1. Introduction
Power, it has been observed, is “sociologically amorphous,”Footnote 1 while the concept of power is “essentially contested.”Footnote 2 That is, power not only instantiates in many different ways, it is also contested what distinguishes power phenomena in the first place. If that is so, it must be a challenging task to define power in general, or to specify its nature, in terms that not only are helpfully specific, but that are both plausibly inclusive in scope of application and relevantly uncontested. Rainer Forst, who in recent years has emerged as a leading critical theorist, has advanced a doctrine of noumenal power that, it seems, aspires to do just that.Footnote 3 At the core of this doctrine is its signature claim that power is “noumenal in nature.”Footnote 4 Is this claim true? Is power noumenal in nature?Footnote 5
Below, I argue that this is not so. In a nutshell: once clarified, the professed noumenality of power either marks a trivial feature of power — and one that power, or its successful exercise, shares with numerous other things, including desert strawberries and rock faces — or it is a feature only of some forms of (social, interagentive) power. I proceed as follows. To assess the doctrine at hand, we need to know what phenomena it ranges over, and what it would mean for power to be noumenal. As these things are hard to pin down, some of my effort is reconstructive. Sections 2 and 3 focus on, and clarify, Forst's definition of power. Sections 4 and 5 engage Forst's signature claim that power is noumenal in nature. The doctrine of noumenal power oscillates between three conceptions of noumenal power. But as Sections 4 and 5 argue, on each conception, we should reject that claim. If the noumenality of power is not a merely trivial feature of power, then power, or its successful exercise, instantiates noumenal power only where power compliance must be in the form of intentional action. As Section 5 shows, however, not all successful exercises of (social, interagentive) power require power compliance to take this form: in some cases, indirect omission compliance (in a sense to be detailed later) can occur while power subjects do not act intentionally. Accordingly, Forst's definition of power cannot adequately define all forms of (social, interagentive) power, and the claim that power is noumenal in nature is either trivial or overgeneralizes to the point of falsehood. Section 6 concludes.Footnote 6
2. Preliminaries
To start with, here are exemplary statements of Forst's view of power:
Let us begin by defining power as the capacity of A to motivate B to think or do something that B would otherwise not have thought or done. Power exists as the capacity (“power to”) to be socially effective in this way — that is, to “have” power — which leads to power as being exercised over others (“power over”) … [Exercises of power] are exercises of noumenal power.Footnote 7
[A]t the basic conceptual level … I argue that an agent A having power means that A has the capacity to motivate another agent B to think or act in a way B would not otherwise have thought or acted — and that thereby the power effect is noumenal in nature, that is, an effect of A changing the space of reasons that motivate B.Footnote 8
[T]he phenomenon of power is noumenal in nature: to have and to exercise power means to be able — in different ways — to influence, use, determine, occupy, or even seal off the space of reasons for others.Footnote 9
The first passage states what Forst offers as a definition of power (I specify a refined version of this definition in Section 3). The second passage restates a key conceptual claim made by that definition, or the view of power it helps to articulate. The third passage expresses Forst's signature claim that power is noumenal in nature. My focus here is the view of power that is expressed in these three passages.
It seems, then, that Forst defines power along the following lines:
(1) Power is (“exists as”) the capacity of α [an individual or collective power agent] to motivate β [an individual or collective power subject] to think or do something that β would otherwise not have thought or done.
However, he sometimes puts matters in different terms:
[L]et us define power (Macht) in general as the ability of A to influence the space of reasons of B such that how B thinks or acts is a result of A's influence, where the influence in question must be intentional, since otherwise one could only speak of an effect and not of power.Footnote 10
We call power generally the capacity of A to influence the space of reasons for B and/or C (etc.) such that they think and act in ways they would not without the interference by A; moreover, the move by A must have a motivating force for B and/or C (etc.) that corresponds to A's intentions and is not just a side effect (i.e., a form of influence).Footnote 11
This, too, construes power as an agentive capacity to influence other people in a certain way. Other than this, it is not obvious that these passages and (1) single out the same phenomena as power phenomena. But since my focus here is on the first, more prominent definition — say, the official definition — I will draw on passages like the two just quoted only in order to clarify the view of power that (1) helps to articulate.
