## 1. The Concept of Autonomy



In the western tradition, the view that individual autonomy is a basic
moral and political value is very much a modern development. Putting
moral weight on an individual's ability to govern herself,
independent of her place in a metaphysical order or her role in social
structures and political institutions is very much the product of the
modernist humanism of which much contemporary moral and political
philosophy is an offshoot. (For historical discussions of autonomy,
see Schneewind 1988, Swain 2016 and Rosich 2019). As such, it bears
the weight of the controversies that this legacy has attracted. The
idea that moral principles and obligations, as well as the legitimacy
of political authority, should be grounded in the self-governing
individual, considered apart from various contingencies of place,
culture, and social relations, invites skeptics from several quarters.
Autonomy, then, is very much at the vortex of the complex
(re)consideration of modernity.



Put most simply, to be autonomous is to govern oneself, to be directed
by considerations, desires, conditions, and characteristics that are
not simply imposed externally upon one, but are part of what can
somehow be considered one's authentic self. Autonomy in this
sense seems an irrefutable value, especially since its opposite
-- being guided by forces external to the self and which one
cannot authentically embrace -- seems to mark the height of
oppression. But specifying more precisely the conditions of autonomy
inevitably sparks controversy and invites skepticism about the claim
that autonomy is an unqualified value for all people.



Autonomy plays various roles in theoretical accounts of persons,
conceptions of moral obligation and responsibility, the justification
of social policies and in numerous aspects of political theory. It
forms the core of the Kantian conception of practical reason (see,
e.g, Korsgaard 1996, Hill 1989) and, relatedly, connects to questions
of moral responsibility (see Wolff 1970, 12-19). It is also seen
as the aspect of persons that prevents or ought to prevent
paternalistic interventions in their lives (Dworkin 1988,
121-29). It plays a role in education theory and policy, on some
views specifying the core goal of liberal education generally (Gutmann
1987, Cuypers and Haji 2008; for discussion, see Brighouse 2000,
65-111). Also, despite many feminists' reservations
concerning the ideal of autonomy, it is sometimes seen as a valuable
conceptual element in some feminist ideals, such as the identification
and elimination of social conditions that victimize women and other
(potentially) vulnerable people (Friedman 1997, Meyers 1987, Christman
1995. Veltman and Piper 2014)).


### 1.1 Basic Distinctions



Several distinctions must be made to zero in on the kind of autonomy
that is of greatest interest to moral and political theory.
"Moral autonomy" refers to the capacity to impose the
(putatively objective) moral law on oneself, and, following Kant, it
is claimed as a fundamental organizing principle of all morality (Hill
1989). On the other hand, what can be called "personal
autonomy" is meant as a trait that individuals can exhibit
relative to any aspects of their lives, not limited to questions of
moral obligation (Dworkin 1988, 34-47).



Personal (or individual) autonomy should also be distinguished from
*freedom*, although again, there are many renderings of these
concepts, and certainly some conceptions of positive freedom will be
equivalent to what is often meant by autonomy (Berlin 1969,
131-34). Generally, one can distinguish autonomy from freedom in
that the latter concerns the ability to act, without external or
internal constraints and also (on some conceptions) with sufficient
resources and power to make one's desires effective (Berlin
1969, Crocker 1980, MacCallum 1967). Autonomy concerns the
independence and authenticity of the desires (values, emotions, etc.)
that move one to act in the first place. Some distinguish autonomy
from freedom by insisting that freedom concerns particular acts while
autonomy is a more global notion, referring to states of a person
(Dworkin 1988, 13-15, 19-20). But autonomy can be used to
refer both to the global condition (autonomous personhood) and as a
more local notion (autonomous relative to a particular trait, motive,
value, or social condition). Addicted smokers for example are
autonomous persons in a general sense but (for some) helplessly unable
to control their behavior regarding this one activity (Christman 1989,
13-14; cf. Meyers 1987, 66-67).



In addition, we must keep separate the idea of basic autonomy, the
minimal status of being responsible, independent and able to speak for
oneself, from ideal autonomy, an achievement that serves as a goal to
which we might aspire and according to which a person is maximally
authentic and free of manipulative, self-distorting influences. Any
plausible conceptualization of basic autonomy must, among other
things, imply that most adults who are not suffering from debilitating
pathologies or are under oppressive and constricting conditions count
as autonomous. Autonomy as an ideal, on the other hand, may well be
enjoyed by very few if any individuals, for it functions as a goal to
be attained.



The reason to construe basic autonomy broadly enough to include most
adults is that autonomy connects with other status designators which
apply (or, it is claimed, should apply) in this sweeping manner.
Autonomy is connected, for example, to moral and legal responsibility,
on some views (e.g., Ripstein 1999); autonomous agency is seen as
necessary (and for some sufficient) for the condition of equal
political standing; moreover, being autonomous stands as a barrier to
unchecked paternalism, both in the personal, informal spheres and in
legal arenas (Feinberg 1986). Lacking autonomy, as young children do,
is a condition which allows or invites sympathy, care, paternalism and
possibly pity. Therefore, a guiding consideration in evaluating
particular conceptions of autonomy (though hardly a hard and fast
test) will be whether it connects properly to these ancillary
judgments (for discussion of "formal conditions" of a
concept of autonomy, see Dworkin 1988, 7-10).


### 1.2 Conceptual Variations



The variety of contexts in which the concept of autonomy functions has
suggested to many that there are simply a number of different
conceptions, and that the word simply refers to different elements in
each of those contexts (Arpaly 2004). Others have claimed that while
there may be a single over-arching concept of autonomy, we should
think in terms of separable dimensions of it rather than an all or
nothing idea (Mackenzei 2014 and Killmister 2017). Feinberg has
claimed that there are at least four different meanings of
"autonomy" in moral and political philosophy: the capacity
to govern oneself, the actual condition of self-government, a personal
ideal, and a set of rights expressive of one's sovereignty over
oneself (Feinberg 1989). One might argue that central to all of these
uses is a conception of the person able to act, reflect, and choose on
the basis of factors that are somehow her own (authentic in some
sense). Nevertheless, it is clear that formulating a
"theory" of the concept will involve more than merely
uncovering the obscure details of the idea's essence, for
autonomy, like many concepts central to contentious moral or political
debate is itself essentially contested. So a theory of autonomy is
simply a conceptual model aimed at capturing the general sense of
"self-rule" or "self-government" (ideas which
obviously admit of their own vagaries) and which can be used to
support principles or policies the theory attempts to justify.



