Abstract

In modernity generally substantive conceptions of the good have been pervasively criticized, and not least in our own time. All values seem open to critique or question. Indeed, the claim is that they must be open to such critique if they are to pass muster — especially if we claim to live in an accountable, transparent, and democratic manner. Nevertheless, there seems to be one value that is accepted as basic in a widespread way. This is the value of freedom. The god who presides over the epoch of modernity seems to be named ‘Freedom.’Often, in fact, it is in the name of freedom that other substantives values are subject to critique. Over the centuries the suspicion has gathered pace that such values curtail or derail or railroad freedom: curtail its promise; derail its realization; railroad its forms into what is acceptable or not to one group or culture or sex or lobby. There is the slightly embarrassing problem that while we all seem to bow before ‘Freedom,’ this god retains something of an unknown character. It seems the more striven for the more it can become a deus absconditus.There are many forms of freedom and interpretations of its meaning, none indubitably selfevident. Freedom might be a substitute for the old Good or God, but it shares with them a similar problem: a plethora of pretenders to the throne. One of the pretenders that seems to have crowded out many rivals is the once princeling ‘Autonomy.’ This princeling has become sovereign monarch. The name ‘Autonomy’ is now so pervasively invoked, especially in Western societies, that it is often used as a synonym for freedom. Freedom as the one incontestable value has become autonomy as the dominant name for that absolute value.This dominance is not at all evident in early modernity, and Kant’s use of the word transposes it from the context of political self-governance to the self-legislation of the moral individual. This migration and transposition has passed into the general culture, such that, as I say, autonomy indiscriminately passes for freedom. The name is linked with the notion of self determination also, another term that is often without further thought identified with freedom. In the glory of this god there is much that falls into the shadows. We pay our respects at this shrine, but there is more implied in our worship than appears in the words of our rituals or spells