What, then, of Forst's official definition of power? Problems arise in relation to both its definiendum and its definiens. As to its definiendum, it is not clear what phenomena this definition ranges over, or aims to define. As to its definiens, it is not straightforward how this definition defines whatever phenomena it ranges over. Both issues go to the heart of Forst's doctrine of noumenal power and impede its assessment. I address the first problem now, and turn to the second, more complex matter in the following sections.
At first pass, it clearly is Forst's ambition to define all power — or the phenomenon of power, or power in general — as a capacity to influence others in a certain way. The second passage quoted above then specifies the targeted phenomenon as agentive power, or the having of power by an agent. But then Forst's view would be a non-starter: trivially, not everything that can intelligibly be said to instantiate agentive power instantiates power over others — e.g., consider your power to chew ice cream. Forst also refers to the targeted phenomenon as power “in the social realm,”Footnote 12 “social” power,Footnote 13 or “power over others” (see above), or — using a German term — as “Macht.”Footnote 14 This suggests his target is agentive power over others:
(2) α has power over β if and only if α has the capacity to motivate β to think or do what β would not otherwise have thought or done.
This has initial plausibility. (2) ranges over agentive power over others only, and (trivially) exercises of such power often, if not typically, involve attempts to make people think or do things. But it is plain from the above that Forst sometimes denies a possibility that (2) permits, namely, that some power does not instantiate in the form of agentive power over others. While (2) has initial promise, then, Forst sometimes eyes a more ambitious view.
In other words, it is unclear what phenomena Forst's definition of power aims to range over. Hence, it is unclear what phenomena this definition, and with it his doctrine of noumenal power, must be able to plausibly conceptualize or account for in order to be acceptable. Textual evidence suggests that the definition aims to range over all power, or all agentive power, or agentive power over others only. If it is either of the first two things, Forst's view of power appears to face defeat by counterexample. If it is agentive power over others only, the view has initial appeal. But this would undercut what appears to be Forst's ambition. From the outset, then, the view is in a bind: Forst's definition either faces defeat by counterexample, or else the doctrine of noumenal power it helps to articulate is incoherent.
This problem — we might think of it as a problem of scope — is systemic in Forst's approach to power. In what follows, we need to keep the problem in mind; it remains in the background throughout, and I shall return to it later. For now, however, we may safely attribute to Forst the following working definition, D:
D Σ if and only if α has the capacity to motivate β to think or do what β would not otherwise have thought or done,
where Σ is a placeholder for the phenomena that Forst's official definition ranges over, e.g., power in general, or agentive power in general, or agentive power over others only. (I specify a refined version of D shortly.)
To keep matters concrete, we might for the time being think of Σ in D in the first instance as ranging over agentive power over others, while keeping in mind that this does not capture what appears to be the ambition behind D.
3. A Refined Definition
With this I turn to D's definiens. Forst claims that power must be placed “solely in the realm of reason and of justifications,”Footnote 15 or “only works within the realm of the cognitive.”Footnote 16 Accordingly, he construes D's definiens in “cognitivist” terms:Footnote 17 this means, amongst other things, that power agents motivate power subjects by giving them reasons, or what power subjects recognize as reasons. Footnote 18 In Sections 4 and 5, I take a closer look at Forst's notion of reason giving and the kind of cognitivism that he adopts. For now, I elaborate on the kind of acceptance that Forst takes to be entailed in the recognition of something as a reason. This will allow us to arrive at a refined definition of power.
