Rational Autonomy Research Articles

Revising Gerty MacDowell’s Identity and Agency: An Intersectional Feminist Disability Perspective

Gerty MacDowell’s initial, albeit brief, appearance in James Joyce’s Ulysses has sparked debates regarding her identity and agency. In the critical literature, there are interpretations that characterize Gerty as a woman and disabled person whose actions conform to patriarchal beauty standards that objectify her. This paper argues for revising such readings by applying an intersectional feminist disability perspective attuned to the interconnections between her womanhood and disability. Rather than positing Gerty’s identities as inherently conflicting, I illustrate how her disability and feminine social position co-constitute and transform one another. Her self-care practices aimed at securing a husband, though partly conforming to norms, also foster confidence and counter pervasive cultural assumptions of disabled women as ugly, useless, and asexual. Gerty’s exhibition of sexual desire and pursuit of pleasure likewise contest views of disabled women as unsuitable for romance or unable to be agentic sexual subjects. Furthermore, conceptualizing agency beyond neoliberal notions of rational autonomy acting against all constraints upholds Gerty’s agentic power. She makes strategic use of available discourses and resources to expand her precarious options given material and ideological limitations. Overall, analyzing Gerty’s intersectional experience denaturalizes the reductive models of identity and agency that have dominated Ulysses criticism. Applying fresh perspectives opens new symbolic interpretations of embodied identity and sexuality.

Rethinking Subjectification: On the Limits of Biesta's Educational Theory

AbstractIn this article, Andrew Thompson explores the tension between Gert Biesta's concept of educational purpose and education's historical function. For Biesta, the purpose of education consists of three overlapping spheres: qualification, socialization, and subjectification. While scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to Biesta's notion of subjectification, there is not enough consideration of his treatment of socialization and its limits on human freedom. Here, Thompson examines the historical role of socialization as it relates to the cultivation of self‐reflecting and self‐governing citizens through a process Ian Hunter describes as pastoral pedagogy. Both Biesta and Hunter critique essentialist notions of subjectivity, noting that critical pedagogy in both liberal and Marxian iterations has relied upon a metaphysics informed by Kantian moral definition in which the subject must freely exercise rational autonomy toward self‐realization. While Biesta suggests redefining the subject, Hunter dismisses any attempt at redefinition as irrelevant since the school's historical process of moral development is inevitably linked to the antiquated liberal ideal. In Hunter's view, all attempts to escape the school's moral teleology inexorably employ a pedagogy that is based on the moral ideal its critics wish to eliminate. This article illustrates the agonism inherent in Biesta's concept of educational purpose and explores the role of the theorist as the expression of a particular moral self that informs the ideal persona of the teacher.

The rejection of rational autonomy as an educational ideal? In search of a philosophical justification for radical change in Paul Hirst’s thinking

Abstract In Paul Hirst’s later writings, he states that his earlier idea that ‘a good life is one of rational autonomy is both inadequate and mistaken’. Instead of rational autonomy, he argues that the main constituent of the good life is the satisfaction of needs and interests in relevant social practices; therefore, the main aim of education should be initiation into social practices. I concur with Hirst regarding the problematic nature of views that take the individual, rational, autonomous moral subject as their educational starting point. Furthermore, like Hirst, I see that the problematic separation of moral thinking and action is embedded in these views. However, I disagree with Hirst regarding the justification of Aristotelian theory, on which he bases his new account. Instead, I defend a pragmatist justification for what I see as the most important dimension of Hirst’s later shift in thinking in his moral theory. Utilizing resources from such pragmatists as Charles S. Peirce, John Dewey, Israel Scheffler, and Nicholas Rescher, I outline an account in which there is no dichotomy between theoretical and practical reason: both reason and emotion belong to nature and work in collaboration, and moral thinking and action can be learned and improved in responsible social practices.

