Law, Ethics and the Biopolitical by Amy Swiffen (review)

In Law, Ethics and the Biopolitical, Amy Swiffen tackles the underexplored nexus between bioethics, biopolitics, and the law. Theories of bioethics are gaining traction outside esoteric medical sciences, benevolently promoting a moral imperative that holds the preservation of life as a natural and universal value. The author confronts this imperative by drawing largely on Jacques Lacan’s ethics of psychoanalysis. She sources a further critique from biopolitical theory, demonstrating that the moral position of biopolitics is politically determined and maintained in the locus of law.

Part I examines ethical decision making from a Lacanian perspective. Swiffen argues that the amoral posturing of psychoanalysis makes it a particularly productive way to trouble current thinking on bioethics and biopolitics. For Lacan, life does not have a natural meaning, only one that a social group assigns to it. Using this claim as a point of entry for her argument, Swiffen postulates that ethical action can take place beyond ideals of the good (p. 17).

Swiffen lays out the moral prerogatives of bioethics in part II of the book. Mapping the moral constellations embedded in the logic of bioethics, she draws attention to how this logic encroaches on new fields, paying particular attention to the social sciences. She argues that the national policy that governs human subject research in Canadian universities¹ reaffirms the bioethical imperative equating life with “the good.”

In chapter 4, Swiffen incorporates insights from Michel Foucault and pioneer ethicist Hans Jonas. Their work shows how modern conditions have forced bioethics to depart from Aristotelian and Kantian understandings of ethics. For Jonas, bioethics is a “fusion of science and moral values” (p. 56) while Kant’s version of ethics is couched in a moral philosophy that would hold regardless of scientific innovation. For Foucault, scientific and medical advances seek to propagate power relations as part of a political project, not an ethical one. As reaffirmed by Agamben, “the value of life is essential to the operation of power in contemporary political orders” (p. 61). Swiffen reiterates, however, that both bioethics and biopolitics reinforce the primacy of life; bioethics pursues a moral imperative to preserve life, while biopower equates the desire to sustain life with the preservation of power: “If biopolitical sovereignty must be understood in terms of bare life, the promulgation of bioethics should be understood in terms of this political situation as well” (p. 65).

In part III of the book, Swiffen shifts gears and considers the relationship between life and the law. Drawing largely on legal philosophy, Swiffen aims to expose the relevance and function of life in relation to sovereignty and the biopolitical. She argues that life becomes a biopolitical imperative because of the violence inherent in legal authority (p. 76). A discussion of the relationship between law and violence in chapter 6 brings part III to a close. Swiffen uniquely frames her discussion of law and violence within the parameters set by the amoral, ethical perspective embedded in Lacan’s theory.

Swiffen ends the book with remarks on how her insights trouble contemporary understandings of how biopolitics and sovereignty operate in international law. The plethora of free trade agreements and increased migration patterns notwithstanding, territorial borders and legal jurisdictions still define the limits of state sovereignty. Biopolitics derives its sovereignty from its power to ensure the vitality of populations. Swiffen invokes the right to life and well-being in the international human rights regime to drive home her argument that “life” is the foundational concern for legal authority.

Albeit a short text, Law, Ethics and the Biopolitical is particularly dense. The chapters seem disjointed, as the argument does not build neatly on the conclusions drawn in each successive chapter. This is likely due to Swiffen’s ambition to imbricate the rich theoretical posturing of Lacan, Jones, Foucault, and Agamben in only ninety-four pages. Still, she employs interesting examples to illustrate her arguments. On balance, Swiffen successfully unpacks how the ethics of psychoanalysis, bioethics, and biopower are used to morally and politically assign value to...