. Kostenko, N.I. Kontseptsiya stanovleniya mezhdunarodnogo ugolovno-ispolnitel'nogo (penitentsiarnogo) prava (The concept of formation of the international criminal penal (penitentiary) law), Pravo i Politika 4 (2014) : 452 – 464; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.4.11614
6. Shubina E. V. Administrativno-predupreditel'nye mery v sisteme administrativno-pravovogo prinuzhdeniya (Administrative Preventive Measures in the Systems of Administrative Preventive Coercion), Administrativnoe i munizipalnoe pravo 11 (2014): 1160 – 1164; DOI: 10.7256/1999-2807.2014.11.13277
7. Locke J. The Second Treatise of Government (Hackett Publishing 1980), 18.
8. Art. 17 of the French Declaration confirms this statement: “Property being an inviolable and sacred right…”
9. Babin, B.V. Proprietary right of the peoples in the modern international law, Mezhdunarodnoe pravo i mezhdunarodnye organizacii / International Law and International Organizations 3 (2013): 300 – 308; DOI: 10.7256/2226-6305.2013.3.9479
10. Lapaeva V.V. Privatizatsiya sotsialisticheskoy sobstvennosti kak konstitutsionno-pravovaya problema (Privatization of socialist property as a constitutional and legal issue), Pravo i Politika, 2 (2014): 140 – 152; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.2.10901
11. The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution express this idea aptly: “ …nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”.
12. When considering this natural law, Locke used only the examples of the individual-individual property relations and not state-individual property relations
13. For example, a French decree of 18 March 1793 sanctioned any attempt to adopt a law that intended to strip landowners of their property. Such an act was punishable by death.
14. Lyman J. L. The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci., 55 (1964): 141
15. Even today, there are examples of this in reverse: surveillance functions are transmitted back to the private sector. For example, modern fiscal evasion and fiscal fraud surveillance functions are partly exercised by the banking sector and by private financial institutions, and not exclusively by government agencies. The same is true for Internet-related service and product companies as well, which are often accused of collaborating with state security services and, especially, of transmitting personal data to those bodies.
16. Parkhomenko, R.N. Gosudarstvo i pravo v rabotakh B. Chicherina (State and law in the works of B. Chicherin), Pravo i Politika 3 (2013): 436 – 444; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2013.03.18
17. Parkhomenko, R. N. Formirovanie demokraticheskikh ucheniy v Anglii i Frantsii (XVII-XVIII vv.) (Creation of Democratic Teachings in England and France (XVII — XVIII Centuries)), Politika i Obshestvo, 10 (2014): 104-107, DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2014.10.12023
18. Alexy R. A Theory of Constitutional Rights (Oxford Press, 2010), 44.
19. As mentioned above. See paragraph 1.
20. Idrisov, I.T. Nakazaniya, svyazannye s trudovym vozdeystviem, v Anglii i Frantsii (Punishments regarding correctional labor in England and in France). Pravo i Politika 10 (2014): 104-107; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.10.12952
21. Alyoshina, M. V. Cohesion of the Society as a New Trend of Social Policy: Sociological Analysis, Politika i Obshestvo, 5 (2014): 513 – 523; DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2014.5.9512
22. Samarskaya, E. A. Raymon Aron. "Ideal'no-tipicheskiy" metod rassmotreniya industrial'nykh obshchestv (Raymond Aron. ‘Ideal Typical’ Approach to Studying Industrial Societies), Filosofiya i kultura 10 (2014): 1441 – 1449; DOI: 10.7256/1999-2793.2014.10.12883
23. Durkheim E. De la division du travail social (PUF, 2013), 276
24. Ibid. 284
25. Ibid. 287
26. Ibid. 284
27. It is significant that in this chapter (“Le panoptisme”) – unlike other parts of his book – Foucault uses such words as “social” or “moral” a great deal.
28. Durkheim E. De la division du travail social (PUF, 2013), 105
29. Konstantinov, M. S. Bremya dobrodeteli: moral'nye kontsepty kommunitarizma (The Burden of Virtue: Moral Concepts of Communitarianism), Politika i Obshestvo 12 (2013): 1416-1422. DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2013.12.10375
30. Jellinek G. System der subjectiven offentlichen Rechte (Hrsg. u. eingel. v. Jens Kersten, 1905).
31. Popova, S.M., Yanik, A.A. Problemy global'nogo stareniya naseleniya: analiz dokumentov i strategii OON (Problems of global ageing of the population: analysis of documents and strategy of the UN), Mezhdunarodnoe pravo i mezhdunarodnye organizacii / International Law and International Organizations 3 (2014): 429 – 443; DOI: 10.7256/2226-6305.2014.3.12857
32. Pavroz, A.V. Gosudarstvo vseobshchego blagosostoyaniya: sushchnost' politiki i fundamental'nye protivorechiya (The Welfare State: the Nature of Politics and Fundamental Contradictions), Politika i Obshestvo. 11 (2011): 21-30.
