Kantian personal autonomy

Political Theory

Volumn 33, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 602-628

  Taylor, Roberts ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Autonomy; Kant; Prudence; Rawls; Virtue

Indexed keywords

EID: 26444579304     PISSN: 00905917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0090591705278397     Document Type: Review

References (147)

1. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 63.
2. Jeremy Waldron, "Moral Autonomy and Personal Autonomy," in Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism, eds. John Christman and Joel Anderson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 308-14.
3. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 370n.
4. Cf. Joel Feinberg, "Autonomy," in The Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual Autonomy, ed. John Christman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 35-6, 44.
5. Onora O'Neill, Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 66, 75.
6. Cf. Thomas Hill, "The Kantian Conception of Autonomy," in The Inner Citadel, 92-5.
7. Gerald Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 9.
8. On the concept/conception distinction, see H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1961), 155-9
9. and John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999 [Revised Edition]), 5, 8-9.
10. In a similar spirit, Waldron says that "what is called for is some sort of moderate or intermediate position. This chapter has not sought to identify that third way, but I hope it has helped illuminate some of the perils as well as some of the advantages of a distinction between personal and moral autonomy." Waldron, "Moral Autonomy and Personal Autonomy," 325.
11. Raz, The Morality of Freedom, 369.
12. Raz, The Morality of Freedom, Ibid., 371, 375-6, 382.
13. John Rawls, "Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory," in Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 308, 319.
14. John Rawls, Collected Papers, Ibid., 316.
15. Cf. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, §63-4.
16. Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy, 20
17. Gerald Dworkin, "Autonomy," in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, eds. Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993).
18. Cf. Harry Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person," in Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 15, 19.
19. Also see Michael Bratman, "Autonomy and Hierarchy," Social Philosophy and Policy 20 (2003): 156-76.
20. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 360-1.
21. John Christman, "Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy," in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2003 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/autonomy-moral/.
22. Also see John Christman, "Constructing the Inner Citadel: Recent Work on the Concept of Autonomy," Ethics 99 (1988): 109-24.
23. Feinberg, "Autonomy," 30-43.
24. Alfred Mele, Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
25. Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy, 6, 9.
26. David Johnston, The Idea of a Liberal Theory: A Critique and Reconstruction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 76-7;
27. Raz, The Morality of Freedom, 380.
28. Waldron, "Moral Autonomy and Personal Autonomy," 311, 314.
29. Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 54 [GMM 4:399], 69n [GMM 4:414]. N.B.: Throughout the endnotes I will supplement the page references to this edition of Kant with (i) abbreviations for the works from which they were drawn plus (ii) the relevant volume and page references to the standard German edition of Kant's works, Kant's Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1900). Here is a complete list of the abbreviations I use: GMM=Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals; MM=Metaphysics of Morals; CPrR= Critique of Practical Reason; T&P="On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice"; Rel=Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.
30. Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 199 [CPrR 5:73];
31. Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, eds. Allen Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 78 [Rel 6:58].
32. See H. J. Paton, The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947), 85-7.
33. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 360-1.
34. Cf. Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 272 [589a-c].
35. See Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays, 66: "Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing."
36. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 54 [GMM 4:399].
37. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 157-8 [CPrR 5:24];
38. Kant, Practical Philosophy, cf. ibid., 371 [MM 6:216].
39. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 71 [GMM 4:419].
40. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 371 [MM 6:216].
41. Also see Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 111-2.
42. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 562-3 [MM 6:441-2].
43. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 49-50 [GMM 4:394].
44. Cf. Kant, Religion, 5 In [Rel 6:27].
45. Paul Guyer, Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 406.
46. Cf. Henry Allison, Kant's Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 164-5.
47. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 228-9 [CPrR 5:111].
48. Kant, Religion, 50-1 [Rel 6:27], 78 [Rel 6:58].
49. Cf. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 79 [GMM 4:428]
50. for a different perspective. These predispositions are to mechanical self-love (animality) and comparative self-love (humanity), which are roughly equivalent to Rousseau's concepts of amour de soi-même and amour propre, respectively. See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 218 [Second Discourse, Rousseau's Note 15].
51. Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy, 31.
52. Allison, Kant's Theory of Freedom, 88-9;
53. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 70 [GMM 4:417].
54. Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends, Chapter 4;
55. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 80 [GMM 4:429], 522 [MM 6:392].