The idea of self-rule contains two components: the independence of
one's deliberation and choice from manipulation by others, and
the capacity to rule oneself (see Dworkin 1989, 61f and Arneson 1991).
However, the ability to rule oneself will lie at the core of the
concept, since a full account of that capability will surely entail
the freedom from external manipulation characteristic of independence.
Indeed, it could be claimed that independence *per se* has no
fixed meaning or necessary connection with self-government unless we
know what kinds of independence is required for self-rule (cf.,
however Raz 1986, 373-78). 



Focusing, then, on the requirements of self rule, it can be claimed
that to govern oneself one must be in a position to act competently
based on desires (values, conditions, etc.) that are in some sense
one's own. This picks out the two families of conditions often
proffered in conceptions of autonomy: competency conditions and
authenticity conditions. Competency includes various capacities for
rational thought, self-control, and freedom from debilitating
pathologies, systematic self-deception, and so on. (Different accounts
include different conditions: see, for example, Berofsky 1995, R.
Young 1991, Haworth 1986, Meyers 1989.)



Authenticity conditions often include the capacity to reflect upon and
endorse (or identify with) one's desires, values, and so on. The
most influential models of authenticity in this vein claim that
autonomy requires second-order identification with first order
desires. For Frankfurt, for instance, such second-order desires must
actually have the structure of a volition: wanting that the first
order desires issue in action, that they comprise one's will.
Moreover, such identification, on his view, must be
"wholehearted" for the resulting action to count as free
 (autonomous).[1]



This overall approach to autonomy has been very influential, and
several writers have developed variations of it and defended it
against objections. The most prominent objections concern, on the one
hand, the fatal ambiguities of the concept of
"identification" and, on the other, the threat of an
infinite regress of conditions. The first problem surrounds the
different ways that one can be said to "identify" with a
desire, each of which render the view conceptually suspect. Either one
identifies with an aspect of oneself in the sense of simply
acknowledging it (without judgment) or one identifies with a desire in
an aspirational, approving sense of that term. In the first case,
however, identification would clearly not be a consistent mark of
autonomy, for one could easily identify as part of oneself any manner
of addictive, constricting, or imposed aspects of one's make-up.
But approving of a trait is also problematic as a requirement of
autonomy, for there are many perfectly authentic aspects of myself
(ones for which I can and should be held fully responsible for
example) which I do not fully approve of. I'm not perfect, but
does that mean that I am thereby not autonomous? (Cf. Watson 1989,
Berofsky 1995,
 99-102).[2]




This model stresses internal self-reflection and procedural
independence. However, the view includes no stipulations about the
content of the desires, values, and so on, in virtue of which one is
considered autonomous, specifically there is no requirement that one
act from desires independently of others. Were there to be such a
requirement, it would involve what is called "substantive
independence". Some writers have insisted that the autonomous
person must enjoy substantive independence as well as procedural
independence (e.g., Stoljar 2000, Benson 1987, 2005, Oshana 2006). The
motivation for such a position is the idea a person under constrained
life situations should not be considered autonomous no matter how
"voluntary" (or autonomous) was the choice that put her in
that position (cf. Meyers 2000). This claim, however, threatens to rob
the attribution of autonomy of any claim to value neutrality it may
otherwise carry, for if, conceptually, one is not autonomous when one
(freely, rationally, without manipulation) chooses to enter conditions
of severely limited choice, then the concept is reserved to only those
lifestyles and value pursuits that are seen as acceptable from a
particular political or theoretical point of view. I will return to
this line of thought in a moment. In rejoinder, it has been claimed
that such procedural neutrality could not capture the value autonomy
has for people, and moreover, a "weakly substantive" view
can be compatible with a political form of liberalism as long as the
values inherent in the concept could be accepted by reasonable persons
in an overlapping consensus (see Freyenhagen 2017). 



One variation on the internal self-reflection model focuses on the
importance of the personal history of the agent as an element of her
autonomy (Christman 1991, Mele 1993; cf. Fisher & Ravizza 1998;
cf. also Raz 1986, 371). On these views, the question of whether a
person is autonomous at a time depends on the processes by which she
came to be the way she is. It is not clear that such a focus will be
able to avoid the problems raised about internal reflection models
(see Mele 1991, Mackenzie & Stoljar 2000b, 16-17), but such
a move attempts to embrace a conception of the self of self-government
which is not only social but diachronically structured (see, e.g.,
Cuypers 2001).



For those who are wary of the postulate of reflective self
endorsement, an alternative approach is to equate autonomy with simply
a set of competences, such as the capacity to choose deliberatively,
rationally, and, as Berofsky claims, "objectively" (see
Berofsky 1995, Meyers 1989). This locates autonomy in the general
capacity to respond to reasons, and not, for example, in acts of
internal self-identification. However, even in these accounts, the
capacity to think critically and reflectively is necessary for
autonomy as one of the competences in question, even though the
reflective thought required need not refer to external values or
ideals (Berofsky 1995, ch. 5).



Further difficulties have been raised with the requirement of second
order self-appraisal for autonomy. For it is unclear that such higher
level judgments have any greater claim to authenticity than their
first order cousins. Clearly if a person is manipulated or oppressed
(and hence non-autonomous), it could well be that the reflective
judgments she makes about herself are just as tainted by that
oppression as are her ground-level decisions (Thalberg 1989, Friedman
1986, Meyers 1989, 25-41, Noggle 2005), and often our second
order reflective voices are merely rationalizations and acts of
self-deception rather than true and settled aspects of our character
(for general discussion see the essays in Veltman and Piper 2014).
This has led to the charge that models of autonomy which demand
second-order endorsement merely introduce an infinite regress: for
second-level judgments must be tested for their authenticity in the
same way as first order desires are, but if that is so, then ever
higher levels of endorsement would be called for. Various responses to
this problem have been made, for the most part involving the addition
of conditions concerning the manner in which such reflection must be
made, for example that it must be free of certain distorting factors
itself, it must reflect an adequate causal history, and the like
(Christman 1991, Mele 1995).



Other aspects of the inner reflection model should be noted. As just
mentioned, this view of autonomy is often stated as requiring critical
self reflection (see, e.g., Haworth 1986). This has been understood as
involving a rational appraisal of one's desires, testing them
for internal consistency, their relation to reliable beliefs, and the
like. But an overly narrow concentration on *rational*
assessment exposes such conceptions to charges of hyper
intellectualism, painting a picture of the autonomous person as a
cold, detached calculator (see Meyers 2004, 111-37). Connections
to values, desires, and personal traits are often grounded in
emotional and affective responses, ones connected with care,
commitment, and relations to others (see Friedman 1998, MacKenzie
& Stoljar 2000b, Meyers 1989, de Calleja, Mirja Perez 2019). For
parallel reasons, some theorists have noted that concentration on only
*desires* as the focal point of autonomy is overly narrow, as
people can (fail to) exhibit self-government relative to a wide range
of personal characteristics, such as values, physical traits,
relations to others, and so on (see Double 1992, 66). 