Review of Suzy Killmister, Contours of Dignity

Review of Suzy Killmister, Contours of Dignity Remy Debes It seems that talk of dignity is everywhere. In my first formal study of dignity in 2009, I noted a marked uptick in interest in the subject during the latter half of the twentieth century. Since then, the enlargement of appeals to dignity is even more striking. The idea is now constantly referenced in everyday Western moral and political debate and news coverage. It is featured in all kinds of institutional policies, codes of conduct, and handbooks, especially in the areas of health care. And the number of scholarly articles and books published on the subject over the past decade is impressive, to say the least. Whether all this increased talk has been productive is far less obvious. I argued in 2009 that scholarly inquiry into the subject of dignity was mired in ambiguity. The concept suffered from diverse and often confusing usage, with some meanings cutting in seemingly opposite directions. For example, consider the most obvious tension between the way we sometimes use the term to pick out a distinctively higher social status, such as what a member of a royal family might enjoy, versus the widespread couplet 'human dignity' to denote the kind of basic worth or status that supposedly grounds the moral equality of all persons. I was by no means the first to make this complaint about ambiguity. But that is hardly a flattering clarification for the scholars I was discussing at the time. Moreover, and compounding the ambiguity problem, there was (then) a surprising lack of systematic study. I thus noted that not only was there little explanation of how different senses of dignity related; but also, when it comes specifically to human dignity, I complained that scholars were failing to distinguish the conceptual level they were working at. More exactly, they were often running together two levels. On the one hand, they were talking about the form of dignity: the distinguishing properties, characteristics, or explanatory demands that were supposed to apply to any contentful account of dignity – e.g., the idea that dignity is "incommensurable" with other values, or the idea that it is in some sense "unearned," etc. On the other hand, they were talking about the substance of dignity: they were giving accounts of what dignity consists in, such that it satisfies the formal criteria – e.g. rational autonomy, or a normatively privileged but politically conferred status on all human beings, etc. Finally, and partly due to this rampant ambiguity, I complained that the concept of dignity was ill equipped to fend off its skeptics. Specifically, [End Page E-4] I worried that going theories of dignity were not taking seriously skeptical challenges to the moralized connotation of "human dignity." The intervening years have evidently not resolved either of these problems. Pick up any major work in the past decade and you will find similar laments about ambiguity, the tensions in its meaning, and the lack of systematic study. What may be worse, you will likely find many new meanings. For example, a quick glance at recent scholarly "handbooks" of dignity shows the concept being applied to virtually every academic field outside the hard sciences.1 Moreover, dignity skeptics seem to be multiplying, or at least coming out of the closet. In a recent essay entitled, "Dignity: The Case Against," Michael Rosen remarks that "animus against dignity is widely shared among philosophers, in my experience, and goes back a long way." He buttresses his claim by recounting the encouragement of a colleague to give the concept "a good kicking," and by quoting his favorite historical challenges by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the former of whom called dignity, "the shibboleth of all the perplexed and empty-headed moralists."2 I don't mean to suggest that Rosen's worries about dignity rest on appeals to historical authority or personal testimony. Far from it. Rosen dives into the conceptual history of dignity in a related book. And his essay spells out a few serious, free-standing philosophical challenges for proponents of dignity. Also, it must be noted that Rosen doesn't side unequivocally with the skeptics. There are, however, other skeptics in the wings. For example...

On the relation between decision quality and autonomy in times of patient-centered care: a case study.

It is commonplace that care should be patient-centered. Nevertheless, no universally agreed-upon definition of patient-centered care exists. By consequence, the relation between patient-centered care as such and ethical principles cannot be investigated. However, some research has been performed on the relation between specific models of patient-centered care and ethical principles such as respect for autonomy and beneficence. In this article, I offer a detailed case study on the relationship between specific measures of patient-centered care and the ethical principle of respect for autonomy. Decision Quality Instruments (DQIs) are patient-centered care measures that were developed by Karen Sepucha and colleagues. The model of patient-centered care that guided the development of these DQIs pays special attention to the ethical principle of respect for autonomy. Using Jonathan Pugh's theory of rational autonomy, I will investigate how the DQIs relate to patient autonomy. After outlining Pugh's theory of rational autonomy and framing the DQIs accordingly (Part I), I will investigate whether the methodological choices made while developing these DQIs align with respect for autonomy (Part II). My analysis will indicate several tensions between DQIs and patient autonomy that could result in what I call "structural paternalism." These tensions offer us sufficient reasons, especially given the importance of the ethical principle of respect for autonomy, to initiate a more encompassing debate on the normative validity of Decision Quality Instruments. The aim of the present paper is to highlight the need for, and to offer a roadmap to, this debate.

Acknowledging caregivers' vulnerability in the managment of challenging behaviours to reduce control measures in psychiatry.

The management of challenging behaviours in inpatient with intellectual disability and/or autism spectrum disorders can lead to an escalation of control measures. In these complex situations where patients have an intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder accompanied by a psychiatric comorbidity, the experiences of caregivers related to the crisis management have rarely been studied. This study examined the moral experiences of caregivers related to challenging behaviours' management and alternatives to control measures. Using Charles Taylor's hermeneutic framework, a 2-month focused ethnography with a participatory approach was used. Sixteen caregivers were interviewed in a Canadian mental health setting for adults with intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder and psychiatric comorbidity. The research was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and local Research Ethics Board approval. Written informed consent was collected systematically from participants. By accounting for caregivers' moral experiences, this study sheds light on a neglected dimension of the care relationship: the vulnerability of the caregiver. We highlight the main barriers and facilitators to alternatives to control measures. First, a caregiver's vulnerability was characterised by the overall impact of challenging behaviours and the moral distress associated with the use of control measures and exclusion mechanisms of intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder patients. Second, a strong ambiguity between care and control measures and a lack of inclusive approaches were identified as the two main barriers to challenging behaviour management. Third, the involvement, both professional and personal, of caregivers was deemed necessary to implement alternatives to control measures. A conflict of values opposes two conceptions of autonomy: a rational autonomy, which is counterproductive to the reduction of control measures, versus a relational autonomy based on shared vulnerability. The recognition of caregiver's vulnerability is a benchmark to create alternative approaches, which defuse the logic of control and promote an ethics of care within which caregivers' self-concern can be understood as fostering mutual respect.

