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5. bilbao, fuertes, and guilbert distinguish four senses of autonomy
- Autonomy as
self-choice (autoelección) . This sense covers the negative sense of freedom, freedom from obstacles to pursue my preferences and wishes. Mill gives voice to this conception of autonomy in his book, On Liberty. (See his classical defense of freedom of speech.) Autonomy in this sense is based on the removal of obstacles that impede my exercise of freedom. Thus, the right to an education is characterized as removing obstacles to my becoming educated; it also gives me access to means of becoming educated. What I learn, the content of my education, is left open to determination by the individual; Mill sets forth an indefinite and wide range of options for exercising "freedom to."
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Autonomy as self-legislation (autolegislación) . As described above this is the Kantian sense in which individuals exercise the capability of giving the law to themselves. This includes a moral aspect or dimension: we discipline our individual lives by developing rules to guide our own lives that can also be extended to all others. We conceive of ourselves and others as living within what Kant terms a "kingdom of ends" where all, because they possess certain human capacities, are entitled to being treated always as ends and never merely as means. This sense of autonomy is the one most explicitly tied to respect.
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Autonomy as authenticity (autenticidad) . This sense of autonomy recognizes the extent to which the individual is influenced by his or her social and natural environment. For example, the philosopher F.H. Bradley carries out a thought experiment based on removing everything English from the English person and asking what is left over after this abstraction. Removing language, cultural norms, experiences generated interacting with others and rendering the individual an isolated social atom deprives the individual of all determining content. Thus, Bradley terms the remainder an “I know not what” residuum; emptied of all social content, the individual becomes merely an indeterminate placeholder. This sense of autonomy starts from the fact that we are social beings who are shaped (enabled and constrained) by our social and natural context. It then shows how we find ourselves as individuals in this social experience and then act responsively: (a) I can criticize my social being and reject the social forces that work to constrain and channel my actions; or I can accept or acquiesce to these forces and choose to define myself by loyalty to my social context. Either way, I recognize myself in this social space and take responsibility for it by choosing my response. Much of this approach is captured by Existentialism; (b) This can also be understood in terms of moral development. For Kohlberg, the conventional levels of moral development are characterized by individuals making decisions based on what others think or advocate. For example, one conforms to others and bases one's choices on what is recommended by "authorities"; (c)
One reaches post-conventional levels of moral development by questioning authority and other external sources of moral conduct. This is purchased through the achieving of critical distance by exercising the skills of moral imagination like multiple framing of one's situation or by role-taking to gain insight into the perspective of others.
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Autonomy as self-decision (autodecisión) . This sense is closely related to the previous sense of authenticity in that it involves recognizing oneself as embedded in a natural and social context, and then taking responsibility for one’s subsequent choices, habits, and character as made within this context. In a manner different from Bilbao, Fuentes, and Guilbert, I will characterize self-decision along the lines of self-realization following Taylor, Aristotle, and Bradley: (a) According to Taylor, one finds oneself in a social and natural situation through "strong evaluation." Here one questions one’s fundamental commitments (those that constitute one’s identity) in a radical and fundamental way. Taylor characterizes strong evaluation as a
hermeneutical act where one uses one part of one’s self to attend to and question the other parts. (b) Aristotle also sets forth a self-realization ethics. Virtue (=arête) exercises and realizes those capabilities which are most fully human. By exercising virtue, we realize our natures (and our selves) and become fully happy (=eudaimonia). (I have inserted the Greek words, arête and eudaimonia to show that Aristotle’s concepts are only partially translatable.) (c) Bradley puts this differently. I realize myself by taking up a social station within society and performing its attached duties. Bradley makes use of an organic metaphor to characterize his version of self-realization. By taking up a social station and performing its duties, the individual becomes a functioning organism within society which is now viewed as a social or moral organism. The heart pumps blood throughout the body; by performing its function it also helps the body as organim to stay alive. Individuals by performing the duties of the moral organism help keep this moral order alive and properly functioning. (How do engineers and business persons contribute to the social good?)
Source:
OpenStax, Business, government, and society. OpenStax CNX. Mar 04, 2014 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10560/1.6
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