## 2. Autonomy in Moral Philosophy



Autonomy is central in certain moral frameworks, both as a model of
the moral person -- the feature of the person by virtue of which
she is morally obligated -- and as the aspect of persons which
grounds others' obligations to her or him. For Kant, the
self-imposition of universal moral law is the ground of both moral
obligation generally and the respect others owe to us (and we owe
ourselves). In short, practical reason -- our ability to use
reasons to choose our own actions -- presupposes that we
understand ourselves as free. Freedom means lacking barriers to our
action that are in any way external to our will, though it also
requires that we utilize a law to guide our decisions, a law that can
come to us only by an act of our own will (for further discussion see
Hill 1989; for doubts about this reading, see Kleingeld and Willaschek
2019). This self-imposition of the moral law is autonomy. And since
this law must have no content provided by sense or desire, or any
other contingent aspect of our situation, it must be universal. Hence
we have the (first formulation of the) Categorical Imperative, that by
virtue of our being autonomous we must act only on those maxims that
we can consistently will as a universal law.



The story continues, however: for the claim is that this capacity (to
impose upon ourselves the moral law) is the ultimate source of all
moral value -- for to value anything (instrumentally or
intrinsically) implies the ability to make value judgments generally,
the most fundamental of which is the determination of what is
*morally* valuable. Some theorists who are not (self-described)
Kantians have made this inference central to their views of autonomy.
Paul Benson, for example, has argued that being autonomous implies a
measure of self-worth in that we must be in a position to trust our
decision-making capacities to put ourselves in a position of
responsibility (Benson 1994; cf. also Grovier 1993, Lehrer 1997, and
Westlund 2014). But the Kantian position is that such self-regard is
not a contingent psychological fact about us, but an unavoidable
implication of the exercise of practical reason (cf. Taylor 2005).



So we owe to ourselves moral respect in virtue of our autonomy. But
insofar as this capacity depends in no way on anything particular or
contingent about ourselves, we owe similar respect to all other
persons in virtue of their capacity. Hence (via the second formulation
of the Categorical Imperative), we are obliged to act out of
fundamental respect for other persons in virtue of their autonomy. In
this way, autonomy serves as both a model of practical reason in the
determination of moral obligation and as the feature of other persons
deserving moral respect from us. (For further discussion, see
*Immanual Kant and moral philosophy*.)



Recent discussions of Kantian autonomy have downplayed the
transcendental nature of practical reason in this account (see, for
example, Herman 1993 and Hill 1991). For example, Christine Korsgaard
follows Kant in seeing our capacity for self-reflection as both the
object of respect and the seat of normativity generally. On her view,
we are all guided by what she calls a "practical
identity", a point of view which orients reflection on values
and manifests an aspect of our self concept. But unlike Kant,
Korsgaard argues that we have different practical identities that are
the source of our normative commitments, and not all of them are of
fundamental moral worth. But the most general of such identities
-- that which makes us members of a kingdom of ends -- is
our moral identity, which yields universal duties and obligations
independent of contingent factors. Autonomy is the source of all
obligations, whether moral or non-moral, since it is the capacity to
impose upon ourselves, by virtue of our practical identities,
obligations to act (Korsgaard 1996).



Traditional critiques of autonomy-based moral views, and Kant's
in particular, have been mounted along various lines. I mention two
here, as they connect with issues concerning autonomy in social and
political theory. The first concerns the way in which autonomy-based
moral theory grounds obligation in our *cognitive* abilities
rather than in our emotions and affective connections (see, e.g.,
Williams 1985, Stocker 1976). The claim is that Kantian morality
leaves too little room for the kinds of emotional reactions that are
constitutive of moral response in many situations: the obligations of
parents for example concern not only what they do but the passions and
care they bring forth in doing it. To view obligation as arising from
autonomy but understanding autonomy in a purely cognitive manner makes
such an account vulnerable to this kind of charge.



The difficulty this criticism points to resides in the ambiguities of
the self-description that we might utilize in valuing our
"humanity" -- our capacity to obligate ourselves. For
we can reflect upon our decision-making capacities and value this
positively (and fundamentally) but regard that "self"
engaging the capacity in different ways. The Kantian model of such a
self is of a pure cognizer -- a reflective agent engaged in
practical reason. But also involved in decision-making are our
passions -- emotions, desires, felt commitments, senses of
attraction and aversion, alienation and comfort. These are both the
objects of our judgement and partly constitutive of them -- to
passionately embrace an option is different from cooly determining it
to be best. Judgment is involved with all such passions when decisions
are made. And it (judgment) need not be understood apart from them,
but as an ability to engage in those actions whose passionate and
reasoned support we muster up. So when the optimal decision for me is
an impassioned one, I must value my ability to engage in the right
passions, not merely in the ability to cold-heartedly reflect and
choose. Putting the passions outside the scope of reasoned reflection,
as merely an ancillary quality of the action -- to consider how
to do something not merely what we are doing -- is to make one
kind of decision. Putting passions inside that scope -- saying
that what it is right to do now is to act with a certain affect or
passion -- is another. When we generalize from our ability to
make the latter sort of decisions, we must value not only the ability
to weigh options and universalize them but also the ability to engage
the right affect, emotion, etc. Therefore, we value ourselves and
others as passionate reasoners not merely reasoners per se.



The implication of this observation is that in generalizing our
judgments in the manner Korsgaard (following Kant) says we must, we
need not commit ourselves to valuing only the cognitive capacities of
humanity but also its (relatively) subjective elements. 