Teaching Children How to Think: Rational Autonomy as an Aim of Liberal Education

ABSTRACTSome philosophers think that fostering children's autonomy – in the sense of critical, rational reflection on our beliefs and goals – is an appropriate aim of public educational policy. Critics say that this amounts to championing an Enlightenment outlook over ways of life rooted in faith and tradition. The most common response to the critics is to assert that children have an interest in autonomy, not because autonomy is intrinsically worthwhile, but because it is instrumentally valuable in discovering how to lead a good life. Finding fault with this Instrumental Argument, I argue that the best case for autonomy is that critical, rational reflection is something we all already rely on in everyday life to figure out which beliefs are worthy of our assent and which goals are worthy of our pursuit. The question is not whether children will reason, but whether they will reason well or poorly. Teaching children how to think critically is, thus, best understood as helping them meet their own emerging standards of rationality. And, given that we have a duty to respect others as reasoning beings, we in turn have a collective duty to foster young people's capacity to distinguish good reasoning from bad.

Watson, autonomy and value flexibility: revisiting the debate

Many ethical concerns have been voiced about Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs). Special attention has been paid to the effect of CDSSs on autonomy, responsibility, fairness and transparency. This journal...

The Child’s Autonomy in Decision-making on Medical Treatment: Theoretical Considerations

The article examines the theoretical and normative context of a child’s autonomous decision making in health care. Neither the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child nor the general comments of the Committee on the Rights of the Child state criteria for regarding a child to be competent for such decision-making. The key issue in the debate over children’s informed consent to medical interventions is that of competence. The author analyses competence through the lens of Archard’s division of rational autonomy into rationality, maturity, and independence. These three elements could guide health-care practitioners who need to assess the capacity of a child to consent.

Why Kant Animals Have Rights?

Abstract It has become increasingly common for animal ethicists to advance deontological theories of animal rights, as opposed to merely welfarist theories of animals’ moral significance. Kantians, however, have not been so quick to adapt. The gates to the Kingdom of Ends are closed to any who lack rational autonomy. Christine Korsgaard’s recent work, however, has made a concerted effort to find a place for animals within Kant’s Kingdom of Ends. I argue that Korsgaard can have animal rights or Kantian ethics, but not both.

There Are More Things in (Life) World…

Abstract Through an approach primarily inspired by the Aisthetik (Gernot Böhme) and the Neue Phänomenologie (Hermann Schmitz) I define the atmospheric perception as the first pathic impression and investigate the relationship between this kind of perception (possibly initially immersive, then reflective) and the expressive qualities of our lifeworld. Pathic aesthetics therefore ceases to be just a theory of works of art. It considers the perceiver as a being first of all emotionally and felt-bodily touched by atmospheric feelings widespread in her (lived) space but these atmospheric feelings are also affordances, ontologically rooted in things and quasi-things of her lifeworld. By exploring how she unintentionally exposes herself to what happens in this lifeworld, man turns out to be not a “subject of something” but rather a “subject to something”: a human being who is “sovereign” to the extent she is free from the claim of rational autonomy imposed by the western Modernity.

Interventionism and Mental Surgery

John Campbell has claimed that the interventionist account of causation must be amended if it is to be applied to causation in psychology. The problem, he argues, is that it follows from the so-called ‘surgical’ constraint that intervening on psychological states requires the suspension of the agent’s rational autonomy. In this paper, I argue that the problem Campbell identifies is in fact an instance of a wider problem for interventionism, extending beyond psychology, which I call the problem of ‘abrupt transitions’. I then defend a solution to the problem, which replaces the surgical constraint with a weaker constraint on interventions that nevertheless does all the work the surgical constraint was designed to do. I conclude by exploring some interesting consequences of this weaker constraint for causation in psychology.

Kant's Philosophy of Communication

Kant's Philosophy of Communication

'Education For Commitment' A Logical Contradiction?

Historical pressures have given rise to a doctrine that public education must be value-neutral in its curriculum. Education is to be seen as aiming at enlightenment but not commitment. Versions of value-neutrality are refuted, including the view that the goal of rational autonomy is non-partisan. This is seen to be a normative commitment, albeit educative, from which it appears that education can aim for commitments of a certain kind. Three other basic commitments consistent with the modem notion of education are identified and defended.

