Free Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice by Clare Chambers Page B

in the form of social constraint. A shift in knowledge is never inconsequential from the point of view of constraint. Rather, it reconfigures the form of the constraint.
    Foucault’s conception of genealogy is crucial to liberalism because it illustrates the problems with the liberal tendency to consider an indi- vidual’s freedom in isolation from the discourses and norms surround- ing her. By reducing questions of justice to questions of choice, liberals effectively deny the importance of culture to practice, the importance of power in perpetuating practices, and the role that practices play in
Sarah Webber, ‘‘Cutting History, Cutting Culture,’’ 66.
See, for example, Lynne Segal, ‘‘Lessons from the Past’’; Simon Watney, ‘‘ aids , ‘Moral Panic’ Theory and Homophobia’’; and Timothy F. Murphy, Ethics in an Epidemic.

    perpetuating regimes of power/knowledge. Saying that an individual chooses to participate in a practice is to say only that she was not co- erced, in a Hayekian sense. 55 The difference between choice and coer- cion is normatively relevant: in many cases, an otherwise unproblem- atic act becomes an injustice if coerced. But this distinction does not begin to exhaust the normative questions concerning the practice, or to capture the extent to which an individual has acted autonomously. In order to understand the implications of a practice for justice, we need to understand the role that the practice plays in a general social context, its position in a power/knowledge regime. We need to under- stand the part that the practice plays in constructing the practitioner as a subject: the implications that the practice has for the status, role, and advantage of the individual, as they appear to herself and to others. To assert that breast implants, fgm , or rsc are merely a matter of individ- ual or parental choice is to deny the place of those practices in the wider normative context, and to ignore the intricate ways in which the practices are perpetuated by power and powerfully perpetuate them- selves.

    Three Problems with Liberalism

    This brief analysis of Foucault’s work highlights three problems with liberalism and the liberal focus on choice.
    First, the liberal focus on choice is a focus on the mental, ideological, and intellectual at the expense of the physical, practical, and everyday. For liberals, the main consideration tends to be the thoughts of the individual concerned, her beliefs and her expressed preferences. Con- sequently, liberalism is not particularly sensitive to the ways in which power and injustice reside and are perpetuated in the physical and the everyday. Inequality, in other words, is not confined to the beliefs of individuals, but extends to their habitual, physical actions. Social norms are embodied in individuals. Their compliance is habitual and physical, not (only) self-consciously decided upon. Compliance with norms does not, then, necessarily indicate consent, and dissent does not necessarily enable disobedience. A parent who has her son rou-
By ‘‘coercion in a Hayekian sense’’ I mean intentional interference exercised by one human being over another. See F. A. von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty.

    tinely circumcised may not have considered why, and an active femi- nist may still wear high heels.
    Second, the liberal focus on choice is a focus on the individual at the expense of the social. While the relevant normative question for the liberal is ‘‘does this particular individual want to follow this practice, and what does it mean for her?’’ a Foucauldian approach alerts us to the inherently social nature of practices. As a result, it demonstrates that individuals’ choices can never be assessed in isolation from the cultural context in which they take place, and a particular practice can- not be considered in isolation from the meaning it has for the commu- nity as a whole. More specifically, the justice of a practice or a choice is