33. Nikolaev, V.B. Pravo na obrazovanie i mezhdunarodnye standarty organizatsii ob'edinennykh natsiy (Right to education and international standards of the United Nations Organization). Mezhdunarodnoe pravo i mezhdunarodnye organizacii / International Law and International Organization 2 (2014): 215 – 222; DOI: 10.7256/2226-6305.2014.2.11895
34. Ismailov, N. O. Spravedlivoe obshchestvo kak proekt budushchego v filosofii A. M. Kovaleva (Fair Society as the Project of Future in Alexander Kovalev’s Philosophy), Politika i Obshestvo, 3 (2014): 277 – 286; DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2014.3.11439
35. Baimatov, P. N. Konstitutsionnoe pravo na sotsial'noe obespechenie: mesto i rol' v sisteme osnovnykh prav i svobod cheloveka i grazhdanina (The constitutional right to social services: its place and role in the framework of basic rights and liberties of the man and the citizen), Pravo i Politika 11 (2013): 1527-1535. DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2013.11.10037
36. Castles F.G., Introduction in The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (Oxford University Press 2012), 5
37. Pierson Ch., Leimgruber M. Intellectual roots, in The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (Oxford University Press 2012), 32ssq
38. The welfare state’s values are also considered by some authors as social rights of citizenship (e.g. T.H. Marshall (1964) Citizenship and Social Class, q.v.). Nonetheless, a conception of social rights based on citizenship, concomitant with such phenomena as the emergence of social democracy which was achieved by extending political rights (especially the right to vote) to the majority of the population, is outdated. Indeed, today many welfare rights are claimable not only by citizens, but – with conditions – by every person (even foreigners). As a consequence, social rights today are more than mere rights of citizenship; they have become universal human rights.
39. Nullmeier F., Kaufmann F.-X. Post-War Walefare Developement, in The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, (Oxford University Press 2012), 84
40. Castles, op. cit. 6
41. Gorokhova, D.I. Konventsiya Soveta Evropy o zashchite fizicheskikh lits pri avtomatizirovannoy obrabotke personal'nykh dannykh (The Council of Europe Convention in the sphere of protection of individuals in the sphere of automatic processing of the personal data), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost 1 (2014): 165 – 170; DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2013.01.17
42. Vladimirova, T.V. Informatsionnaya bezopasnost': sotsial'nye praktiki i struktury (Information security: social practices and structures), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost 3 (2014): 390 – 397; DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2014.3.11511
43. Ursul A.D., Ursul T.A. The Future of Humanity: Death or Immortality? Sociodinamika 3 (2013): 138-199; DOI: 10.7256/2306-0158.2013.3.478. URL: http://e-notabene.ru/pr/article_478.html
44. Maslov, V. M. Postchelovecheskie trendy tekhnogennoy tsivilizatsii (Post-Human Trends of Industrial Civilization), Filosofiya I kultura 6 (2014): 804 – 813; DOI: 10.7256/1999-2793.2014.6.11953
45. Dundukov, M.Y. (2013) Pravovaya reglamentatsiya taynykh operatsiy razvedki SShA (Legal regulation of secret intelligence operations of the USA), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost, 6: 55 – 65, DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2013.6.10032
46. Dundukov M.Y. (2014) Pravovye standarty zashchity informatsii v sfere natsional'noy bezopasnosti SShA (Legal standards of protection of information on matters of national security of the United States), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost, 5: 688 – 700, DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2014.5.1212
47. References (transliteration):
48. Vladimirova, T.V. Setevye kommunikatsii kak novaya «formula spaseniya» sotsial'nogo poryadka (Network communications as a new “salvation formula” for the social order), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost 2 (2013): 371 – 378; DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2013.02.16
49. Chugaev, V.V. Yuridicheskoe oformlenie rezul'tatov Slavnoy revolyutsii 1688-1689 gg. (Legal arrangement of the results of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689), Pravo i politika 10 (2014): 104-107; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.10.13132
50. There is no better testimony to the fact that the monarch’s right over his subjects was tantamount to a property right that he or she exercised over them than the Magna Carta: “No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right”. Indeed, words such as “destroyed” applying to individuals is a clear example that human beings at that time were no different from an object (article) whose existence in society was governed by the monarch’s property rights.
