Key Arguments

• Ricoeur links the passage from solicitude to norm to the basic dissymmetry between doing and undergoing, from which 'all the maleficent offshoots of interaction' emerge: 'The passage from solicitude to the norm is of a piece with this basic dissymmetry, to the extent that it is upon this dissymmetry that all the maleficent offshoots of interaction, beginning with influence and culminating in murder, will be grafted.'
• He introduces 'power-over' as distinct from 'power-to-do' and 'power-in-common', marking it as the privileged occasion of evil: 'Let us underscore the ex pression "power-over." Given the extreme ambiguity of the term "power," it is important to distinguish the expression "power-over" from two other uses of the term "power" which we have employed in the earlier studies.' … 'The power-over, grafted onto the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to another — in other words, what the other suffers — can be held to be the occasion par excellence of the evil of vio lence.'
• He traces a 'descending slope' of violent forms from influence to torture and murder, showing how each consists in reducing or destroying the other’s capacity to act: 'The descending slope is easy to mark off, from influence, the gentle form of holding power-over, all the way to torture, the extreme form of abuse.' … 'In all these diverse forms, violence is equivalent to the diminish- ment or the destruction of the powcr-to-do of others.'
• He highlights torture as the extreme case in which the victim’s self-esteem and self‑respect are deliberately attacked, producing humiliation: 'in torture, what the tormentor seeks to reach and sometimes — alas! — succeeds in destroying is the victim's self-esteem, es teem which our passage by way of the norm has elevated to the level of self-respect. What is called humiliation — a horrible caricature of hu mility — is nothing else than the destruction of self-respect, beyond the destruction of the power-to-act.'
• By locating violence in the misuse of 'power-over', Ricoeur conceptually connects the need for prohibitive norms (e.g., 'You shall not kill') back to the ethical field of solicitude distorted by asymmetrical power.

Source Quotes

This absence of symmetry has its grammatical projection in the opposition between the active form of doing and the passive form of being done, hence of suffering or submission. The passage from solicitude to the norm is of a piece with this basic dissymmetry, to the extent that it is upon this dissymmetry that all the maleficent offshoots of interaction, beginning with influence and culminating in murder, will be grafted. At the end point of this deviance, the norm of reciprocity appears to separate itself from the movement of solicitude and to be concentratcd on the prohibition of murder, "You shall not kill."

It is difficult to imagine situations of interaction in which one individual does not exert a power over another by the very fact of acting. Let us underscore the ex pression "power-over." Given the extreme ambiguity of the term "power," it is important to distinguish the expression "power-over" from two other uses of the term "power" which we have employed in the earlier studies.

We also termed power-in-common the capacity of the members of a historical community to exercise in an indivisible manner their desire to live together, and we have been careful to distinguish this power-in-common from the relation of domination in which political vio lence resides, the violence of those who govern as well as that of the gov erned. The power-over, grafted onto the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to another — in other words, what the other suffers — can be held to be the occasion par excellence of the evil of vio lence. The descending slope is easy to mark off, from influence, the gentle form of holding power-over, all the way to torture, the extreme form of abuse.

Even in the domain of physical violence, considered the abusive use of force against others, the figures of evil are innumerable, from the simple use of threats, passing through all the degrees of constraint, and ending in murder. In all these diverse forms, violence is equivalent to the diminish- ment or the destruction of the powcr-to-do of others. But there is some thing even worse: in torture, what the tormentor seeks to reach and sometimes — alas! — succeeds in destroying is the victim's self-esteem, es teem which our passage by way of the norm has elevated to the level of self-respect.

But there is some thing even worse: in torture, what the tormentor seeks to reach and sometimes — alas! — succeeds in destroying is the victim's self-esteem, es teem which our passage by way of the norm has elevated to the level of self-respect. What is called humiliation — a horrible caricature of hu mility — is nothing else than the destruction of self-respect, beyond the destruction of the power-to-act. Here we seem to have reached the depths of evil.

Key Concepts

• it is upon this dissymmetry that all the maleficent offshoots of interaction, beginning with influence and culminating in murder, will be grafted.
• Let us underscore the ex pression "power-over."
• The power-over, grafted onto the initial dissymmetry between what one docs and what is done to another — in other words, what the other suffers — can be held to be the occasion par excellence of the evil of vio lence.
• In all these diverse forms, violence is equivalent to the diminish- ment or the destruction of the powcr-to-do of others.
• What is called humiliation — a horrible caricature of hu mility — is nothing else than the destruction of self-respect, beyond the destruction of the power-to-act.

Context

Middle of the passage, where Ricoeur develops from the Golden Rule’s presupposed dissymmetry to an analysis of 'power-over', enumerating various forms of physical and psychological violence and culminating in torture and humiliation as paradigms of evil.