Should Relational Autonomy Theorists Embrace Republican Freedom Instead? A Commentary on "Nondomination and the Limits of Relational Autonomy" by Danielle M. Wenner

There is much to learn from and admire in Danielle Wenner's "Nondomination and the Limits of Relational Autonomy." The core claim Wenner advances is that the very concerns that have motivated feminist relational autonomy theorists would be better pursued by foregoing their concern with autonomy and pursuing instead the political aim of promoting a neorepublican conception of freedom as nondomination. While leaving open the possibility that "autonomy speak may remain valuable in some contexts", Wenner nevertheless claims that "for the purposes of understanding and combating relations of oppression and subjection, freedom as nondomination provides a more useful conceptual apparatus than the ideal of...