7 - Personal autonomy and its value (II)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2009
Summary
In the previous chapter I argued that personal autonomy has both intrinsic and instrumental value. But many ideals have intrinsic and instrumental value. We need to know why it is appropriate to elevate autonomy to a central component of a fully good life.
This chapter presses the argument for autonomy further. It does so by confronting an important objection that can be brought against autonomy-based political morality. This objection I will call the pluralist objection. It holds that autonomy is only one good among many; and that it, accordingly, does not warrant any special standing in the scale of values. The reason for focusing on this objection should be evident. If it can be defeated, then the door will be open to accepting the claim that autonomy is a central component of a fully good life.
The argument of this chapter unrolls in seven sections. I begin, in the first two sections, by discussing in more detail the pluralist objection and the problem it poses for a strong commitment to autonomy. In an effort to come to grips with this problem I argue, in the third section, that there are features of modern western societies that make autonomy an ideal of special importance. Then, in the fourth section I respond to some objections to this argument; and in the fifth section I show that this dependence of the value of autonomy on particular social conditions does not compromise its value. In the penultimate section, I ask whether this argument applies with equal force to people who live in nonautonomous groups; and, finally, in the last section, I conclude that the pluralist objection fails.
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- Liberalism, Perfectionism and Restraint , pp. 162 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998