At the outset, Forst adopts a strong reading of what it takes to recognize something as a reason. For a contrast: on a weak reading, you can recognize R as a reason without accepting R. For example, you might recognize R as a reason to φ in an ‘inverted comma’ sense: that is, you might recognize that I treat R as a reason to φ, without also accepting R as a reason to φ in your own right, or from your own perspective. Or you might recognize R as a reason that, from a perspective that usually matters to you, applies to you, even though in the situation at hand you are committed to ignore R. However, while Forst concedes that the recognition of R as a reason to φ need not be “reflexive or consensual,”Footnote 19 he insists that power subjects, when they recognize R as a reason to φ, must in their own right accept R as a good enough or justifying reason to φ:
[P]ower rests on recognition. This is … not necessarily a reflexive or consensual form of recognition, for the threat that is perceived as real is … also recognized and gives one a reason for action as intended by [the power agent] — in that sense, to point a gun at someone is to “give” him or her a reason. … The exercise and effects of power are based on the recognition of a reason … to act differently than one would have acted without that reason. This recognition rests on seeing a “good enough” reason to act; it means that you see a justification for changing how you were going to act. Power rests on recognized, accepted justifications — some good, some bad, some in between. … But power exists only when there is such acceptance.Footnote 20
Power subjects are “moved by reasons”Footnote 21 that they in their own right, or from their own perspective, accept as good enough or justifying reasons — in this sense, they are “moved by justifications.”Footnote 22 And, as Forst adds in passing, these reasons, or what power subjects take them to be reasons for, must also accord with the power agent's intentions. Note the contours of the view that is taking shape here: α's efforts vis-à-vis β instantiate (a successful exercise of) power only if α gives β a reason, R, to think or act in ways that accord with α's intentions, while β accepts R as a good enough, justifying reason to think or act accordingly, and is moved, or effectively motivated, by R.
However, Forst does not assume that power subjects always accept salient reasons critically, or thoughtfully:
Even though the kinds of acceptance sufficient for subjection to power all have a cognitive character, there is a spectrum of kinds of acceptance ranging from explicit acceptance based on critical reflection and evaluation … up to … cases where one accepts certain justifications almost blindly without further question … All of these forms of being moved by justifications are “noumenal” … insofar as they involve a certain relation in the space of justifications. But the cognitive and normative character and quality of these justifications varies greatly.Footnote 23
[P]ower works if the reasons intended by the wielder of power are effectively accepted, whether out of persuasion, fear or ideological delusion.Footnote 24
The relevant contrast at work here is this:
(i) β recognizes and so accepts R as a good enough or justifying reason to φ, and this is based on critical reflection and evaluation;
(ii) β recognizes and so accepts R as a good enough or justifying reason to φ, and this is not based on critical reflection and evaluation.
Forst notes that exercises of power can implicate forms of acceptance that vary greatly in their degree of doxastic merit. Given his cognitivism, though, he assumes that β's acceptance of R as a justifying reason must have a first-personal life — it must be, say, agent-aware. That is, β's acceptance of R must not merely be something that an observer attributes to β from an external, explanatory or third-personal perspective.Footnote 25 Instead, R must count as a justifying reason from β's own, first-personal perspective. As Forst puts this, if you accept R as a reason to φ in this sense, then “you see a justification” for φing,Footnote 26 or you have a reason to φ “in an explanatory as well as normative (first-personal) sense.”Footnote 27
A more sophisticated definition of power emerges — call it the ‘refined definition,’ RD:
RD Σ if and only if α has the capacity to motivate β to think or do things that β would not otherwise have thought or done, where
(i) α gives β a reason, R, to think or act in certain ways;
(ii) β accepts R as a justifying reason to think or act accordingly;
(iii) β's acceptance of R as such a reason is agent-aware;
(iv) β is moved by R;
(iv) R, or what β takes R to be a reason for, accords with α's intentions.
As before, RD's scope is obfuscated: Σ might refer to power in general, all agentive power, or agentive power over others only. Before I move on, three comments are in place.
First, some authors have argued that phenomena of structural or systemic power are not best construed in Forst's interagentive terms. For example, social structure can instantiate power relations that, it seems, are not mere extensions of the agency of some agent or group, but have a life of their own,Footnote 28 while social systems can involve forms of domination such that all agents operating within these systems are power subjects.Footnote 29 Forst is confident that his interagentive view can explain structural power, and that such challenges can be met.Footnote 30 Fortunately, I may sidestep this complex dispute.Footnote 31 Relevant for my purposes are only power phenomena that clearly are interagentive.
