Constructing the Inner Citadel: Recent Work on the Concept of Autonomy

Constructing the Inner Citadel: Recent Work on the Concept of Autonomy

The metaphor of an "inner citadel" was not used approvingly when Isaiah Berlin invoked it as part of his attack on the notion of positive liberty. And although he scoffed at the idea that there loomed within us all an inner structure representing our "true" selves, he was moved to admit that the idea of self-government that positive liberty is meant to capture is a value to be counted among the various elements of a free society. After all, can a person be said to be free or acting freely if the desires which produce those actions do not bear the pedigree of authenticity-the person's "true desires"? What account can we give of the self-critical and self-mastering capacities of a person utilized to form the desires which motivate free action? What such an account would amount to, then, is a theory of individual autonomy. And while a great deal of attention has been paid recently to this notion, much of the work done on the ideas of self-government and autonomy avoids the use of the term 'autonomy.' Nevertheless, what I wish to do in this survey is to touch on the various attempts at constructing such theories of autonomy (or what amounts to autonomy), and the resulting controversies that these have spawned. After asking whether it makes sense to talk of a single or central notion of individual autonomy at all, I will discuss some of the most influential recent theories of autonomy and the criticisms that these have faced. In Section II, I will touch on the relation of autonomy to other values (in particular utility and rights) and turn finally to the question of the value of autonomy itself.

One. The Concept of Individual Autonomy

Is There a Unifying Idea?

Now as I admitted, some of the writers discussed here avoid the use of the word 'autonomy' altogether in their work, but there are various, seemingly unrelated problems that are connected in that they all revolve around this core notion of individual autonomy. This is not to presuppose an obviously controversial claim that 'individual autonomy' has a single meaning that everyone who uses the term is aware of. It is only to focus in on the notion of self-government that underlies at least the central use of the concept.

Feinberg is explicit in his doubts that 'autonomy' has a single, coherent meaning. In this light, he attempts to explicate the related notions that function to formulate the general conception of "personal autonomy." He claims that "the word 'autonomy' has four closely related meanings" which refer either to the "capacity" to govern oneself, the "actual condition" of selfgovernment, an ideal of virtue derived from that conception, or the "sovereign authority" to govern oneself. A full theory of autonomy, he suggests, would spell out the relations among these different meanings of the term and presumably support the various implications of the notion of autonomy in its different guises. He then proceeds, with characteristic thoroughness, to illuminate the sundry "virtues" that exemplify the condition of autonomy. The list includes qualities such as moral authenticity, self-legislation, distinct self-identity (individuality), and self-control.

Feinberg is not explicitly averse to the contention that the traits of "authenticity" and "self-determination" he discusses might straightforwardly be read as the core ideas of which the other characteristics in his list are extensions and variations. Indeed, the four "meanings" of autonomy listed by Feinberg all center on just such a conceptual core: the actual condition of autonomy defined as a psychological ability to be self-governing. If I am trying to give an account of some property X, I will be looking for the major conditions of X's actually obtaining. It is not to deny this to point out, as Feinberg does, that there are related concepts corresponding to: a capacity for X; seeing X as a character ideal; and the supposed right to X. These are ideas whose meaning must rest on the central account of X itself.

There is of course a wide variety of uses of the concept of individual autonomy which are extensions of or related to the idea of an actual condition of (something that amounts to) self-government. The latter notion is a descriptive property instantiated by some or most human beings. However, as Hill points out, 'autonomy' is used sometimes to pick out, not the actual psychological condition of self-government, but rather a right not to be treated in certain ways. Specifically, autonomy as right is a right against actions which attempt to disrupt or undercut one's actual psychological condition of self-government. When a person brainwashes me, that person violates my right to autonomy by interfering with my ability to critically evaluate my desires and choices. Such is also the case with many threats, manipulations, and acts of violence. These acts interfere with my ability to control a certain area of my own life that should be left strictly to me.

