The Power of Decision-making

Dorota CHABRAJSKA

John Paul II Institute, Faculty of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland , Poland

Abstract

The essay focuses on the ambivalence of the concept of power, which necessarily assumes inequality of individuals in some aspect, in modern-day Western culture with its distinctive values of freedom and egalitarianism. Firstly, the author points to certain linguistic measures taken so as to coin the concept of non-authoritarian power striving to accomplish goals other than power itself. Then contemporary pathologies of power are discussed, along with manipulation used by individuals and units exercising power to induce its objects to undertake specific actions. Finally, the author poses the question of why modern-day culture tends to camouflage the existence of the holders of power or to surround them with an axiological ‘halo,’ and only reluctantly acknowledges that power always entails inequality and that it is a source of privileges. The reason is, arguably, that power, even though it might be used in the best interest of the ones who are its objects, inevitably undermines self-determination, the ontological structure of a human being conceived as ‘person,’ i.e., one who has possession of oneself and is simultaneously one’s own sole and exclusive possession. In the conclusion of the essay, the above theoretical considerations are examined against the dystopian images of power and abandonment of self-determination found in Michel Houellebecq’s novel “Submission” and in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Keywords:

power, decision-making, egalitarianism, self-determination, submission, person, contemporary Western culture