51. The idea that criminal law reforms were created, and some of the human rights in the sphere of justice were established as a reaction to the sovereign’s abuses power is clearly expressed in the Habeas Corpus Act: “great delays have been used by sheriffs, gaolers and other officers, to whose custody any of the King's subjects have been committed for criminal or supposed criminal matters, in making returns of writs of habeas corpus to them directed, by standing out an alias and pluries habeas corpus, and sometimes more, and by other shifts to avoid their yielding obedience to such writs, contrary to their duty and the known laws of the land, whereby many of the King's subjects have been and hereafter may be long detained in prison, in such cases where by law they are bailable, to their great charges and vexation…”
52. Kostenko, N.I. Kontseptsiya stanovleniya mezhdunarodnogo ugolovno-ispolnitel'nogo (penitentsiarnogo) prava (The concept of formation of the international criminal penal (penitentiary) law), Pravo i Politika 4 (2014) : 452 – 464; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.4.11614
53. Shubina E. V. Administrativno-predupreditel'nye mery v sisteme administrativno-pravovogo prinuzhdeniya (Administrative Preventive Measures in the Systems of Administrative Preventive Coercion), Administrativnoe i munizipalnoe pravo 11 (2014): 1160 – 1164; DOI: 10.7256/1999-2807.2014.11.13277
54. Locke J. The Second Treatise of Government (Hackett Publishing 1980), 18.
55. Art. 17 of the French Declaration confirms this statement: “Property being an inviolable and sacred right…”
56. Babin, B.V. Proprietary right of the peoples in the modern international law, Mezhdunarodnoe pravo i mezhdunarodnye organizacii / International Law and International Organizations 3 (2013): 300 – 308; DOI: 10.7256/2226-6305.2013.3.9479
57. Lapaeva V.V. Privatizatsiya sotsialisticheskoy sobstvennosti kak konstitutsionno-pravovaya problema (Privatization of socialist property as a constitutional and legal issue), Pravo i Politika, 2 (2014): 140 – 152; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.2.10901
58. The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution express this idea aptly: “ …nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”.
59. When considering this natural law, Locke used only the examples of the individual-individual property relations and not state-individual property relations
60. For example, a French decree of 18 March 1793 sanctioned any attempt to adopt a law that intended to strip landowners of their property. Such an act was punishable by death.
61. Lyman J. L. The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci., 55 (1964): 141
62. Even today, there are examples of this in reverse: surveillance functions are transmitted back to the private sector. For example, modern fiscal evasion and fiscal fraud surveillance functions are partly exercised by the banking sector and by private financial institutions, and not exclusively by government agencies. The same is true for Internet-related service and product companies as well, which are often accused of collaborating with state security services and, especially, of transmitting personal data to those bodies.
63. Parkhomenko, R.N. Gosudarstvo i pravo v rabotakh B. Chicherina (State and law in the works of B. Chicherin), Pravo i Politika 3 (2013): 436 – 444; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2013.03.18
64. Parkhomenko, R. N. Formirovanie demokraticheskikh ucheniy v Anglii i Frantsii (XVII-XVIII vv.) (Creation of Democratic Teachings in England and France (XVII — XVIII Centuries)), Politika i Obshestvo, 10 (2014): 104-107, DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2014.10.12023
65. Alexy R. A Theory of Constitutional Rights (Oxford Press, 2010), 44.
66. As mentioned above. See paragraph 1.
67. Idrisov, I.T. Nakazaniya, svyazannye s trudovym vozdeystviem, v Anglii i Frantsii (Punishments regarding correctional labor in England and in France). Pravo i Politika 10 (2014): 104-107; DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2014.10.12952
68. Alyoshina, M. V. Cohesion of the Society as a New Trend of Social Policy: Sociological Analysis, Politika i Obshestvo, 5 (2014): 513 – 523; DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2014.5.9512
69. Samarskaya, E. A. Raymon Aron. "Ideal'no-tipicheskiy" metod rassmotreniya industrial'nykh obshchestv (Raymond Aron. ‘Ideal Typical’ Approach to Studying Industrial Societies), Filosofiya i kultura 10 (2014): 1441 – 1449; DOI: 10.7256/1999-2793.2014.10.12883
70. Durkheim E. De la division du travail social (PUF, 2013), 276
71. Ibid. 284
72. Ibid. 287
73. Ibid. 284
74. It is significant that in this chapter (“Le panoptisme”) – unlike other parts of his book – Foucault uses such words as “social” or “moral” a great deal.
