![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
An initial interest in the question of whether one can autonomously choose to be non-autonomous has developed into the broader question of whether there are any normative commitments that necessarily attend being autonomous. This paper argues that reflection on this issue has been systematically hampered by a failure to realize that the normativity question does not delineate a single line of inquiry, but rather several different such lines; and that these differences depend on how certain key concepts embedded in the question are understood. The paper concludes by noting several lines of future research suggested by the present work.
Notes
1 Some of the key texts in this debate include the following: Benson, 1994, 2005; Buss, 1994; Christman, 2009; Friedman, 2003; Kristinsson, 2000, Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000; Oshana, 2006, Stoljar, 2000, and Wolf, 1990.
2 For an overview of several areas where autonomy plays an important normative role, see Piper, ‘Autonomy: Normative’, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; URL: http://www.iep.utm.edu/aut-norm/.
3 For a very short but helpful summary of the different conceptions of autonomy, see Hill, 1989.
4 A number of challenges to the basic assumptions underlying the very possibility of autonomy have arisen. (See, for example, MacKenzie and Stoljar, 2000, especially pp. 10–11.) I will proceed, however, on the assumption that these challenges can be met or at least sufficiently attenuated.
5 It might be mentioned in passing that Sarah Buss has argued that being autonomous is consistent with being deceived. See Buss, 2005.
6 Self-reflection and authorization must be independent in order to avoid heteronomy, but given the effect of socialization on the development of human selves, complete independence in this regard is impossible – hence ‘predominantly’ independent.
7 It should be mentioned that many autonomy theorists have also included certain external enabling conditions in their autonomy accounts. These refer to external or environmental conditions (social, legal, familial, etc.) which are more or less out of an agent’s control, but which must be in place in order for full autonomous agency to be possible. These conditions are defended, for example, by Marina Oshana (1998) and by several proponents of relational autonomy (Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000). Because the question of the necessity of external enabling conditions for autonomy is contentious, however, I will set these conditions to one side in the present paper.
8 For more detailed descriptions of personal autonomy (and other conceptions of autonomy), see Christman, ‘Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy’ and Buss, ‘Personal Autonomy’ in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
9 It might be noted in passing that many thinkers have based the claim that Oshana endorses a strong substantive view of autonomy on her article ‘Personal Autonomy and Society’. This seems wrong, however, given that in this essay Oshana is concerned to defend the view that autonomy requires the presence of certain external enabling conditions, not that autonomy requires particular normative commitments in one’s choices and preferences. Considering the case of a woman (Harriet) who freely chooses a life of domestic subservience, for example, she writes: ‘I want to deny that Harriet’s lack of autonomy rests on the substance of her desires and preferences. A person’s preferences – for religious devotion, for slavery, for subservience, for power – can certainly serve as an indicator of that person’s ability to be self-governing, and some desires more than others are hospitable to autonomy. But having a desire for nonautonomy does not entail that the individual who has the desire is nonautonomous … Harriet’s lack of autonomy is not due to her lamentable desires. But neither is her self-determination guaranteed by the fact that she satisfies the internalist criteria. Harriet has the ‘right’ psychology. Nonetheless she fails to be autonomous – not because she wants to be subservient, but because she is subservient. Her lack of autonomy is due to her personal relations with others and to the social institutions of society’ (Oshana, 1998: pp. 89–90). It is for this reason that I base my claim that Oshana supports a strong substantive autonomy account on a different article.
10 ‘I think it is evident that [the woman who freely chooses to live according to oppressive Taliban law] is not autonomous. In a “local” or occurrent sense of the term, she has chosen autonomously. Nevertheless, she fails to be autonomous in a “global” sense for the obvious reason that the life that she chooses, and toward which she experiences no alienation, is a life in which she is systematically subject to the ultimate will of others. Although the Taliban woman is “master of her will” – her original decision was made autonomously, she willingly renounces her rights, and she continues to express satisfaction with the life that she has selected for herself – she now has no practical authority over her situation. Although she lives in a manner consonant with her preferences, and succeeds in achieving what she believes is in her best interests, the choices that she makes are guided almost entirely by the judgments and recommendations of others. Although the Taliban woman does what she wants, what she wants frustrates the exercise of autonomy’ (Oshana, 2003: pp. 104–105).
11 I have some doubts about whether such weak substantive accounts can entirely avoid positing substantive normative commitments for autonomous preference and choice, but I will pass these over at present.
12 For more on this theme see Elster, 1989, and Haworth, 1989.
13 It might be noted here that Friedman tends to lean towards the idea that ‘normative commitment’ is to be conceived in terms of a strong substantive account. If this is correct, one may wonder whether Friedman would consider weak substantive accounts to constitute challenges to her content-neutral theory. Greatly clarity in relation to how the key terms in the normativity question are to be conceived would help to reduce these kinds of uncertainty.
14 I am grateful to the James Madison University Program of Grants for Faculty Assistance, which provided support for the completion of this work. I would also like to thank my wife, Dr. Pia Antolic-Piper, for her constant and insightful support for my philosophical endeavors.