A second question is this: since the reflection that is involved in
autonomy (and which, according to this view, is the source of
normativity) need only be *hypothetical* reflection upon
one's desires and mental capacities, then the question arises:
under what conditions is this hypothetical reflection meant to take
place? If the capacity for reflection is the seat of obligation, then
we must ask if the conditions under which such hypothetical reflection
takes place are idealized in any sense -- if they are assumed to
be reasonable for example. Are we considering merely the reflections
the (actual) person would make were she to turn her attention to the
question, no matter how unreasonable such reflections might be? If so,
why should we think this grounds obligations? If we assume they are
reasonable, then under some conditions moral obligations are not
imposed by the actual self but rather by an idealized, more rational
self. This implies that morality is not literally self-imposed if by
"self" one means the actual set of judgments made by the
agent in question. Indeed, a Platonist/realist about moral value could
claim that the objective values which (according to the theory) apply
to all agents independent of choice are in fact
"self-imposed" in this idealized sense: they would be
imposed were the person to reflect on the matter, acting as a
perfectly reasonable agent. This shows the complex and potentially
problematic implications of this ambiguity.



This points to the question of whether autonomy can be the seat of
moral obligation and respect if autonomy is conceived in a purely
procedural manner. If no substantive commitments or value orientations
are included in the conceptual specification of autonomy, then it is
unclear how this capacity grounds any particular substantive value
commitments. On the other hand, if autonomy includes a specification
of particular values in its conditions -- that the autonomous
person must value her own freedom for example -- then it turns
out that moral obligation (and respect) attaches only to those already
committed in this way, and not more generally to all rational agents
as such (as traditionally advertised by the view). This echoes, of
course, Hegel's critique of Kant.



These difficulties point to ambiguities in autonomy-based moral views,
ones which may well be clarified in further developments of those
theories. They also pick up on traditional problems with Kantian
ethics (though there are many other such difficulties not mentioned
here). Before leaving moral philosophy, we should consider ethical
views which focus on autonomy but which do not depend directly on a
Kantian framework.


### 2.1 Autonomy as an Object of Value



Autonomy can play a role in moral theory without that theory being
fully Kantian in structure. For example, it is possible to argue that
personal autonomy has intrinsic value independent of a fully worked
out view of practical reason. Following John Stuart Mill, for example,
one can claim that autonomy is "one of the elements of
well-being" (Mill 1859/1975, ch. III). Viewing autonomy as an
intrinsic value or as a constitutive element in personal well-being in
this way opens the door to a generally consequentialist moral
framework while paying heed to the importance of self-government to a
fulfilling life (for discussion see Sumner 1996).



It may also be unclear why autonomy -- viewed here as the
capacity to reflect on and endorse one's values, character and
commitments -- should have value independent of the results of
exercising that capacity. Why is one person's autonomy
intrinsically valuable when she uses it to, say, harm herself or make
rash or morally skewed choices? More generally, how can we take
account of the systematic biases and distortions that plague typical
human reasoning in valuing people's capacity to make decisions
for themselves (see, e.g., Conly 2013)? This question becomes more
acute as we consider ways that autonomy can obtain in degrees, for
then it is unclear why personal autonomy should be seen as equally
valuable in persons who display different levels of it (or different
levels of those abilities that are its conditions, such as
rationality).



Indeed, autonomy is often cited as the ground of treating all
individuals equally from a moral point of view. But if autonomy is not
an all-or-nothing characteristic, this commitment to moral equality
becomes problematic (Arneson 1999). It can be argued that insofar as
the abilities required for autonomy, such as rational reflectiveness,
competences in carrying out one's decisions, and the like, vary
across individuals (within or between species as well), then it is
difficult to maintain that all autonomous beings have equal moral
status or that their interests deserve the same weight in considering
decisions that affect them.



The move that must be made here, I think, picks up on
Korsgaard's gloss on Kantianism and the argument that our
reflective capacities ultimately ground our obligations to others and,
in turn, others' obligations to regard us as moral equals.
Arneson argues, however, that people surely vary in this capacity as
well -- the ability to reflectively consider options and choose
sensibly from among them. Recall what we said above concerning the
ambiguities of Korsgaard's account concerning the degree to
which the self-reflection that grounds obligation is idealized at all.
If it is, then it is not the everyday capacity to look within
ourselves and make a choice that gives us moral status but the more
rarified ability to do so rationally, in some full sense. But we
surely vary in our ability to reach that ideal, so why should our
autonomy be regarded as equally worthy?



The answer may be that our normative commitments do not arise from our
actual capacities to reflect and to choose (though we must have such
capacities to some minimal degree), but rather from the way in which
we must *view ourselves* as having these capacities. We give
special weight to our own present and past decisions, so that we
continue on with projects and plans we make because (all other things
being equal) *we* made them, they are ours, at least when we do
them after some reflective deliberation. The pull that our own
decisions have on our ongoing projects and actions can only be
explained by the assumption that we confer status and value on
decisions simply because we reflectively made them (perhaps, though,
in light of external, objective considerations). This is an
all-or-nothing capacity and hence may be enough to ground our equal
status even if perhaps, in real life, we exercise this capacity to
varying
 degrees.[3]
 Much has been written about conceptions of well being that rehearse
these worries (see Sumner 1996, Griffin 1988). Such a view might be
buttressed with the idea that the attribution of autonomous agency,
and the respect that purportedly goes with it, is itself a normative
stance, not a mere observation of how a person actually thinks and
acts (for discussion of this position see Christman 2009, chap. 10 and
Korsgaard 2014)


### 2.2 Autonomy and Paternalism



Autonomy is the aspect of persons that undue paternalism offends
against. Paternalistic interventions can be both interpersonal
(governed by social and moral norms) and a matter of policy (mediated
by formal or legal rules). Such interventions are identified not by
the kind of acts they involve but by the justification given for them,
so that paternalism involves interference with a person's
actions or knowledge against that person's will for the purpose
of advancing that person's good. Respect for autonomy is meant
to prohibit such interventions because they involve a judgment that
the person is not able to decide for herself how best to pursue her
own good. Autonomy is the ability to so decide, so for the autonomous
subject of such interventions paternalism involves a lack of respect
for autonomy. See also *Paternalism*.



But as our discussion of the nature of autonomy indicated, it is often
unclear exactly what that characteristic involves. Important in this
context is whether autonomy can be manifested in degrees --
whether the abilities and capacities that constitute autonomy obtain
all at once or progressively, or I can enjoy sufficient autonomy in
some areas of my life but not in others. If autonomy is a matter of
degree in any of these ways, then it is unclear that a blanket
prohibition against paternalism is warranted. Some people will be less
able to judge for themselves what their own good is and hence be more
susceptible to (justified) paternalistic intervention (Conly 2013; see
also Killmister 2017, chap. 7).



