Abstract
The concept of autonomy has come to assume a place of great importance in recent discussions of practical and applied ethics. Since the writings of Immanuel Kant, autonomy has become nearly synonymous with human dignity, and an imminent value in any system which purports to place proper emphasis on the respect for persons as such. Thus, autonomy has assumed a prominent role in many areas of practical ethics: In medical ethics through informed consent;1 in business ethics through advertising;2 in constitutional law through privacy3 and free speech;4 and in social policy through establishing minimal standards of welfare5 and debates on Paternalism.6 Autonomy has even played a key role in the debate over animal rights.7
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
See Faden, Ruth and Beauchamp, Tom A History and Theory of Informed Consent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986 ).
See Haworth, Lawrence Autonomy ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986 ).
See Richards, David A.J. Sex, Drugs, Death and the Law (Rowman and Littlefield, 1982).
See Scanlon, Thomas “A Theory of Freedom of Expression”, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, (Winter 1972 ).
See Raz, Joseph The Morality of Freedom ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1986 ).
See Sartorius, Rolf (ed.) Paternalism (University of Minnesota Press, 1983).
See Frey, R.G. “Autonomy and the Value of Animal Life”, The Monist vol. 70, no. 1 (January 1987).
Derek Parfit would deny that the separate identity of persons is how we should understand personal identity (see Parfit, Derek Reasons and Persons New York: Oxford University Press, 1984). While there may be good philosophical reasons for believing that we should jettison individual identity in formulating a theoretical understanding of persons, I am concerned here with the role autonomy plays in our common understanding of personal identity. In this realm, autonomy is central to how we identify actions with specific persons.
See Dworkin, Gerald “Autonomy and Behavior Control”, The Hastings Center Report (Feb. 1976).
Dworkin, Gerald “Autonomy and Behavior Control”, p.25.
Dworkin’s position is based upon an attempt to understand autonomy in terms of free will. We shall take up the problems with this approach in later chapters.
Because we take autonomy so seriously, our concern with its recognition identifies certain rights which we wish to have in order to protect this characteristic. Indeed, throughout this work we shall be examining how autonomy might be preserved in light of a variety of external influences.
For example, monks believe that their autonomy is less important than serving the will of God. Others might hold that their autonomy is less important than security, for example, and so wish to trade off this characteristic for the security of servitude. However, we place severe limitations on these trade offs, and these limitations reflect the special status autonomy has.
For example, we often recognize a need to limit what damage people are able to do to their own welfare.
SI owe the foundations of this idea to James Child, who has written at length on the idea in a variety of unpublished papers which shall (hopefully) soon comprise a manuscript on the subject. These papers include “The Rule of Law and the Presumption of Autonomy”; “Specific Commands, General Rules and Degrees of Autonomy”; and “Wittgenstein, Davidson and Section 2.01 of the Model Penal Code”.
Hart,H.L.A. The Concept of Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), p.51.
We shall take up the threat which rules pose to autonomy in later chapters. At this point, however, we are merely concerned to show that rules themselves presuppose autonomous subjects, even if the rule may then threaten the subject’s autonomy.
Hart, H.L.A. The Concept of Law p.54.
Hart, H.L.A. The Concept of Law pp.54–55.
Nagel, Thomas “Moral Luck”, in Mortal Questions ( New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979 ), p. 28.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics bk.3, in The Basic Works of Aristotle ed. by Richard McKeon ( New York: Random House, 1941 ).
Augustine, On Free Will bk.3, in Free Will ed. by Sidney Morgenbresser and James Walsh ( New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1962 ).
Strawson, P.F. “Freedom and Resentment” Proceedings of the British Academy 48, pp.1–25.
This intuitive appeal is quite strong among philosophers as well. For a discussion of this intuitive appeal, see Frankfurt, Harry `Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility“, Journal of Philosophy LXVI, no.23 (December 4, 1969 ).
Again, I am most concerned to show that this is in fact the way we understand responsibility in everyday usage, and that this reflects the way we understand the world and the place of agents within it. My goal here is to establish the claim I made at the beginning of this chapter: That the concept of autonomy is vital as a fundamental concept for the way in which we understand the world around us, and our place in this world.
Fischer, John Martin (ed.) Moral Responsibility ( Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986 ), p. 9.
Benthem, Jeremy Principles of Morals and Legislation (Reprinted in Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988), chapter XIII.
Fuller, Lon The Morality of Law ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964 ), pp. 33–94.
These eight ways one can fail to make law can be found listed in Fuller, The Morality of Law p.39.
Fuller, The Morality of Law p.39.
Fuller, The Morality of Law p.36.
Fuller, The Morality of Law p.66.
See Coleman, Jules Markets, Morals and the Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), especially chapter seven, “The Morality of Strict Tort Liability”.
Leigh, L.H. Strict and Vicarious Liability (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1982), especially chapter one.
For example, see Wolff, Robert Paul In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).
See Taylor, Telford Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy ( New York: Bantam Books, 1971 ).
Let us accept, for the sake of establishing the possible threat, that the obligation to conform to a rule might pre-empt a subject’s practical reason in such a way that she cannot recognize this obligation and also act other than the obligation requires. We shall take up this question in much greater detail in later chapters.
We shall take up the discussion of coercion in detail in chapter three.
Wolf, Susan Freedom Within Reason ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1990 ), p. 7.
Wolf, Freedom Within Reason p.8.
For example, see Wolff, Robert Paul In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper & Row, 1970); Adams, Robert Merrihew The Virtue of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987 ); Young, Robert Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty ( New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986 ).
J have discussed this particular issue concerning the responsibility of the nurse when acting under the orders of a physician in an article entitled “The Nurse Under Physician Authority” Journal of Medical Ethics (Dec. 1993).
Rawls, John A Theory of Justice ( Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971 ), p. 104.
Nagel, “Moral Luck”, p.38.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
May, T. (1998). The Importance of Autonomy. In: Autonomy, Authority and Moral Responsibility. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9030-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9030-3_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4949-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9030-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive