PHIL40840 Autonomy as a Philosophical Problem

Academic Year 2021/2022

The exercise of autonomy is among the most valued of human capacities. Civilized societies aspire to the rational exercise of freedom. Scanlon defines autonomous persons as "sovereign in deciding what to believe and in weighing competing reasons for action." And the sovereign persons operates under their "own canons of rationality" and "cannot accept without independent consideration the judgment of others" about the actions they are expected to undertake.

This module will explore the theory of autonomy and the wide range of difficulties that attach to it. (1) The Metaphysics of the Self. The theory of autonomy is committed to a notion of the self in which reasons can prevail over passions. (2) The Source of Normativity. If sovereignty over our own reasons is a characteristic of autonomy we need to be confident that they are genuinely our own and that they are reasons which we are free to endorse or reject. Explanations of these two pivotal features of the theory of autonomy have yet to be unproblematically provided by philosophy. This will be seen through critical readings of materials selected from a range of authors (including, Kant, Korsgaard, Hegel, Adorno, Freud, Honneth, Geuss, Friedman, McDowell).