56. Cf. Allen Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 120: "Preserving and respecting rational nature means preserving and respecting it in all its functions, not merely in its moral function of giving and obeying moral laws. Furthering rational nature requires furthering all the (morally permissible) ends it sets, not merely the ends it sets in response to duty."
57. Allen Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought, Ibid., 74.
58. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 70-1 [GMM 418-9].
59. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 54 [GMM 4:399], 71 [GMM 4:419].
60. J. B. Schneewind, "Kant and Stoic Ethics," in Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty, eds. Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 290.
61. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 159-60 [CPrR 5:26].
62. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 285n [T&P 8:284] (emphasis added).
63. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 235 [CPrR 5:118], 268 [CPrR 5:161].
64. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cf. ibid., 79 [GMM 4:428].
65. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 189-90 [CPrR 5:62].
66. Rawls nonetheless defends Kant against this charge, arguing that his moral psychology is less Manichaean than Augustinian. See John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. Barbara Herman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 303-6.
67. Kant, Religion, 57-8 [Rel 6:35].
68. Kant, Religion, Ibid., 51 [Rel 6:27]. Also see endnote on Rousseau above.
69. Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought, 47.
70. If Kant's belief in the natural and/or social genesis of all inclinations appears implausible, see Andrew Reath's interpretation of Kant on the nature of heteronomy and the genealogy of desire in "Hedonism, Heteronomy and Kant's Principle of Happiness," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (1989): 42-72, especially 48, 60.
71. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 84 [GMM 4:435].
72. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 50 [GMM 4:394] (emphasis added).
73. Many if not most theorists of personal autonomy recognize the conditionality of its goodness. See, for example, Raz, The Morality of Freedom, 380-1 ;
74. Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About, 19n;
75. Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy, 29;
76. Feinberg, "Autonomy," 39, 43.
77. Schneewind, "Kant and Stoic Ethics," 290;
78. Raz, The Morality of Freedom, 370n.
79. Based on diagrams in Kant, Practical Philosophy, 395 [MM 6:240], 527 [MM 6:398].
80. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 512-5 [MM 6:380-3].
81. One can also discharge one's duties of right virtuously (i.e., meritoriously) if one makes "the right of humanity, or also the right of human beings, one's end." Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 521-2 [MM 6:391].
82. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 474-6 [MM 6:333-6], 579-83 [MM 6:462-8].
83. On the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties in general, see Kant, Practical Philosophy, ibid., 521-2 [MM 6:390-2].
84. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 571-3 [MM 6:452-5].
85. Though the duty of beneficence requires no particular actions, a complete absence of beneficent actions would be a violation of the duty. See Kant, Practical Philosophy, ibid., 75 [GMM 4:424], 81 [GMM 4:431], 572 [MM 6:453].
86. Also, all duties of right are perfect duties: one cannot impose an end by use of coercion, though one can use coercion to guarantee the performance or omission of an action. See Kant, Practical Philosophy, ibid., 521 [MM 6:390-1].
87. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 74-5 [GMM 4:423], 518 [MM 6:387], 522-3 [MM 6:392], 565-6 [MM 6:445-66].
88. Kant explicitly rules out the perfection of others as a duty: he says that perfection is "something that only the other himself can do," for unless the other himself sets it as an end, the cultivation of his talents will fail to be meritorious. Again, one can force actions but not ends, and only the free adoption of virtuous ends can earn merit. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 517-8 [MM 6:386].
89. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 80 [GMM 4:429], 522-3 [MM 6:392].
90. For a different approach to justifying natural perfection as a duty, see O'Neill, Constructions of Reason, 98-101.
91. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 523 [MM 6:392], 566 [MM 6:446].
92. On the precise nature of the relationship between natural perfection and occupation, see Robert S. Taylor, "Self-Realization and the Priority of Fair Equality of Opportunity," Journal of Moral Philosophy 1 (2004): 333-47, here 342-3.
93. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 238-9 [CPrR 5:122-4], 518-9 [MM 6:387], 523 [MM 6:393], 566-7 [MM 6:447].
94. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 523 [MM 6:393], 567 [6:447].
95. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 530 [MM 6:402], 569 [MM 6:450].
96. Kant rejects the idea of a duty of practical love toward oneself, the promotion of one's own happiness is at most an indirect duty and only insofar as its promotion is necessary to ward off poverty, pain, and so on, as "great temptations to violate one's duty." That is, the promotion of one's own happiness is, from a moral point of view, only useful as a means to promote (adherence to) morality. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 517-8 [MM 6:386].
97. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 519 [MM 6:388], 524 [MM 6:394], 571-3 [MM 6:453-5].
98. Kant, Practical Philosophy, Ibid., 81 [GMM 4:431].
99. Also see Barbara Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), Chapter 3
100. O'Neill, Constructions of Reason, 98-101.
101. O'Neill, Constructions of Reason, Ibid., 519 [MM 6:388], 524 [MM 6:394].
102. Feinberg, "Autonomy," 32.
103. Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought, 328-9.
104. Cf. Reath, "Hedonism, Heteronomy and Kant's Principle of Happiness," 66-8.