There is an additional ambiguity, however, in the analysis of cases where a person's right to autonomy is violated. In some instances, my right to autonomy is violated even when the capacity to critically evaluate my own choices is not actually disrupted; it is violated in cases where I have been treated as if I had no actual psychological condition of self-government or without sufficient respect for my actual psychological condition of self-government. Consider the way parents might violate the autonomy of, say, their adolescent child by constantly preempting her choices about clothes, a place to live, what car to buy, and the like, and buying these things for her secretly and surprising her with them. The parents violate the person's right to autonomy not because they prevented her from freely analyzing and identifying with her desires and tastes (i.e., blocking her actual psychological condition of self-government) but, rather, by treating her as if she could not adequately do so herself.

Meyer draws a somewhat similar distinction in his discussion of "negative" and "positive" conceptions of autonomy. On a negative view, he suggests, a person is autonomous when she is not directed in some crucial way by another person. One is autonomous in the positive sense when one is actively self-directed. I suspect, however, that these two notions ultimately collapse. A full specification of what it means to be self-directed, in a manner that captures what it means to be autonomous, simply will include the sorts of factors (or the conditions for such factors) that must be absent for such self-direction to occur.

Another distinction Meyer makes, however, comes closer to the difference between R-autonomy and PC-autonomy. Meyer refers to two positions on the nature of autonomy, one he calls the "Stoic" position, which asserts that autonomy is only maintained when the person secures active control over her own (lesser, lower?) urges and impulses. On the other hand, "Rights Sensitive autonomy" is a normative property of persons whose liberty to choose their own way of life is protected. While this latter notion is quite similar to R-autonomy, the "Stoic" position remains somewhat obscure. Stoics could be claiming one of two things: one (similar to Kant) is the claim that autonomy obtains only when a person is not guided by the unwanted urges and desires she finds herself with (or like Kant, by desires at all); or the position is that one can maintain autonomy in the face of obstacles to action by reshaping one's preferences to better conform to the set of feasible options, thereby achieving the highest ratio of satisfiable to nonsatisfiable desires. But this latter view, which is closest to the view of the actual Stoics, cannot by itself determine the autonomy of these preference changes. For what determines whether a person is autonomous in the revision of her set of preferences depends crucially on why this change comes about. As Elster argues, there is all the difference in the world between mere "sour grapes" (altering desires because you can't get what you want), and conscious character planning (deciding to mold one's character to meet limited possibilities), the latter being consistent with autonomy. But the Stoic strategy, by itself, tells us nothing about why the person is adopting the strategy (was it forced upon her by a relentless Epictetian brainwasher?), and this external question is the critical determinant of the autonomy of such decisions.

Another question about the structure of the property that autonomy is meant to pick out concerns its scope. One way of construing autonomy is that, at its most basic level of application, it is properly seen as a property of preferences or desires (or their formation), while another view is that it is a property of whole persons or of persons' whole lives. This first approach effectively connects with the debate over the "endogeneity of preferences" found in the economics and social science literature. Others of course cling to the idea that autonomy is a property of whole persons or persons' lives (Dworkin calls it a "global" concept), and hence it cannot be applied at any more localized level.

Also, the relation between autonomy and freedom (of action) is one that often goes unexplicated (or the notions of freedom and autonomy are simply used interchangeably). When freedom is construed as primarily a property of human action, the account typically assumed is that freedom is the relation among the agent, desired actions, and some set of restraints. But no matter how rich a conception of "restraint" one works out in this context (that one must be "free from" to be free when one acts), it will always be a further question whether the desire a person is acting on is autonomous or not. A person acting on the basis of a nonautonomous preference (placed into her brain through hypnosis, say) faces no restraint in performing the action which is the object of the preference. In fact, the language of restraints is wholly inappropriate here, because the person is not being stopped from doing the act, she is being forced to do it. So although the term 'autonomy' is sometimes used in this wider sense (freedom of action), a (perhaps) more basic notion of autonomy will give an account of how a person came to be the way she is in determining her freedom (in the fullest sense). A full formula for freedom (of action) then might be proposed: to be free (in a given context) means there is an absence of restraints (positive or negative, internal or external) standing between a person and the carrying out of that person's autonomously formed desires. While this claim needs more defense, it can at least be suggested that many of the disagreements I've cited here indicate the need to ask whether a coherent meaning can be set out for this core idea of self-government which these views revolve around.