Autonomy and the Normativity Question: Framing Considerations

Abstract

An initial interest in the question of whether one can autonomously choose to be non-autonomous has developed into the broader question of whether there are any normative commitments that necessarily attend being autonomous. This paper argues that reflection on this issue has been systematically hampered by a failure to realize that the normativity question does not delineate a single line of inquiry, but rather several different such lines; and that these differences depend on how certain key concepts embedded in the question are understood. The paper concludes by noting several lines of future research suggested by the present work.