Autonomy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Autonomy, or self-government, is an ancient term that seems to have gained wide currency only in the second half of the twentieth century. It derives from the Greek word autonomia, which combines the words for self (auto) and law (nomos). To be autonomous, then, is to live according to laws one gives to oneself.

In both ancient Greek and in contemporary usage, autonomy figures in two different kinds of political discussions. In the first kind, autonomy may be a property of political units, such as cities, counties, provinces, or states. This was apparently the dominant usage of the term among the Greeks, who were concerned with the autonomy of the polis—the self-governing city-state. This usage persists, but is probably less common now than the second, which takes autonomy to be a possible and perhaps desirable feature of the individual person’s life. In this case, autonomy is of particular interest to political philosophers, who often explore the relationship between personal autonomy and government. They may ask, for instance, whether government is more likely to promote individual autonomy by leaving people alone or by taking steps to help them become (more) autonomous.

Political Autonomy

Autonomy of the first kind—the autonomy of the self-governing political unit—was closely related in Greek thought to the concept of autarky (from autarkeia), or self-sufficiency. For a polis or state to be self-governing, according to the usual argument, it must be free to chart its own course, independent of the will of other political units. If it is to be truly independent, however, it will have to meet all, or almost all, of its own material needs; otherwise it will find itself dependent on those who provide it with food and other vital resources. Such a polis will be autonomous in name only.

Contemporary discussions of political autonomy sometimes touch on this connection between autonomy and autarky, but they are more likely to concentrate on the relations of political units and subunits. In some cases the question is how much control over its own affairs a sovereign state can or should surrender, yet remain autonomous, when it joins an entity such as the United Nations or the European Union. In other cases, political autonomy is primarily a problem of the relations between a region or subunit and the overarching political unit in which it finds itself. Familiar examples include Quebec’s relationship with Canada, the Kurds’ relationship with Iraq, and the place of Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom. Often the region or subunit wants full autonomy, to be achieved by secession, but sometimes arrangements are made to keep it within the larger political unit while granting it control over local matters that directly concern those who inhabit the subunit. Arrangements of this kind recognize what is often called regional or provincial autonomy.

Personal Autonomy

Autonomy as a property of political units may have been the primary sense in which ancient writers used the term, but there is at least one important reference to personal autonomy in Greek literature. This occurs in Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone, when the Chorus refers to the title character as autonomos: “true to your own laws” (Sophocles 2001, 36).This concept seems not to have played a major part in Western philosophy, however, until the eighteenth century. French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau did not use the term, but his brief discussion of “moral liberty” has overtones of autonomy, as when he proclaims that “the impulse of appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law one has prescribed for oneself is freedom” (Rousseau 1978). Rousseau’s admirer, German philosopher Immanuel Kant, developed this assertion into a distinction between autonomy and heteronomy, or being ruled by others—including rule by one’s own irrational desires.

Whether autonomy is necessarily a good thing—and what exactly it is—has been the subject of much discussion and debate in the past fifty years or so. The point of departure for these debates is often British philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s lecture, “Two Concepts of Liberty.” There Berlin connects the desire for autonomy to the “retreat to the inner citadel” (Berlin 1969, 135)—that is, the desire for self-mastery that is achieved by withdrawing into isolation and self-denial. Most other writers, however, take a more positive view of autonomy. In Stanley Benn’s account, for example, autonomy is a character ideal that leads the individual to try to form a consistent and coherent set of beliefs, albeit a set that must continually be adjusted in light of critical reflection.

Personal autonomy is frequently taken to be an ideal of the liberal tradition. Autonomy is certainly at home within liberalism, which greatly values individual liberty, but it is by no means clear that it is an exclusively liberal ideal. Nevertheless, some critics of liberalism, including some feminists, have complained that autonomy is an individualistic concept that deflects attention from the importance of community and social relations, especially caring relations. Parents, for example, should be less concerned with their autonomy than with the needs of their dependent children.

In response, supporters of autonomy as an ideal agree that it is an individualistic concept, but they deny that it is the kind of individualism that ignores or even erodes important social relations. Personal autonomy is something that individuals exercise, but they can exercise it only when their capacity for self-government has been sufficiently developed. Yet developing that capacity is something that no one can do alone. In other words, no person can be autonomous unless others help that person to become autonomous. One of the things the autonomous person should realize, then, is the importance of protecting and nurturing those relationships—and the other conditions—that protect and promote autonomy. What the role of government should be in this attempt to further autonomy has become one of the principal concerns of political philosophers.

Bibliography:

Benn, Stanley. A Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In Four Essays on Liberty, edited by Isaiah Berlin, 118–172. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Christman, John, ed. The Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual Autonomy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Christman, John, and Joel Anderson, eds. Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Dworkin, Gerald. The Theory and Practice of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Hannum, Hurst. Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination: The Accommodation of Conflicting Rights, rev. ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
Haworth, Lawrence. Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics. New Haven, Conn.:Yale University Press, 1986.
Kant, Immanuel. 1785. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Lindley, Richard. Autonomy. Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 1986.
Nedelsky, Jennifer. “Reconceiving Autonomy: Sources,Thoughts, and Possibilities.” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 1 (Spring 1989): 7–36. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1762.
On the Social Contract, edited by Roger Masters and translated by Judith Masters. New York: St. Martin’s, 1978.
Schneewind, J. B. The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Antigone. Translated by Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.
Young, Robert. Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty. London: Croom Helm, 1986.