The aim of this study is to analyse the connection between happiness, ethics, and economy in Agamben’s account of biopolitics. I argue that Agamben articulates two different notions of happiness. On the one hand, he criticizes a predominantly capitalistic conception of happiness, which is based on biopolitics and subordinates life to sovereign power and economy. On the other hand, he suggests an alternative idea of the happy life, which must be realised outside the framework of sovereignty and economy and enables individuals to become themselves. I conclude that happiness is of utmost importance when it comes to understanding why Agamben criticizes biopolitics and how he envisions new forms of political and ethical emancipation.
In the first chapter, I discuss Agamben’s account of economy. Agamben argues that economy is a significant aspect and paradigm of biopolitics. In this context, I explain why he contends that biopolitics prevents an authentic experience of happiness. Moreover, I examine the connection between political theology and economic theology. According to Agamben, the biopolitical management of happiness subscribes to the logic of sovereign power and economy. Happiness therefore becomes nothing more than the fulfilment of political and economic goals.
In the second chapter, I analyse Agamben’s account of ethics and his critique of the law. The aim of Agamben’s ethics is to liberate life from the framework of sovereign power and economy. His conception of ethics prioritizes freedom and emphasizes the logic of inoperativity, which deactivates those categories that have defined biopolitics. According to Agamben, the happy life is a life that realises its potentiality of being as such. I also examine how Agamben conceptualizes the relationship between ethics and politics. He considers them to be two domains that are closely intertwined because they both aim at the formation of the community and the experience of the happy life.
In the third chapter, I analyse Agamben’s notion of ‘form-of-life’ in relation to economy and ethics. I contend that ‘form-of-life’ overcomes the determinations of sovereign power and economy. Accordingly, ‘form-of-life’ designates the new ethical and political life that Agamben envisages as a solution to the problem of biopolitics. Moreover, the concept of form-of-life prompts a new form and understanding of the notion of ‘use’. Use does not mean utilizing something for some specific practical and economic purposes. On the contrary, use is a process of free relation to life and to the world; a relation that does not emphasise power and productivity. ‘Form-of-life’ is, therefore, another concept Agamben employs to conceptualize the happy life.
In the fourth chapter, I evaluate Agamben’s conception of happiness, economy, and ethics in relation to Badiou’s notion of ‘real happiness’, Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities approach’ and Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’. I underline that the specificity of Agamben’s theory lies in his distinctive biopolitical approach to happiness, ethics and economy. I also examine how and to what extent Agamben’s account of happiness may help us to philosophically articulate the problem of the ecological crisis. I argue that Agamben's theory provides us with some interesting insights in this respect, which I elaborate further in a philosophical dialogue between Agamben and Pope Francis.
Alphée C.S. Mpassi obtained a master’s degree in theology from Duquesne University (USA) in 2013. He completed both a master’s degree and a research master’s degree in philosophy at Radboud University in 2017 and 2019, respectively. His research master’s thesis discussed the methodological significance of the notion of ‘paradigm’ in Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy, especially in his Homo Sacer corpus. In June of 2019, Alphée was awarded a scholarship by the Dutch Province of the Holy Esprit Congregation to carry out a doctoral research project at Radboud University as an external PhD candidate. The project investigates the philosophical import and social relevance of the interplay between economy, ethics and happiness in Agamben’s account of biopolitics. During his PhD study, Alphée Mpassi participated in several colloquia. His publications include:
• ‘Education in the Spiritan Mission in Congo-Brazzaville: An Historical-critical Overview’. In Spiritan Horizons, no. 20 (2023): 119–30.
• Introduction à la méthode herméneutique de Hans-Georg Gadamer : lecture suivie de Vérité et Méthode, Paris : L’harmattan, 2019.
• ‘Préjugés, autorité et tradition chez H.G. Gadamer’. In Revue Phares, n. 9 (2009) : 145–53.