Often such an obligation toward another person requires us to treat
her as autonomous, independent of the extent to which she is so
concerning the choice in question. At least this is the case when a
person is autonomous above a certain threshold: she is an adult, not
under the influence of debilitating factors, and so on. I might know
that a person is to some degree under the sway of external pressures
that are severely limiting her ability to govern her life and make
independent choices. But as long as she has not lost the basic ability
to reflectively consider her options and make choices, if I intervene
against her will (for her own good), I show less respect for her as a
person than if I allow her to make her own mistakes. (Which is not to
say, of course, that intervention in such cases might not, in the end,
be justified; only that something is lost when it is engaged in, and
what is lost is a degree of interpersonal respect we owe each
other.)



However, as we saw in the last section, this move depends on the
determination of basic autonomy and an argument that such a threshold
is non-arbitrary. Also relevant here is the question of procedural
versus substantive autonomy as the ground of the prohibition of
paternalism. For if by "autonomy" we mean the ability to
govern oneself no matter how depraved or morally worthless are the
options being exercised, it is unclear that the bar to paternalism
(and respect for persons generally) retains its normative force. As I
mentioned above, the response to this challenge must be that the
decision making capacity itself is of non-derivative value,
independent of the content of those decisions, at least if one wishes
to avoid the difficulties of positing a substantive (and hence
non-neutral) conception of autonomy as the basis for interpersonal
respect.



This is merely a sampling of some of the central ways that the idea of
autonomy figures in moral philosophy. Not discussed here are areas of
applied ethics, for example in medical ethics, where respect for
autonomy grounds such principles as that of informed consent. Such
contexts illustrate the fundamental value that autonomy generally is
thought to represent as expressive of one of the fundamentals of moral
personhood. 


## 3. Autonomy in Social and Political Philosophy


### 3.1 Autonomy and the Foundations of Liberalism



The conception of the autonomous person plays a variety of roles in
various constructions of liberal political theory (for recent
discussion, see, e.g., Coburn 2010, Christman 2015 and the essays in
Christman and Anderson, eds. 2005). Principally, it serves as the
model of the person whose perspective is used to formulate and justify
political principles, as in social contract models of principles of
justice (Rawls 1971). Also (and correspondingly) it serves as the
model of the citizen whose basic interests are reflected in those
principles, such as in the claim that basic liberties, opportunities,
and other primary goods are fundamental to flourishing lives no matter
what moral commitments, life plans, or other particulars of the person
might obtain (Kymlicka 1989, 10-19, Waldron 1993:
 155-6).[4]
 Moreover, autonomy is ascribed to persons (or projected as an ideal)
in order to delineate and critique oppressive social conditions,
liberation from which is considered a fundamental goal of justice
(whether or not those critiques are described as within the liberal
tradition or as a specific alternative to it) (cf. Keornahan 1999,
Cornell 1998, Young 1990, Gould 1988; cf. also Hirschmann 2002,
1-29).



For our purposes here, liberalism refers generally to that approach to
political power and social justice that determines principles of right
(justice) prior to, and largely independent of, determination of
conceptions of the good (though see *Liberalism*; see also
Christman 2017, ch. 4). This implies that the liberal conception of
justice, and the legitimation of political power more generally, can
be specified and justified without crucial reference to controversial
conceptions of value and moral principles (what Rawls calls
"comprehensive moral conceptions" (Rawls 1993,
13-15). The fact of permanent pluralism of such moral
conceptions is therefore central to
 liberalism.[5]



One manner in which debates concerning autonomy directly connect to
controversies within and about liberalism concerns the role that state
neutrality is to play in the justification and application of
principles of justice. Neutrality is a controversial standard, of
course, and the precise way in which liberal theory is committed to a
requirement of neutrality is complex and controversial (see Raz 1986,
110-64, Waldron 1993, 143-67). The question to be asked
here is whether the conception of autonomy utilized in liberal
theories must itself attempt to be neutral concerning various
conceptions of morality and value, or, alternatively, does the
reliance on autonomy in the justification and specification of liberal
theories of justice render them non-neutral simply because of this
reliance (no matter how "neutral" the conception of
autonomy utilized turns out to be) (Christman 2015).



Let us consider this first question and in so doing revisit the issue
of whether the independence implicit in autonomy should best be
conceived in a purely "procedural" manner or more
substantively. Recall that some theorists view autonomy as requiring
minimal competence (or rationality) along with authenticity, where the
latter condition is fleshed out in terms of the capacity to
reflectively accept motivational aspects of oneself. This view can be
called "proceduralist" because it demands that the
procedure by which a person comes to identify a desire (or trait) as
her own is what is crucial in the determination of its authenticity
and hence autonomy. This conception of autonomy is adopted, according
to its defenders, because doing so is the only way to ensure that
autonomy is neutral toward all conceptions of value and the good that
reasonable adults may come to internalize (Dworkin 1989, Freyenhage
2017).



Critics of this view have pointed to cases where it is imagined that
persons adopt what we all would call oppressive and overly restrictive
life situations but in a way that meets the minimal conditions of
autonomy on proceduralist accounts, so that on such accounts they
count as autonomous because of the self-governing processes by which
they entered such oppressive conditions. These critics argue that any
conception of autonomy that ascribes that trait to such people is
wrongly conceived (Benson 1987, MacKenzie & Stoljar 2001b and
2017, Waller 1993, and Oshana 1998). On the basis of such a judgment,
they argue that normatively substantive conditions should be added to
the requirements of autonomy, conditions such as the ability to
recognize and follow certain moral or political norms (See Benson
1987, Wolf 1980; for criticism, see Berofsky 1995, ch. 7). This
criticism suggests that considerations concerning the autonomous self
cannot avoid questions of identity and hence whether the self of
self-government can be understood independently of the (perhaps
socially defined) values in terms of which people conceive of
themselves; this is a subject to which we now turn. 


