Autonomy

University of Richmond

UR Scholarship Repository Political Science Faculty Publications

Political Science

2001

Autonomy Richard Dagger

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AUTHORITARIANISM

Copyright 2001 From Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences by Jonathan Michie. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, a divison of Informa plc.

Autonomy Benn, Stanley I., A Theory of Freedom, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988 Berlin, Isaiah, "Two Concepts of Liberty" in Four Essays on Liberty, London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1969 Christman, John (editor), The Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual Autonomy, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989 Dworkin, Gerald, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988 Hannum, Hurst, Autonomy, Sovereignty, and SelfDetermination: The Accommodation of Conflicting Rights, revised edition, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996 Haworth, Lawrence, Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1986 Lindley, Richard, Autonomy, Basingstoke: Macmillan, and Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1986 Nedelsky, Jennifer, "Reconceiving Autonomy: Sources, Thoughts, and Possibilities", Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, r/r (1989): 7-36

Pohlmann, R., Autonomie entry in Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie, edited by Joachim Ritter, Basel: Schwabe, 1971 Schneewind, J.B., The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998 Young, Robert, Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty, London: Croon Helm, and New York: St Martin's Press, 1986 "Autonomy" derives from the Greek autonomia, which combined the Greek words for "self" and "law". To be autonomous, then, is to be self-governing. When the Greeks used the word, according to POHLMANN, they were typically referring to a self-governing political unit, notably the citystate. He points out, however, that Sophocles also used the term in the Chorus's description of the character of Antigone (Antigone, line 821). The term is still used to characterize both persons and political units, although analyses of the concept now tend to focus on personal autonomy.

Pohlmann's essay seems to be the only attempt to trace the history of the concept of autonomy. After brief accounts of how ancient Greeks and Romans employed the word, and following the observation that the Middle Ages did not know the concept of autonomy, Pohlmann devotes the bulk of the essay to the period from the Reformation to the mid-20th century, with sections on autonomy in jurisprudence, philosophy, theology, psychology and pedagogy, and sociology. The emphasis throughout, but especially in the sections on jurisprudence, philosophy, and theology, is on German scholars.

Current discussions of the autonomy of political units tend to concentrate on the relations of regions, subunits, or peoples, such as Quebec or the Kurds, to the overarching state (or states) in which they find themselves. As HANNUM puts it, "An autonomous region should enjoy effective control over matters that are primarily of local concern, within the overall framework of the fundamental norms of the state" (p.468). In addition to nine case studies from Asia, Central America, and Europe, his book includes numerous examples of "autonomous arrangements".

SCHNEEWIND and the writers discussed below are concerned with personal or individual autonomy. Schneewind's particular concern is to show how the conception of "morality as obedience" came to be challenged in the 17th and r8th centuries by the conception of "morality as self-governance" - a challenge that made possible Immanuel Kant's invention of "morality as autonomy". Schneewind has little to say about the concept of autonomy itself, but his lucid analysis of shifts in modern moral philosophy clarifies not only Kant's appeal to autonomy but also current debates about autonomy's meaning and value.

The point of departure for many recent discussions of personal or individual autonomy is BERLIN's celebrated essay on negative and positive liberty. In Part III of the essay Berlin connects the desire for autonomy to the "retreat to the inner citadel" (p.135) - that is, the desire for self-mastery, even at the expense of withdrawal into isolation and self denial. This treatment of autonomy has sparked many debates and furnished the title for CHRISTMAN's valuable collection of philosophically sophisticated essays. The collection includes

AUTONOMY

Harry Frankfurt's influential "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person" (originally published in I 971 ), which introduces the distinction between first-order desires - such as the desire for alcohol - and second-order desires - such as the desire not to desire alcohol - that has been at issue in many subsequent arguments about personal autonomy.

LINDLEY begins by accepting Berlin's claim that "the underlying idea of the concept of autonomy is self-mastery" (p.6), but he gives self mastery a more benign interpretation than does Berlin. After chapters on Kant's, David Hume's, and J.S. Mill's conceptions of autonomy, Lindley develops his own "liberal" synthesis. YOUNG, as the subtitle of his book indicates, sees autonomy as a concept that promises a chance to move beyond futile debates about negative and positive liberty.

Freedom is a necessary condition for autonomy, he argues, but autonomy is more than being free: "self-determination is hardly displayed in ... freely but mindlessly mimicking the tastes, opinions, ideals, goals, principles, or values of others" (p.8).

HAWORTH also distinguishes "liberty simpliciter" from "liberty autonomously exercised" (p.139), with particular attention to the ways in which individual preferences are formed. Someone who makes it a rule to drink a certain brand of coffee or tea will be acting autonomously only if his or her preference for that brand is not the result of some induced preference, brought about by brainwashing, perhaps, or by deceit or manipulation, but of his or her own initiative. Similar

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issues arise in DWORKIN, whose book brings together ten of his widely discussed essays. The first part contains essays on "theory", or problems in the definition and analysis of autonomy, with the essays on "practice" in the second part taking up practical issues, such as paternalism, informed consent, and entrapment, that raise concerns about protecting or promoting personal autonomy.

The richest of all recent works on autonomy may be BENN's, which gives an acute analysis of the concept a central place in a fully developed theory of freedom. This analysis relies on a distinction between "autarchy", or the capacity to direct one's life, and autonomy, which he takes to be a character ideal, requiring a consistent and coherent set of beliefs that one continually adjusts in light of critical reflection.

Some feminists and other critics of liberalism have complained that autonomy is an individualistic concept that deflects attention from the importance of community and social relations. NEDELSKY offers a clear and sensitive statement of this position. Rather than abandoning the concept of autonomy, however, she proposes to reconceive it. Instead of thinking of autonomy as a kind of personal property that protects our independence, she argues, we would do better to think of it in terms of childrearing and interdependence, for no individual can be autonomous unless others help him or her to become autonomous.

RICHARD DAGGER