Abstract

Though autonomy's role in moral, political, and legal argument has risen to considerable prominence, its nature and value remain obscure and contentious. This project is an attempt to capture what is at the heart of autonomy and to explore some of its overlooked political implications. I argue than an autonomous person is someone who is self-creating, self-determining, and acts on and satisfies his autonomous preferences. Moreover, I argue that the state has a prima facie obligation to help its citizens act on and satisfy their autonomous preferences. ;In chapter 1, I attempt to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the concept of an autonomous preference. I argue that a preference is autonomous if and only if it is endorsed by the agent for the right reasons. In chapter 2, I wrestle with the problem of applying this account to actual preferences and persons. Here I develop further conditions that make it likely or unlikely that a preference satisfies the necessary and sufficient conditions for autonomy developed in chapter 1. In chapter 3, I show how the concept of an autonomous person can be derived from that of an autonomous preference. I argue that an autonomous person is someone who acts on and satisfied a particular subset of his autonomous preferences, namely those that are connected to his conception of worthwhile life. ;In chapter 4, I explore the political implications of my account of autonomy. Here I argue that the state has a prima facie obligation, grounded in respect for persons, to help its citizens act on and satisfy their autonomous preferences. In the conclusion I explore several ways in which the state can fulfill this obligation. I defend the view that the state should pursue this by helping persons act on and satisfy their autonomous political preferences, and that this can be done by implementing a more deliberative political system. Finally, in the appendix, I defend my view from a more general objection that the state cannot base its policies on the preferences of its citizens because of technical problems having to do with the aggregation of preferences