Monday, October 24, 2005
'Is Autonomous Choice Required for a Good Life?'
An interesting post from John Kekes here regarding the question in the subject line. One tantalizing excerpt:
Autonomy is thought to be necessary but not sufficient for a good life because reasonable understanding and evaluation may turn out to be mistaken and because adverse external conditions, such as injustice, accident, or illness, may stand in the way. Autonomy is also claimed to be necessary for being a responsible moral agent because only such agents are capable of evaluating their actions and understanding the significance of the choices they make. So understood, autonomy is held to be the ideal that reasonable and morally committed people ought to aim at.
There is no doubt that this is an attractive ideal and that countless people in contemporary Western societies passionately believe in it. Many philosophers aim to give a precise account of what autonomy involves and with specifying the social conditions that must be met to enable individuals to exercise their autonomy. They regard autonomy as the pivot on which morality and politics turn. The ideal of autonomy is nevertheless a shibboleth because the central moral and political importance attributed to it is based on a passionate but obviously false belief.