Second, as part of an effort to motivate his definition of power, Forst appeals to the views that power is exercised only over free agents, and that power fails when force is needed.Footnote 32 For example, if the ruler orders the protesters off the square, then the order assumes that they have a choice between leaving and not leaving the square; but if riot police must force them off the square, the order itself fails to make them leave. However, a general view of power must take these views with a grain of salt: they do not sit equally well with all forms of power. Yes, if power agents aim not merely for compliance, but for compliance that is based on, e.g., agreement, trust, attributed authority, positive incentives, and so on, then they may need to (sometimes) exercise power in ways that (seem to) leave power subjects with a viable choice of non-compliance. But not all exercises of power aim for this kind of compliance. To use Forst's own example,Footnote 33 if α holds up a gun to make β hand over β's wallet, α aims to make non-compliance seem unviable. Thus, while some forms of power might clearly contrast with force, not all do. RD can accord with this: it defines α's power in part as α's capacity to move, or effectively motivate, β to behave in certain ways. Thus, let us bracket the two views just referred to.
Not least, third, to assess a candidate definition of power, it is often useful to ask what would serve that definition as a paradigm case of power. Given the initial, strong cognitivist ring of Forst's view, what comes to mind are discursive interactions such that α convinces or persuades β to φ by promulgating reasons that β accepts, or can be made to accept, as justifying reasons to φ, and on the basis of which β then forms a motivation to φ. Of course, not all power phenomena are relevantly similar to such discursive episodes (and Forst does not deny this). Thus, for RD to be inclusive in scope, its initial, strongly cognitivist ring must somehow be watered down. And, we shall find, this is what Forst does: the kind of reason giving to which RD refers is not the kind just indicated, and the kind of cognitivism that it entails is much weaker than Forst initially suggests.
4. ‘Noumenal’ Power?
This brings us to Forst's signature claim that power is noumenal in nature. What does this mean and what, according to Forst, makes power noumenal?
To begin with the word ‘noumenal,’ Forst does not use the word in the Kantian sense, but refers to power as noumenal in order to convey that power works on nous, thought, or in the space of reasons, or in the space of reasons and justifications,Footnote 34 or that it “only works within the realm of the cognitive,”Footnote 35 or “solely in the realm of reason and of justifications,”Footnote 36 or that power works in or on minds,Footnote 37 or “through, with or on reasons,”Footnote 38 or that it affects or produces reasons, or “reasons or motives,” or “motives and background motives.”Footnote 39 But what does any of this mean?
Unfortunately, Forst's view of the noumenality of power is very difficult to pin down. He only gestures at the feature or features that constitute noumenality, and he tends to do so with the help of metaphors that often do not illuminate much.Footnote 40 As a result, the view invites more than one reading — or, rather, it oscillates between different conceptions of noumenal power. Three candidate conceptions stand out.
To fix ideas, for Forst, episodes of the following kind, when they instantiate power, instantiate noumenal power:
(i) α motivates β to φ by giving β reason to φ (where β's φing, or being motivated to φ, accords with α's intentions).
In virtue of what feature or features, then, would type-(i)-episodes instantiate noumenal power? On the first, most self-suggesting conception of noumenal power, power is noumenal owing to the effects of its (successful) exercise on power subjects — which accords with most of the things listed in the second paragraph of this section. Hence, type-(i)-episodes would instantiate noumenal power in that α's efforts as a matter of fact impact β's mind, motives, or reasons. Call this the ‘effect-centric’ conception. For now, I understand the noumenal effects referred to here in the strong cognitivist terms that Forst initially suggests: if type-(i)-episodes instantiate power, then that α gives β reason to φ, or impacts β's mind, motives, or reasons, must have a first-personal life for β, or be agent-aware.