75. Durkheim E. De la division du travail social (PUF, 2013), 105
76. Konstantinov, M. S. Bremya dobrodeteli: moral'nye kontsepty kommunitarizma (The Burden of Virtue: Moral Concepts of Communitarianism), Politika i Obshestvo 12 (2013): 1416-1422. DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2013.12.10375
77. Jellinek G. System der subjectiven offentlichen Rechte (Hrsg. u. eingel. v. Jens Kersten, 1905).
78. Popova, S.M., Yanik, A.A. Problemy global'nogo stareniya naseleniya: analiz dokumentov i strategii OON (Problems of global ageing of the population: analysis of documents and strategy of the UN), Mezhdunarodnoe pravo i mezhdunarodnye organizacii / International Law and International Organizations 3 (2014): 429 – 443; DOI: 10.7256/2226-6305.2014.3.12857
79. Pavroz, A.V. Gosudarstvo vseobshchego blagosostoyaniya: sushchnost' politiki i fundamental'nye protivorechiya (The Welfare State: the Nature of Politics and Fundamental Contradictions), Politika i Obshestvo. 11 (2011): 21-30.
80. Nikolaev, V.B. Pravo na obrazovanie i mezhdunarodnye standarty organizatsii ob'edinennykh natsiy (Right to education and international standards of the United Nations Organization). Mezhdunarodnoe pravo i mezhdunarodnye organizacii / International Law and International Organization 2 (2014): 215 – 222; DOI: 10.7256/2226-6305.2014.2.11895
81. Ismailov, N. O. Spravedlivoe obshchestvo kak proekt budushchego v filosofii A. M. Kovaleva (Fair Society as the Project of Future in Alexander Kovalev’s Philosophy), Politika i Obshestvo, 3 (2014): 277 – 286; DOI: 10.7256/1812-8696.2014.3.11439
82. Baimatov, P. N. Konstitutsionnoe pravo na sotsial'noe obespechenie: mesto i rol' v sisteme osnovnykh prav i svobod cheloveka i grazhdanina (The constitutional right to social services: its place and role in the framework of basic rights and liberties of the man and the citizen), Pravo i Politika 11 (2013): 1527-1535. DOI: 10.7256/1811-9018.2013.11.10037
83. Castles F.G., Introduction in The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (Oxford University Press 2012), 5
84. Pierson Ch., Leimgruber M. Intellectual roots, in The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State (Oxford University Press 2012), 32ssq
85. The welfare state’s values are also considered by some authors as social rights of citizenship (e.g. T.H. Marshall (1964) Citizenship and Social Class, q.v.). Nonetheless, a conception of social rights based on citizenship, concomitant with such phenomena as the emergence of social democracy which was achieved by extending political rights (especially the right to vote) to the majority of the population, is outdated. Indeed, today many welfare rights are claimable not only by citizens, but – with conditions – by every person (even foreigners). As a consequence, social rights today are more than mere rights of citizenship; they have become universal human rights.
86. Nullmeier F., Kaufmann F.-X. Post-War Walefare Developement, in The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State, (Oxford University Press 2012), 84
87. Castles, op. cit. 6
88. Gorokhova, D.I. Konventsiya Soveta Evropy o zashchite fizicheskikh lits pri avtomatizirovannoy obrabotke personal'nykh dannykh (The Council of Europe Convention in the sphere of protection of individuals in the sphere of automatic processing of the personal data), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost 1 (2014): 165 – 170; DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2013.01.17
89. Vladimirova, T.V. Informatsionnaya bezopasnost': sotsial'nye praktiki i struktury (Information security: social practices and structures), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost 3 (2014): 390 – 397; DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2014.3.11511
90. Ursul A.D., Ursul T.A. The Future of Humanity: Death or Immortality? Sociodinamika 3 (2013): 138-199; DOI: 10.7256/2306-0158.2013.3.478. URL: http://e-notabene.ru/pr/article_478.html
91. Maslov, V. M. Postchelovecheskie trendy tekhnogennoy tsivilizatsii (Post-Human Trends of Industrial Civilization), Filosofiya I kultura 6 (2014): 804 – 813; DOI: 10.7256/1999-2793.2014.6.11953
92. Dundukov, M.Y. (2013) Pravovaya reglamentatsiya taynykh operatsiy razvedki SShA (Legal regulation of secret intelligence operations of the USA), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost, 6: 55 – 65, DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2013.6.10032
93. Dundukov M.Y. (2014) Pravovye standarty zashchity informatsii v sfere natsional'noy bezopasnosti SShA (Legal standards of protection of information on matters of national security of the United States), Nazionalnaya Bezopasnost, 5: 688 – 700, DOI: 10.7256/2073-8560.2014.5.1212