### 3.2 Identity and Conceptions of the Self



Autonomy, as we have been describing it, certainly attaches
paradigmatically to individual persons; it is not (in this usage) a
property of groups or peoples. So the autonomy that grounds basic
rights and which connects to moral responsibility, as this concept is
thought to do, is assigned to persons without essential reference to
other people, institutions, or traditions within which they may live
and act. Critics claim, however, that such a view runs counter to the
manner in which most of us (or all of us in some ways) define
ourselves, and hence diverges problematically from the aspects of
identity that motivate action, ground moral commitments, and by which
people formulate life plans. Autonomy, it is argued, implies the
ability to reflect wholly on oneself, to accept or reject one's
values, connections, and self-defining features, and change such
elements of one's life at will. But we are all not only deeply
enmeshed in social relations and cultural patterns, we are also
defined by such relations, some claim(Sandel 1982, 15-65). For
example, we use language to engage in reflection but language is
itself a social product and deeply tied to various cultural forms. In
any number of ways we are constituted by factors that lie beyond our
reflective control but which nonetheless structure our values,
thoughts, and motivations (Taylor 1991, 33f; for discussion see Bell
1993, 24-54). To say that we are autonomous (and hence morally
responsible, bear moral rights, etc.) only when we can step back from
all such connections and critically appraise and possibly alter them
flies in the face of these psychological and metaphysical
 realities.[6]



In a different manner, critics have claimed that the liberal
conception of the person, reflected in standard models of autonomy,
under-emphasizes the deep identity-constituting connections we have
with gender, race, culture, and religion, among other things. Such
"thick" identities are not central to the understanding of
the self-governing person who, according to standard liberal models,
is fully able to abstract from such elements of her self-concept and
to either identify with or to reject such them. But such an ideal too
narrowly valorizes the life of the cosmopolitan "man"
-- the world traveler who freely chooses whether to settle into
this or that community, identify with this or that group, and so on
(see Young 1991, Alcoff 2006 and Appiah 2010; for discussion, see
Meyers, 2000b). 



These challenges have also focused on the relation of the self to its
culture (Margalit and Raz, 1990, Tamir 1993). What is at issue from a
policy perspective is that emphasis on the individual's
self-government, with the cosmopolitan perspective that this entails,
makes it difficult if not impossible to ground rights to the
protection and internal self- government of traditional cultures
themselves (Kymlicka, 1995). This is problematic in that it excludes
from the direct protection of liberal policies those individuals and
groups whose self-conceptions and value commitments are deeply
constituted by cultural factors. Or, conversely, the assumption that
the autonomous person is able to separate himself from all cultural
commitments forestalls moves to provide state protection for cultural
forms themselves, insofar as such state policies rest on the value of
autonomy. 



There have been many responses to these charges on behalf of a liberal
outlook (e.g., Kymlicka, 1989, Gutman, 1985, Appiah 2005; for a
general response to question of cultural identities see Kymlicka
1997). The most powerful response is that autonomy need not require
that people be in a position to step away from all of their
connections and values and to critically appraise them. Mere piecemeal
reflection is all that is required. As Kymlicka puts it: "No
particular task is set for us by society, and no particular cultural
practice has authority that is beyond individual judgement and
possible rejection" (Kymlicka, 1989:, 50). 



There is a clarification that is needed in this exchange, however. For
insofar as defenders of liberal principles (based on the value of
autonomy) claim that all aspects of a person's self-concept be
subject to alteration in order to manifest autonomy, they needlessly
exaggerate the commitments of the liberal position. For such a view is
open to the charge that liberal conceptions fail to take seriously the
permanent and unalterable aspects of the self and its social position
(Young, 1990, 46). Our embodiment, for example, is often not something
which we can alter other than marginally, and numerous other
self-defining factors such as sexual orientation (for some), native
language, culture and race, are not readily subject to our
manipulation and transformation, even in a piecemeal manner. To say
that we are heteronomous because of this is therefore deeply
problematic. What must be claimed by the defender of autonomy-based
liberalism is that the ability in question is to change those aspects
of oneself from which one is deeply alienated (or with which one does
not identify, etc.). For in those cases where, upon reflection, one
experiences one's body, culture, race, or sexuality as an
external burden constricting one's more settled and authentic
nature, and still one cannot alter that factor, then one lacks
autonomy relative to it (see Christman,2009 ch. 6). But if one feels
fully at home within those unalterable parameters one does not lack
autonomy because of that unalterability (for a different way of
approach this issue see Mahmoud 2005 and Khader 2011). 


### 3.3 Relational Autonomy



As we said, several writers have claimed that proceduralist accounts
of autonomy would wrongly attribute autonomy to those whose restricted
socialization and stultifying life conditions pressure them into
internalizing oppressive values and norms, for example women who have
internalized the belief in the social authority of husbands, or that
only by having and raising children are their lives truly complete,
and the like. If such women reflect on these values they may well
endorse them, even if doing so is free of any specific
reflection-inhibiting conditions. But such women surely lack autonomy,
it is claimed; so only if autonomy includes a requirement that one be
able to recognize basic value claims (such as the person's own
equal moral standing) will that concept be useful in describing the
oppressive conditions of a patriarchal society (see, e.g., Oshana,
1998, Stoljar, 2000; for discussion see Christman 2009 chap. 8,
Benson, 1990, Friedman, 2000, Meyers, 1987,
 1989).[7]



These and related considerations have sparked some to develop an
alternative conception of autonomy meant to replace allegedly overly
individualistic notions. This replacement has been called
"relational autonomy" (MacKenzie and Stoljar, 2000a).
Spurred by feminist critiques of traditional conceptions of autonomy
and rights (Nedelsky, 1989, Code, 1991), relational conceptions of
autonomy stress the ineliminable role that relatedness plays in both
persons' self- conceptions, relative to which autonomy must be
defined, and the dynamics of deliberation and reasoning. These views
offer a provocative alternative to traditional models of the
autonomous individual, but it must be made clear what position is
being taken on the issue: on the one hand, relational accounts can be
taken as resting on a non-individualist conception of the person and
then claim that insofar as autonomy is self-government and the self is
constituted by relations with others, then autonomy is relational; or
these accounts may be understood as claiming that whatever selves turn
out to be, autonomy fundamentally involves social relations rather
than individual traits (Oshana, 2006). Some such views also waiver
between claiming that social and personal relations play a crucial
causal role in the development and enjoyment of autonomy and claiming
that such relations constitute autonomy (for discussion see Mackenzie
and Stoljar, 2000b, 21-26; for a recent overview, see Mackenzie
2014).



Another relational element to autonomy that has been developed
connects social support and recognition of the person's status
to her capacities for self-trust, self-esteem, and self-respect. The
core argument in these approaches is that autonomy requires the
ability to act effectively on one's own values (either as an
individual or member of a social group), but that oppressive social
conditions of various kinds threaten those abilities by removing
one's sense of self-confidence required for effective agency.
Social recognition and/or support for this self-trusting status is
required for the full enjoyment of these abilities (see Anderson and
Honneth 2005, Grovier 1993, Benson 2005, McCleod and Sherwin 2005, and
Westlund 2014).