However, the effect-centric conception has strings attached. Yes, in type-(i)-episodes, α (somehow) works on β's mind, motives, or reasons. But if my desert strawberries are tasty enough to motivate me, or give me reason, to eat more, then they, too, (somehow) work on my mind, my motives, or my reasons. And so does a rock face if it looks intriguing enough to motivate me, or give me reason, to climb it. But shall we, therefore, speak of noumenal desert strawberries and noumenal rock faces? We can, but then all things that, in some agent-aware manner, mean something to someone would for that reason be noumenal — including desert strawberries, rock faces, and, presumably, most exercises of power. By implication, Forst's claim that power is noumenal would be, well, trivial.Footnote 41
This might understate things: on the effect-centric conception, Forst's signature claim is trivial at best. Forst's signature claim is not merely the claim that (all) power is noumenal. Rather, Forst claims that power is noumenal in nature. And what does it mean to say that X is ψ in nature? On a natural understanding, it means that being ψ is not only necessary, but distinctive for being X. But even if we grant for the moment that it is a necessary feature of all power that it, or its successful exercise, has noumenal effects — albeit this is not so, as we will see later — it cannot also be a distinctive feature: desert strawberries and rock faces can have noumenal effects, too. Strictly speaking, then, Forst's signature claim would not be trivial, but rather false, or incoherent.
Forst sometimes suggests a different reading of the noumenality of power. On this reading, type-(i)-episodes, when they instantiate power, instantiate noumenal power in virtue of the strategy by which α, the power agent, brings about salient motivational results in β, the power subject. Specifically, noumenal power instantiates insofar as α brings about β's motivation by giving β a reason for φing that β accepts as a justifying reason. Call this the ‘strategy-centric’ conception of noumenal power. At first pass, this sits well with Forst's refined definition of power, RD. It also ties the noumenality of power to power effects of the sort listed above: α brings about these effects, or tries to do so, as part of α's strategy to motivate β. Forst's signature claim would hence be a claim to the effect that all (social, interagentive) power is exercised through some such reason-giving strategy. And whether or not this claim is true, it is not trivial.
The strategy-centric conception seems preferable for Forst. However, it comes in two versions. On one version, the strategy used by power agents must be reason giving in an ordinary, narrow, or discursive sense — a sense that involves things like illocutionary acts, raising validity claims, reasoning with others, disputing things, dialoguing, argumentation, and so forth. On this version, type-(i)-episodes will instantiate noumenal power only insofar as α motivates β by giving β reasons in the narrow, discursive sense. Call this the ‘narrow’ strategy-centric conception of noumenal power.
Alas, this, too, comes with strings attached. If noumenal power instantiates only if we use a strategy of reason giving in the above, discursive sense to bring about salient motivational results in others, then it is natural to say that non-noumenal power instantiates where we use other means to bring about such results. And, plainly, reason giving in the discursive sense is not always the only, the most effective, or the best way to motivate people. But then the claim that power is noumenal in nature would have to suppose, falsely, that power agents must always use reason giving in the discursive sense to motivate people. Thus, Forst's signature claim would have to be rejected: some (social, interagentive) power is noumenal power, but not all is.
Fortunately, there also is what we might call a ‘wide’ strategy-centric conception. Here, too, power agents use reason giving as a strategy to motivate power subjects, but now what they do can count as ‘reason giving’ even if it does not take a discursive form. This view is implicated when Forst concedes, in reply to various critics of his cognitivism, that power can be unconscious, or can (up to a point) work around rather than within a person's space of reasons.Footnote 42 How can this accord with the noumenality of power? Forst explains:
For my account of noumenal power, I need to analyze the cognitive-emotional state that makes someone conform to what another person intends … The question of the deeper causes of what we feel and think … may remain forever in the realm of the thing-in-itself. … The analysis of noumenal power … remains at the level of the considerations that move you, without reaching the level of the “true” causes of these considerations.Footnote 43
I don't think that our reasons are all “derived from reason.” Rather I am interested in what it means to form or have an interest or desire. If you follow an interest or desire in action, you know what the interest is in and what you desire. It has a content. It also involves what Davidson called a pro attitude …, that is, you think that it is a good thing to realize that interest or desire and you know why it is a good thing … You see a justification — what Davidson calls a “primary reason” in an explanatory as well as normative (first-personal) sense — for being interested in it or for wanting it. Note that I don't claim that the justification grounds the interest or desire causally … my claim is only that if we want to understand an action we need to understand the justification that the actor sees for it …Footnote 44
Observe that this anchors the noumenality of power in the intentional agency of compliant power subjects. Forst's focus is on a feature that pertains to power insofar as it is exercised successfully and power subjects, in acting as intended by power agents, act intentionally, or on the basis of a Davidson-type primary reason. The underlying idea seems to run like this:
1. Intentional action is action for which the agent has a primary reason “in an explanatory as well as normative (first-personal) sense” — i.e., the agent has a pro-attitude toward acts of a certain kind and believes that the act in question is an act of that kind.Footnote 45
2. If a compliant power subject, β, in acting as intended by the power agent, α, acts intentionally, β acts for a primary reason “in an explanatory as well as normative (first-personal) sense.”
