This collection of original essays explores the social and relational dimensions of individual autonomy. Rejecting the feminist charge that autonomy is inherently masculinist, the contributors draw on feminist critiques of autonomy to challenge and enrich contemporary philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility. The essays analyze the complex ways in which oppression can impair an agent's capacity for autonomy, and investigate connections, neglected by standard accounts, between autonomy and other aspects of the agent, including self-conception, self-worth, memory, and the (...) imagination. (shrink)

The received view in medical contexts is that informed consent is both necessary and sufficient for patient autonomy. This paper argues that informed consent is not sufficient for patient autonomy, at least when autonomy is understood as a "relational" concept. Relational conceptions of autonomy, which have become prominent in the contemporary literature, draw on themes in the thought of Charles Taylor. I first identify four themes in Taylor's work that together constitute a picture of human agency corresponding to the notion (...) of agency implicit in relational accounts of autonomy. Drawing on these themes, I sketch two arguments against the position that informed consent secures autonomy. The first is that informed consent is an "opportunity" concept whereas autonomy is an "exercise" concept; the second is that informed consent requires merely weak evaluation and not strong evaluation. On Taylor's analysis of agency, strong evaluation is required for agency and for autonomy. (shrink)

This section gathers together five reviews of Rae Langton?s book Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification followed by a response from the author.

Joseph Raz’s The Morality of Freedom is well known for defending both a perfectionist form of liberalism and an ‘externalist’ conception of autonomy. John Christman proposes that there is a logical connection between the two theses and argues that externalist accounts of autonomy should be rejected on the basis that they are perfectionist. Christman’s perfectionism argument contains two premises: externalist theories of autonomy entail political perfectionism and political perfectionism is not defensible. I argue that neither premise is true. Externalist theories (...) of autonomy do not entail political perfectionism. Further, even assuming for the sake of argument that premise is true, premise is false. The strongest challenge to political perfectionism is that it is incompatible with the value of respect. I argue that those defending political perfectionism misconstrue what is required for respect. Once we see that respect is secured through features inherent in processes, the value of respect can be reconciled with political perfectionism. Political perfectionism is a defensible thesis and premise is false. (shrink)

The terms “essentialism” and “antiessentialism” have rhetorical, metaphysical, and political force in feminist philosophical literature. This paper develops the relation between the metaphysics and the politics of essentialism. I argue that there are broadly two metaphysical conceptions of essentialism implicit in the literature: the idea that there is a universal womanness that all women share, and the idea that each individual woman has certain essential properties. The first conception is false because it is incompatible with the existence of “multiple identities” (...) pointed out by proponents of the “politics of identity.” The second conception, while it may be true, is politically innocuous. In order to explain the observations of the politics of identity, we need a “metaphysics of diversity.” This paper argues that adopting a kind of resemblance nominalism will provide the required metaphysics of diversity. (shrink)

This dissertation argues for a position called "legal pluralism". According to legal pluralism, most legal decision-making, especially decision-making by judges in "hard cases", is best analyzed as the application of a plurality of legal values which often conflict. Moreover, legal pluralism claims that these conflicts often cannot be resolved, and therefore decision-making in law is genuinely indeterministic in many cases. The position contrasts with two common accounts of judicial decision-making in hard cases: the claim that judicial decision-making is significantly determinate (...) and the claim that it is radically indeterminate . ;The first chapter argues for the first part of pluralism, namely that there is a plurality of legal values which typically conflict in hard cases of legal interpretation. It also argues against the doctrine of "intentionalism" which claims that determinacy can be achieved in legal interpretation by identifying the correct legal answer with the author's intended answer. The second chapter provides an extended analysis of Dworkin's doctrine of "law as integrity". It argues that Dworkin's theory of law is "monistic" in two senses. First, his theory attempts to provide a method for achieving deterministic decision-making; and secondly, his theory is committed to treating a single legal value--the value of "integrity"--as overriding. I claim that neither form of monism can plausibly be maintained. The third chapter argues that pluralism provides the best account of the special features of legal disagreement in hard cases and attempts to rebut counter-arguments suggesting that disagreement is epistemic disagreement only. The fourth and final chapter focuses on the nature of the values over which judges disagree. It proposes that the conflicts between values in some cases are genuine legal dilemmas because legal conflicts are often conflicts between "generically different" values or "incommensurable" values. In particular, "institutional" values--values which enhance the operation of law conceived as an institution having a certain function in society--are incommensurable with the values of substantive justice. (shrink)