Experiences of relative powerlessness occur when we feel that there is something we can do to realise the desired outcome but that this would not be enough to secure it.
Experiences of radical powerlessness involve seeing something that you would like to happen and feeling that there is absolutely nothing you can do to realize it. We can feel powerless even if we are not objectively in a situation of powerlessness: think of a child who has the capacity to jump a ditch but feels powerless because the ditch seems too wide to her. Such experiences often map onto situations of powerlessness, but not always. Then there are experiences of powerlessness, and this is what we are mostly interested in.
So for example, say that you are chronically ill and would like to get better, but you can’t make yourself better or that someone you love is in trouble and you would like to make things better for them but you can’t. In the simplest terms, it’s the inability to bring about a change that you would like to see happen in your life. Speaking over Skype, we discussed how the Ethics of Powerlessness project investigates the meaning and appropriateness of the strict division between agents and patients, the nature of medio-passive agency amongst terminally-ill patients and recovering addicts, as well as the possible roles of the theological virtues in contemporary secular thought and public policy.ĭM: Philosophically speaking, what is powerlessness?
She is a regular contributor to the BBC's flagship arts and culture radio programme, In Our Time. Her writing primarily focuses on Foucault, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger and aesthetics.
Before arriving at Essex, she taught in France at the Universities of Paris IV-Sorbonne, Reims and Amiens, as well as teaching at University of California, Berkeley as a Visiting Scholar twiceover. Han-Pile studied philosophy, history and literature at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and was awarded a Fellowship from the Thiers Foundation while completing her doctoral thesis on Michel Foucault. B éatrice Han-Pile is a professor of philosophy at the University of Essex and principal investigator on a AHRC-funded project on The Ethics of Powerlessness: the Theological Virtues Today.
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