Forst then suggests:
3. α's successful exercise of power induces in β some “cognitive-emotional state” that makes β have a primary reason, R, to act as intended by α; this is the reason that β accepts as a good enough, or justifying reason.
But it is possible that β has a primary reason to φ, R, without having a first-personal, agent-aware reason to adopt R as such a reason, and without being aware of α's influence or the cognitive or emotional state that makes β adopt R. And, insofar as the noumenality of power requires merely that β has an agent-aware reason for φing, rather than also an agent-aware reason to adopt that reason, power can be, as Forst claims, both noumenal (in relation to one level of thought) and unconscious (at another level of thought). This result confirms that we may attribute to Forst (1)-(3).
Let me bring this back to the wide strategy-centric conception. First, the notion of ‘reason giving’ here acquires the wide sense of making others have a primary reason — in a sense of ‘have a primary reason’ that is implicated in all intentional action. Anything can here count as ‘reason giving’ that brings about the relevant effect in others, e.g., pointing a gun at someone — this is Forst's exampleFootnote 46 — smiling, spiking drinks, persuasion, bribes, torture, omissions, and so on. At the same time, reason giving in a narrow, discursive sense might not constitute ‘reason giving’ in this new, wide sense. For example, if α justifies to β, on the basis of reasons that β cannot coherently reject, that β ought to φ, but β does not then form any intention to φ, then α carried out reason giving in a discursive sense, but, it seems, not also in Forst's new, wide sense.
Second, on the wide strategy-centric conception, noumenal power instantiates insofar as power agents use reason giving in the wide sense to produce salient motivational results. In light of (3), this can be specified: noumenal power instantiates insofar as power agents motivate power subjects by way of inducing in them some “cognitive-emotional” state that makes them have a primary reason to act in certain ways (widely conceived, perhaps, so as to count thinking as acting, too). Forst's signature claim that power is noumenal in nature would hence be a claim to the effect that power must always be exercised in some such way.
Before I move on, I briefly take stock. After clarifying Forst's definition of power, I asked what makes power noumenal. Forst's view oscillates between three conceptions of noumenal power, and each suggests a different answer to this question. On the effects-centric conception, power is noumenal owing to its effects on power subjects — power, or its exercise, (somehow) impacts their minds, reasons, or motivation. This might allow Forst's signature claim to be fairly inclusive in scope, but it would also make that claim trivial at best. On the narrow strategy-centric conception, power is noumenal insofar as power agents bring about salient motivational results in others through a strategy of reason giving in a narrow, discursive sense. Forst's signature claim would hence not be trivial, but it would turn on the falsehood that power agents must always use discursive reason giving to motivate others. This leaves us with the wide strategy-centric conception of noumenal power. What, on this conception, would become of Forst's doctrine of noumenal power?
5. Three Comments
In reply, I add three comments. The first two comments concern the internal coherence of Forst's view. The third comment probes whether the wide strategy-centric conception helps Forst's signature claim to fare better than it does on the other two conceptions: as we shall find, this does not seem to be so.
First, on the wide strategy-centric conception, Forst's refined definition of power (RD), too, must be construed in terms of a wide sense of reason giving. Thus, rather than requiring that α motivates β by giving β reasons in the discursive sense identified earlier, RD must require that α motivates β by making β have a primary reason to act in certain ways (widely conceived, perhaps, so as to count thinking as acting, too). Construing things in such terms has the benefit of making RD more inclusive: α's activity can now count as an exercise of power even if it does not involve discursive reason giving.
