Ethical Autonomy

Abstract This book examines the importance of personal autonomy for democratic citizenship and for good lives. It charts the evolution of autonomy and analyzes the proliferation of autonomy in free societies. The book pinpoints serious deficiencies in received ideals of autonomy for individual persons. It delivers an extended critique of personal autonomy, noting the excessive openness and lack of moral structure that personal autonomy provides. It elaborates an argument in favor of ethical autonomy, an alternative kind of autonomy that integrates individual self-rule with moral character. Ethical autonomy includes important restraints on an autonomous individual’s imagination, deliberation, and will. It supports central liberal commitments, it fits with reasonable pluralism, it enhances active and astute forms of democratic citizenship, and it is grounded in fundamental principles of liberty of conscience. This novel understanding enriches the values of freedom, toleration, respect, individual rights, limited government, and the rightful rule of law.