105. On consumption as a self-actualizing (but not self-realizing) activity, see Jon Elster, "Self-Realization in Work and Politics: The Marxist Conception of the Good Life," Social Philosophy & Policy 3 (1986): 103, 106.
106. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 524 [MM 6:394], 555-6 [MM 6:432-3], 572 [MM 6:453].
107. For a discussion of "true needs," see Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, 173-6, 221, 232-4.
108. On the larger issue of setting ends in a virtuous life, see Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought, 325.
109. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 50 [GMM 4:394] (emphasis added).
110. Cf. Christman, "Constructing the Inner Citadel," 120.
111. Kant, Practical Philosophy, 74-5 [GMM 4:423-4], 94-5 [GMM 4:446-7].
112. Raz, The Morality of Freedom, 370n.
113. Waldron, "Moral Autonomy and Personal Autonomy," 308, 319.
114. Cf. Luke 14:23 ("Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.") and St. Augustine's use of it to defend the persecution of heretics in St. Augustine, The Political Writings, ed. Henry Paolucci (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1996), 193.
115. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 497. Rawls summarizes the myriad strands of the congruence argument in §86 ("The Good of the Sense of Justice").
116. Brian Barry says of the congruence argument that "the only thing to do with it is to follow the course followed virtually unanimously by commentators on A Theory of Justice and forget about it." See Brian Barry, "John Rawls and the Search for Stability," Ethics 105 (1995): 915n. Rawls's doubts are expressed in Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), xv-xvii, though the focus here is on the larger argument in Part III of A Theory of Justice about the stability of a well-ordered society rather than on the congruence argument proper, which is merely one component (albeit a central one) of the larger argument. Concerns about the stability of justice as fairness were the primary motivation for Rawls's so-called "political turn," as we shall soon see.
117. Freeman attempts to reconstruct Rawls's congruence argument in "Congruence and the Good of Justice," in The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 277-315. On the argument's critics and limitations, see especially 277-8, 292, and 303-8.
118. For example, Kant provides "the supreme principle of all scriptural exegesis" in Religion, which requires us to interpret scriptural passages so that they are consistent with our obligations of justice and virtue (Religion, 119-20 [Rel 6:112]). Consequently, Kant would reject any religious doctrine that interpreted scripture (e.g., Luke 14:23) in such a way as to endorse the persecution of heretics or unbelievers, as such persecution is inconsistent with our prior political duty of religious toleration.
119. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 491;
120. Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 180.
121. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 [Second Edition]), 224-8.
122. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 395, 494.
123. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Ibid., 494.
124. I may be overstating the residual indeterminacy here, as principles of deliberative rationality may interact with objective ends in such a way as to constrain the choice set further. For example, one principle of deliberative rationality is surely "inventorying," that is, systematically examining our various capacities, preferences, and so on, before we make (important) decisions. If we do this before engaging in self-perfection, we may be able to rule out certain plans of self-development due to the lack of relevant capacities-singing lessons, for instance, are probably not the best path to self-improvement for the congenitally tone deaf. (Special thanks to Brad Inwood for pointing this out.)
125. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 78 (emphasis added).
126. For a brief discussion of the key differences between A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, see John Rawls, The Law of Peoples with "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 179-80;
127. also see Samuel Freeman's introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, 28-44.
128. Rawls, Political Liberalism, 167.
129. Brian Barry, for example, has been a persistent critic of Rawls's "political turn." To quote Barry on this topic: "I believe that, as time goes on, A Theory of Justice will stand out with increasing clarity as by far the most significant contribution to political philosophy produced in this century. Only one thing threatens to obscure that achievement: the publication of Political Liberalism." Barry, "John Rawls and the Search for Stability," 915.
130. John Tomasi, Liberalism Beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 127.
131. Robert S. Taylor, "Rawls's Defense of the Priority of Liberty: A Kantian Reconstruction," Philosophy & Public Affairs 31 (2003): 246-71.
132. Rawls, "The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus," in Collected Papers, 433-4. Rawls later changes his mind about this exclusion (Political Liberalism, 170), though the reason for this change appears to be his conflation of constitutional and overlapping consensus;
133. see Taylor, "Rawls's Defense of the Priority of Liberty," 268-70.
134. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 134-5.
135. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Ibid., 220.
136. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Ibid., 15.
137. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Ibid., 94, 98-101. See §18-9 in general.
138. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Ibid., 225.
139. William Galston, Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
140. Raz, The Morality of Freedom.
141. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 21-2.
142. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Ibid., 442, 445.
143. Galston, Liberal Purposes, Chapter 8
144. Raz, The Morality of Freedom, Chapters 13 and 14.
145. Taylor, "Self-Realization and the Priority of Fair Equality of Opportunity."
146. James Schmidt, "What Enlightenment Project?" Political Theory 28 (2000): 735.
147. For example, see Rawls, Political Liberalism, 194, 199.