More important now, second, the wide strategy-centric conception calls for a weaker kind of cognitivism than Forst initially suggests. He initially claims that power “only” works in “the realm of the cognitive,”Footnote 47 or “solely” works “in the realm of reason and of justifications.”Footnote 48 Accordingly, he claims that power subjects are “moved by reasons” that they accept as justifying, or are “moved by justifications.”Footnote 49 These things suggest not merely that power compliance takes the form of intentional action, or action for which the agent has a primary reason. Instead, they suggest that, in acting as intended by α, (i) β acts on the basis of R, and (ii) β acts on R because β believes, in some agent-aware manner, that acting on R is justified, or suitably licensed. Call this ‘strong’ cognitivism about power.
But something else must be in play in Forst's accommodation of unconscious power. Power now does not work in the realm of the cognitive only, or solely in the realm of reason or justification. It now works by inducing in people cognitive or emotional states — Forst speaks of “cognitive-emotional” states — that they can be unconscious of, but that lead them to act intentionally in ways that accord with the intentions of power agents. Accordingly, Forst assumes that β, in acting as intended by α, acts for a primary reason, R. But β now need not have any agent-aware reason to adopt R. Hence, it now need not be true that β adopts R because β believes, in some agent-aware manner, that acting on R is justified, or suitably licensed. This allows Forst to count unconscious power as noumenal power. Yet, other things being equal, it also requires his cognitivism to retreat to the much weaker claim that power compliance must take the form of intentional action, or be based on a primary reason. Call this ‘weak’ cognitivism about power.
In short, Forst here commits himself to weak cognitivism. Of course, we may wonder what, on weak cognitivism, it could mean to say that power subjects must see justification to act or be moved by justifications: on weak cognitivism, these things seem quite overstated. At any rate, whatever these things might still mean, what they refer to must be on display in all power compliance that comes in the form of intentional action, or action that is based on some Davidson-type primary reason — including cases of unconscious power, cases where it does not expressly cross the agent's mind whether her reasons are good, and cases where agents act intentionally but are doubtful about the quality of their reasons. But we may leave this to Forst. For now, it is fair to conclude that his cognitivism about power is not coherent.
As for a third comment, recall that Forst anchors the professed noumenality of power in the intentional agency of complaint power subjects: power is noumenal insofar as power subjects, when they comply with power agents, act intentionally, or on the basis of a primary reason (where this reason has been given to them by power agents in the wide sense of reason giving). Accordingly, it is fair to understand Forst's claim that power is noumenal in nature as supposing that power compliance must always take the form of intentional action, or action that is based on a primary reason. But does it?
One way to pick up the stick is this: exercises of power (instrumentally) succeed when power agents achieve their aims by using the means that they intend to use. Hence, what kind of compliance the successful exercise of power (instrumentally) calls for depends in large part on the aims and means of power agents. In some cases, it will require power compliance in the form of intentional action. But, in other cases, it may not require power compliance to take this form. Yet, only in cases of the first kind will a successful exercise of power instantiate noumenal power. It is helpful, then, to consider various kinds of power compliance.
First, there is a difference between direct and indirect compliance. Direct compliance occurs when β complies intentionally, on purpose, or acts in order to comply with α. Indirect compliance occurs when β is or behaves in compliance with α's aims, but does not comply intentionally. If the drill sergeant aims to drill obedience into the minds of recruits by making them follow meaningless orders, direct compliance may be needed. If traffic regulations prohibit speeding, indirect compliance might suffice. Second, there is a difference between action and omission compliance. If α orders β to close the door, action compliance is needed: to be in compliance with that order, β must close the door. If α orders β not to cross the road, omission compliance is needed — to be in compliance with that order, β must omit crossing the road. Needless to add, the two distinctions intersect.