These claims often are accompanied with a rejection of purportedly
value-neutral, proceduralist accounts of autonomy, even those that
attempt to accommodate a fully social conception of the self. One
question that arises with relational views connected to self-trust in
this way: why, exactly are such relations seen as conceptually
constitutive of autonomy rather than contributory to it (and its
development), where the self-confidence or self-trust in question is
the core element to which these sorts of social relations are an
important (albeit contingent) contributor. Another question to be
considered arises from those cases where self-trust is established
despite lack of social recognition, as when runaway slaves manage to
heroically push on with their quest for freedom while facing violent
denials from surrounding others (and surrounding social structures)
that they enjoy the status of a full human being capable of authentic
decision making. Finally, self-trust is not always merited: consider
the brash teenager who insists on exercising social independence based
on her unwarranted confidence in her abilities to make good judgments
(see Mackenzie 2008, n. 36).



Nevertheless, these approaches have all importantly shifted
philosophical attention concerning autonomy to the social and
interpersonal dynamics that shape its enjoyment, connecting ideas
about autonomy with broader issues of social justice, recognition, and
social practices. This brings us back, then, to considerations of the
liberal project and its potential limitations, where autonomy remains
central.


### 3.4 Autonomy, Liberalism, and Perfectionism



As noted earlier, there are various versions of liberal political
philosophy. All of them, however, are committed to a conception of
political legitimacy in which political power and authority is
justified only if such authority is acceptable to all citizens bound
by it (see Rawls 1993, 144-50). This connects to a broader view
of the foundations of value that at least some liberal theorists
present as central to that tradition. That is the claim that values
are valid for a person only if those values are or can be reasonably
endorsed by the person in question. By extension, principles guiding
the operation of institutions of social and political power --
what Rawls calls the institutions of the basic structure (Rawls 1993,
258) -- are legitimate only if they can be endorsed in this way
by those subject to them. In this way, liberalism (in most of its
forms) is committed to what some have called the "endorsement
constraint" (Kymlicka 1989, 12f, R. Dworkin 2000,
216-18).



Models of autonomy considered above include a condition that mirrors
this constraint, in that a person is autonomous relative to some
action-guiding norm or value only if, upon critical reflection of that
value, she identifies with it, approves of it, or does not feel deeply
alienated from it. Combining this view with the endorsement
constraint, liberalism carries the implication that autonomy is
respected only when guiding values or principles in a society can be
embraced in some way by those governed by them. This will connect
directly to the liberal theory of legitimacy to be discussed
below.



Perfectionists reject this set of claims. Perfectionism is the view
that there are values valid for an individual or a population even
when, from the subjective point of view of those agents or groups,
that value is not endorsed or accepted (Wall 1998, Sumner 1996,
45-80, Hurka 1993, Sher 1997; see also *Perfectionism*). In
short, it is the view that there are entirely objective values. While
there are perfectionist liberals, this view generally resists the
liberal claim that the autonomous acceptance of the central components
of political principles is a necessary condition for the legitimacy of
those principles. Moreover, perfectionists question the liberal
commitment to neutrality in the formulation and application of
political principles (Hurka 1993, 158-60).



Perfectionists specifically target the liberal connection between
respect for autonomy and neutrality of political principles (Wall
1998, 125-204). For many, liberalism rests on the value of
individual autonomy, but this reliance either assumes that respect for
autonomy is merely one value among others in the liberal view, or
autonomy has overriding value. In either case, however, neutrality is
not supported. If autonomy is merely one value among others, for
example, then there will clearly be times when state support of those
other values will override respect for autonomy (paternalistic
restrictions imposed to promote citizen safety, for example) (Sher
1997, 45-105, Hurka 1993, 158-60, Conly 2013). On the
other hand, autonomy could be seen as an absolute constraint on the
promotion of values, or, more plausibly, as a constitutive condition
of the validity of all values for a person, as the endorsement
constraint implies. Perfectionists reply, however, that this is itself
a controversial value position, one that may not find unqualified
general support (Hurka 1993, 148-52, Sher 1997, 58-60,
Sumner 1996, 174-83; cf. Griffin 1986, 135- 36). To answer
these objections, one must turn to consideration of the liberal
principle of legitimacy. For the claim that liberals make concerning
the limits of state promotion of the good -- a limit set by
respect for autonomy -- depends heavily on their view about the
ultimate ground of political power.


### 3.5 Autonomy and Political Liberalism



Liberalism is generally understood to arise historically out of the
social contract tradition of political philosophy and hence rests on
the idea of popular sovereignty. The concept of autonomy, then,
figures centrally in at least one dominant strand in this tradition,
the strand the runs through the work of Kant. The major alternative
version of the liberal tradition sees popular sovereignty as basically
a collective expression of rational choice and that the principles of
the basic institutions of political power are merely instrumental in
the maximization of aggregate citizen welfare (or, as with Mill, a
constitutive element of welfare broadly considered). 



But it is the Kantian brand of liberalism that places autonomy of
persons at center stage. Rawls's *Theory of Justice* was
seen as the contemporary manifestation of this Kantian approach to
justice, where justice was conceived as those principles that would be
chosen under conditions of unbiased rational decision-making (from
behind the veil of ignorance). The original position where such
principles would be chosen was said by Rawls to mirror Kant's
Categorical Imperative. That is, it is a device in which persons can
choose principles to impose upon themselves in a way which is
independent of contingencies of social position, race, sex, or
conception of the good (Rawls 1971, 221-27). But as is well
known, the Kantian foundations of Rawls's theory of justice
rendered it vulnerable to the charge that it was inapplicable to those
populations (all modern populations in fact) where deep moral
pluralism abounds. For under such conditions, no theory of justice
which rests on a metaphysically grounded conception of the person
could claim full allegiance from members of a population whose deep
diversity causes them to disagree about metaphysics itself, as well as
about moral frameworks and conceptions of value related to it. For
this reason, Rawls developed a new (or further developed)
understanding of the foundations of his version of liberalism, a
political conception (Rawls 1993).



Under political liberalism, autonomy of persons is postulated, not as
a metaphysically grounded "fact" about moral personality
or practical reason as such, but rather as one of several
"device[s] of representation" under which diverse citizens
can focus on the methods of derivation (such as the original position)
for substantive principles of justice (Rawls 1999, 303-58).
Justice is achieved only when an overlapping consensus among people
moved by deeply divergent but reasonable comprehensive moral views can
be attained, a consensus in which such citizens can affirm principles
of justice from within those comprehensive views.



