Certain forms of practical deference seem to be incompatible with personal autonomy. I argue that such deference undermines autonomy not by compromising the governance of an authentic self, nor by constituting a failure to track objective reasons, but by constituting a particular social relation: one of interpersonal rule. I analyse this social relation and distinguish it from others, including ordinary relations of love and care. Finally, I argue that the particular form of interpersonal rule constituted by dispositions of practical deference (...) in itself entails a partial, though not total, disconnection from the good of a self-authored life. (shrink)

In political philosophy, the concept of autonomy is often associated with liberalism: it serves as a justification for the liberal values of state neutrality and value pluralism, and seems coherent with the liberal definition of freedom as the absence of interference. Neo-republicans have pointed out that freedom as non-interference fails to acknowledge the fact that one may be unfree while non-interfered with, while on the other hand, not all forms of interference are freedom-limiting. They have proposed to replace the concept (...) by freedom as non-domination, which they define as the absence of actual or possible arbitrary interference. Although their definition is promising, neo-republicans tend to neglect the concept of self-government and therefore, are vulnerable to the same accusations of incompleteness faced by liberals. By focusing on the negative part of freedom as non-domination, they have omitted two aspects: first, that there are other ways to be unfree than to be the subject of mere arbitrary interference, and second, that the real value of non-domination is the capacity to act as a non-dominated being, which requires a level of self-mastery. To fix this problem, I propose an extension of the concept of non-domination and argue that the theory would benefit from including autonomy in the list of its conditions for freedom. Following the republican idea that one is only free in a free state, I propose a definition of republican autonomy that is political in nature, and depends on globalized nondomination. (shrink)

Natalie Stoljar posits that those who have internalized oppressive norms lack normative competence, which requires true beliefs and critical reflection. A lack of normative competence makes agents nonautonomous, according to Stoljar. This framework is thereby meant to address what she calls the “feminist intuition”—the intuition that oppressive norms are incompatible with autonomy. On my view, however, Stoljar’s normative competence account of autonomy is subject to a worrying problem. Her account misattributes nonautonomy to those who perpetrate the oppression, making those who (...) are oppressed and those who oppress count as equally nonautonomous. I argue that this is implausible and demonstrate in this paper that we can establish an asymmetry of autonomy between those who oppress others and those who are made the target of oppression. (shrink)

In this paper, I summarize the medical evidence regarding the auditory and non-auditory effects of noise and analyse the ethics of noise and personal autonomy in the social environment using a variety of case studies. Key to this discussion is the fact that, contrary to the traditional definition of noise, sound can be noise without being annoying, as the evidence shows that some sounds can harm without being perceived. Ultimately, I develop a theory of ‘noisy autonomy’ with which to guide (...) us in discussing the public health ethics of noise and other sounds. (shrink)

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 49, Issue 2, Page 245-269, June 2021.

Some have claimed that moral bioenhancement undermines freedom and authenticity – thereby making moral bioenhancement problematic or undesirable – whereas others have said that moral bioenhancement does not undermine freedom and authenticity – thereby salvaging its ethical permissibility. These debates are characterized by a couple of features. First, a positive relationship is assumed to hold between these agency-related concepts and the ethical permissibility of moral bioenhancement. Second, these debates are centered around individualistic conceptions of agency, like free choice and authenticity, (...) which hail from an atomistic tradition of autonomy. My view is that emphasizing individualistic conceptions of autonomy do not provide particularly strong foundations on which to argue about the issue of the permissibility of moral bioenhancement. This is because individualistic autonomy is not the kind of agency-related consideration we ought to value. Instead, I propose that we investigate the relationship between moral bioenhancement and a more relational kind of autonomy. Focusing on this latter relationship, on my view, clarifies the potential for moral bioenhancement to support or enhance people’s autonomy. (shrink)

The author reviews various conceptions of autonomy to show that humans are actually not autonomous, strictly speaking. He argues for a need to rethink the personal autonomy approaches to HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. HIV/AIDS has remained a leading cause of disease burden in SSA. It is important to bring this disease burden under control, especially given the availability of current effective antiretroviral regimens in low- and middle-income countries. In most SSA countries the ethic or value of personal (...) autonomy or self-determination is promoted as primary in HIV testing decision-making. SSA policymakers have an ontological and moral duty to adopt HIV testing policies that reflect human and medical realities, relationships, local contexts, and respect human rights for both individuals and others who are affected by HIV in society. Without rethinking the value of autonomy in HIV testing decision-making, the article cautions that attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 and the UNAIDS fast-track strategy that explicitly call to end the epidemic by 2030 will not be feasible for SSA. (shrink)