Plainly, all direct compliance must come in the form of intentional action, while indirect compliance at least sometimes takes this form. Hence, let me grant for the sake of argument that a successful exercise of power instantiates noumenal power when it requires direct compliance, or indirect compliance in the form of intentional action. However, must indirect power compliance always be in the form of intentional action? Consider:
Secret Curfew. α aims to keep the villagers off the streets after midnight, but α wants no villager to know about α's intentions. To keep the villagers off the streets, α can do one of two things. Either (i) α convinces each of them to stay off the streets after midnight. Or (ii) α secretly puts drugs in the village's water supply, which makes the villagers fall asleep before midnight. To keep the villagers in the dark about α's intentions, α opts for (ii). At midnight, β, like all other villagers, is at home and sound asleep. At that time, β is in indirect omission compliance with α's aims and does not act intentionally.
It is perfectly intelligible to say that α here successfully exercises power: Secret Curfew displays α's successful exercise of a power to make β comply with a relevant aim, and a power to make this happen by using means that α intends to use. In fact, Secret Curfew displays a successful exercise of power over β, if not a form of domination. At any rate, as β's indirect omission compliance does not take the form of intentional action, α's successful exercise of power does not instantiate noumenal power. Thus, even assuming that successful exercises of power instantiate noumenal power whenever power compliance must be in the form of intentional action, not all successful exercises of power instantiate noumenal power: some successful exercises of power do not require power compliance to be in this form. The point: we should reject Forst's signature claim and construe noumenal power “as only a proper subset of power.”Footnote 50
Could Forst counter that α only exercises force, but not power? That is, could he salvage his signature claim from counterexamples like Secret Curfew by claiming, perhaps by appealing to his refined definition of power, RD, that there cannot be successful exercises of power that do not require compliance to take the form of intentional action? This claim would be implausible — and if RD supports it, RD would be the worse for it. Yes, in Secret Curfew, α does not secure compliance through a strategy of reason giving (in the wide sense), and so α does not exercise noumenal power. And, yes, α secures β's compliance by using means that, in some sense, leave β no choice. Still, it is perfectly intelligible to say that α in Secret Curfew exercises power — to restate, a power to make β comply with α's aims and a power to make this happen by means that α intends to use (and, ironically, had α needed to use other means, e.g., reason giving, then α would have had less power than α actually demonstrated). The plausible view hence is this: while α does not exercise noumenal power, α does exercise power, namely, a form of non-noumenal power that does not require power compliance in the form of intentional action.
What follows for RD? The above suggests a nuanced assessment. We saw in Section 2 that it is not clear what phenomena Σ in RD ranges over. Let me assume that power as defined by RD is always noumenal power. This leaves us with two options. Either (i) Σ only ranges over forms of power (or powers) that require for their successful exercise compliance in the form of intentional action, or (ii) Σ does not only range over such forms of power (or powers). In the case of (i), RD is compatible with the case just made. All power as defined by RD may be noumenal power, but RD would define only a subset of power. And this appears to be the plausible view. As we have seen, though, Forst's ambition favours (ii). But then RD cannot be adequate.
6. Conclusion
After reconstructing, and clarifying, Forst's definition of power, I engaged his signature claim that power is noumenal in nature on three distinct conceptions of noumenal power. On each conception, this claim ran into problems. On the effects-centric conception, the claim that power is noumenal is trivial at best. On the narrow strategy-centric conception, the claim is not trivial, but turns on the falsehood that power agents always use discursive reason giving to bring about salient motivational results in others. On the wide strategy-centric conception, not least, Forst's view can accommodate unconscious power, but his signature claim will again turn on a falsehood — this time, the falsehood that power compliance must always be in the form of intentional action.
It does not follow that there is no noumenal power. Of course, there is. That exercises of power often are noumenal in the sense of at least one of the three conceptions of noumenal power identified above is uncontroversial, and unproblematic. Trivially, many exercises of power will instantiate noumenal power in the effect-centric sense. Similarly obvious, power compliance will often have to be brought about through reason giving — in the narrow or the wide sense — and it will often need to come in the form of intentional action. The problem with the doctrine at hand, then, is not that there is no noumenal power, but that the claim that all power is noumenal, or that power is noumenal in nature, is trivial at best or overgeneralizes to the point of falsehood. In its present form, therefore, Forst's doctrine of noumenal power cannot be right.
Acknowledgments
For discussions of earlier versions of this paper or ideas included here, I am indebted to Ben Cross, Jung-Sook Lee, and Paul Patton.