Political Liberalism shifts the focus from a philosophical conception
of justice, formulated abstractly and meant to apply universally, to a
practical conception of legitimacy where consensus is reached without
pretension of deep metaphysical roots for the principles in question.
More than merely a "modus vivendi" for the participating
parties, justice must be affirmed in a way that finds a moral basis
for all participating citizens, albeit from different frameworks of
value and moral obligation. The operation of public reason, then,
serves as the means by which such a consensus might be established,
and hence public discussion and democratic institutions must be seen
as a constitutive part of the justification of principles of justice
rather than merely a mechanism for the collective determination of the
social good.



But the role of autonomy in the specification of this picture should
not be under- emphasized (or the controversies it invites ignored).
For such a consensus counts as legitimate only when achieved under
conditions of free and authentic affirmation of shared principles.
Only if the citizens see themselves as fully able to reflectively
endorse or reject such shared principles, and to do so competently and
with adequate information and range of options, can the overlapping
political consensus step beyond the purely strategic dynamics of a
modus vivendi and ground legitimate institutions of political
power.



Indeed, the assumption that all those subject to political authority
enjoy the developed capacity to reflectively accept their life path
and the values inherent in it invokes a level of idealization that
belies the conditions of many victims of past and ongoing oppression.
This virtually ensures that such structural conditions of society as
racial domination, profound inequality of power, and patterns of
exclusion of groups from equal standing in social space will be
assumed away as irrelevant to the question of legitimacy (Mills
2005).



Therefore, social conditions that hamper the equal enjoyment of
capacities to reflectively consider and (if necessary) reject
principles of social justice, due, say, to extreme poverty,
disability, ongoing injustice and inequality, or the like, restrict
the establishment of just principles. Autonomy, then, insofar as that
concept picks out the free reflective choice operating in the
establishment of legitimacy, is basic to, and presupposed by, even
such non-foundational (political) conceptions of justice.



Critics of political liberalism arise from several quarters. However,
among the objections to it that focus on autonomy are those that
question whether a political conception of legitimacy that rests on
shared values can be sustained without the validity of those values
being seen as somehow objective or fundamental, a position that
clashes with the purported pluralism of political liberalism.
Otherwise, citizens with deeply conflicting worldviews could not be
expected to affirm the value of autonomy except as a mere *modus
vivendi* (see, e.g., Wall 2009; cf. also Larmore 2008,
146-6). A line of response to this worry that could be pursued
would be one that claimed that values that amount to autonomy (in some
conceptualization of that idea) are already functional in the social
structures and cultural practices of otherwise defensible democratic
practices (as well as some critical projects that emphasize oppression
and domination, as we saw above). This point raises the issue, to
which we now turn, of the connection between autonomy, political
liberalism, and democracy.


### 3.6 Autonomy, Justice and Democracy



In closing, we should add a word about the implications of political
liberalism for the traditional division between liberal justice and
democratic theory. I say "division" here, but different
views of justice and democracy will convey very different conceptions
of the relation between the two (see Christiano 1996, Lakoff 1996).
But traditionally, liberal conceptions of justice have viewed
democratic mechanisms of collective choice as essential but highly
circumscribed by the constitutional provisions that principles of
justice support. Individual rights and freedoms, equality before the
law, and various privileges and protections associated with citizen
autonomy are protected by principles of justice and hence not subject
to democratic review, on this approach (Gutmann 1993).



However, liberal conceptions of justice have themselves evolved (in
some strains at least) to include reference to collective discussion
and debate (public reason) among the constitutive conditions of
legitimacy. It could be claimed, then, that basic assumptions about
citizens' capacities for reflective deliberation and choice
-- autonomy -- must be part of the background conditions
against which an overlapping consensus or other sort of political
agreement concerning principles of justice is to operate.



Some thinkers have made the connection between individual or
"private" autonomy and collective or "public"
legitimacy -- prominent, most notably Habermas (Habermas 1994).
On this view, legitimacy and justice cannot be established in advance
through philosophical construction and argument, as was thought to be
the case in natural law traditions in which classical social contract
theory flourished and which is inherited (in different form) in
contemporary perfectionist liberal views. Rather, justice amounts to
that set of principles that are established in practice and rendered
legitimate by the *actual* support of affected citizens (and
their representatives) in a process of collective discourse and
deliberation (see e.g., Fraser 1997, 11-40 and Young 2000).
Systems of rights and protections (private, individual autonomy) will
necessarily be protected in order to institutionalize frameworks of
public deliberation (and, more specifically, legislation and
constitutional interpretation) that render principles of social
justice acceptable to all affected (in consultation with others)
(Habermas 1994, 111).



This view of justice, if at all acceptable, provides an indirect
defense of the protection of autonomy and, in particular,
conceptualizing autonomy in a way that assumes reflective self-
evaluation. For only if citizen participants in the public discourse
that underlies justice are assumed to have (and provided the basic
resources for having) capacities for competent self- reflection, can
the public defense and discussion of competing conceptions of justice
take place (cf. Gaus 1996, Parts II and III, Gaus 2011). Insofar as
autonomy is necessary for a functioning democracy (considered very
broadly), and the latter is a constitutive element of just political
institutions, then autonomy must be seen as reflective self-appraisal
(and, I would add, non-alienation from central aspects of one's
person) (see Cohen 2002, Richardson 2003, Christman 2015).



This approach to justice and autonomy, spelled out here in rough and
general form, has certainly faced criticism. In particular, those
theorists concerned with the multi-dimensional nature of social and
cultural "difference" have stressed how the conception of
the autonomous person assumed in such principles (as well as criteria
for rational discourse and public deliberation) is a contestable ideal
not internalized by all participants in contemporary political life
(see, e.g., Brown 1995, Benhabib 1992). Others motivated by
post-modern considerations concerning the nature of the self,
rationality, language, and identity, are also suspicious of the manner
in which the basic concepts operative in liberal theories of justice
("autonomy" for example) are understood as fixed,
transparent, and without their own political presuppositions (see,
e.g., Butler 1990; for general discussion see White 1990).



These charges are stated here much too generally to give an adequate
response in this context. But the challenge remains for any theory of
justice which rests on a presumption of the normative centrality of
autonomy. To be plausible in a variously pluralistic social setting,
one marked by ongoing histories of oppressive practices and
institutions, such a view must avoid the twin evils of forcibly
imposing a (reasonably) contested value on resistant citizens, on the
one hand, and simply abandoning all normative conceptions of social
order in favor of open ended struggle for power on the other. The view
that individuals ought to be treated as, and given the resources to
become, autonomous in one of the minimal senses outlined here will, I
submit, be a central element in any political view that steers between
the Scylla of oppressive forms of perfectionism and the Charybdis of
interest-group power politics.