WAS CONDORCET A STOIC? ROUSSEAU, UNIVERSAL EDUCATION AND RATIONAL AUTONOMY IN THE FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT

This article considers the philosophical foundations of the French Enlightenment through a close study of the Stoic influences on the Marquis de Condorcet's education philosophy. The article argues that although Condorcet did not acknowledge any direct Stoic influence, his philosophy of education nevertheless should be understood in the eclectic idiom of eighteenth-century Stoic discourse. Furthermore, Condorcet's Stoicism was entirely compatible with Rousseau's Stoicism to the degree that one could call Condorcet a Rousseauean at least in matters of education theory—even though Condorcet, a protégé of Voltaire, is usually presented as a critic of Rousseau. Finally, the article suggests that the notion of liberty that Condorcet seeks to make flourish through his national education plan is in line with the Stoic ideal of rational autonomy, despite Condorcet's insistence that the modern idea of liberty (that is, his own idea) is fundamentally different from the ancient idea.

Kant on the Power and Limits of Pathos: Toward a “Critique of Poetic Rhetoric”

ABSTRACT This article gives an account of the nature and purpose of Kant's poetic rhetoric in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics. I argue that Kant employs a poetic mode of rhetoric in order to provoke a passionate, enthusiastic response in his audience. I go on to show that Kant became increasingly skeptical of poetic rhetoric's pathetic power after publishing Dreams. Ultimately, I demonstrate that Kant's confrontation with the Sturm und Drang led him to formulate a moral critique of poetic rhetoric and its tendency to undermine its audience's rational autonomy. I conclude by highlighting the significance of this critique in and for the development of Kant's mature rhetorical theory.

From the Principle of Rational Autonomy to the Virtuosity of Empathetic Embodiment: Reclaiming the Modern Significance of Confucian Civilization

By laying bare the historical roots and biases of certain modern deprecations of Confucianism, this article defends the integrity of Confucian civilization and reclaims its significance for the modern world. Taking on a typical criticism of Confucian ethics by Alasdair MacIntyre, it is argued that the ideal of Confucian self cannot be defined in terms of Western concepts of either autonomy or heteronomy; it consists rather in a kind of virtuosity as inspired by the empathetic openness of the self. Through a comparative study of Confucian and typical Western ethical theories, I will demonstrate further how the empathetic embodiment of the Confucian self may inform an order of ritual that may still be relevant for the modern world in promoting harmonious social and political orders and transforming conventional power hierarchies into the virtuous rule of benefaction.

Social Justice and Education as Discursive Initiation

AbstractIn this essay Krassimir Stojanov attempts first to reconstruct the “heart” of Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics, namely the so‐called “principle of universalization” of ethical norms. This principle grounds Habermas's proceduralist account of social justice via equal access of all concerned to the practices of deliberative validation of norms. Stojanov claims with regard to this account that it could only be implemented if the social actors are involved in a process of education as discursive initiation. After using R. S. Peters's educational theory to distinguish discursive initiation from a traditionalist understanding of educative initiation, he discusses some central social prerequisites for the development of discursive skills in growing individuals; to identify these prerequisites, he draws on Axel Honneth's conception of the intersubjective origins of individuals' development of rational autonomy. In the final part of the essay, Stojanov briefly explores some implications of his elaborated account of discursive initiation and its social preconditions for schooling and pedagogy.

Citizens without property: Informality and political agency in a Seattle, Washington homeless encampment

Often referred to as “tent cities”, tent encampments have, in the last 10 years, proliferated within and around US cities on a scale unprecedented since the Great Depression. Accounts of these informal dwellings tend to focus on the symbolism of the camp, the function of the camp as safe zone, or the camp as a site of apolitical or prepolitical identity formation. This article attempts to broaden and deepen the conversation on informal dwellings in the US by focusing on the tent encampment as a site of creative political agency and experimentation. Drawing upon a body of work referred to by some as “subaltern urbanism”, I examine how everyday practices of camp management produce localized forms of citizenship and governmentality through which “homeless” residents resist stereotypes of pathology and dependence, reclaim their rational autonomy, and recast deviance as negotiable difference in the production of governmental knowledge. Consideration of these practices, I argue, opens up the possibility of a of a view of encampments that foregrounds the agency of the homeless in the production of new political spaces and subjectivities.

Embedding Digital (Information) Literacy in the First Year Curriculum: An Intervention

This paper describes an intervention aimed at reducing the occurrence of common weaknesses in first level work and thereby improving student performance in assessments. The project involved developing a more systematic approach to embedding information literacy (IL) into the first year curriculum in the Carnegie Faculty at Leeds Beckett University by combining the expertise of subject librarians with that of first year tutors. It was part of a broader programme of institutional curricular change. This collaborative approach was informed by data from individual interviews with previous students and based on a dual rationale: firstly from Sadler’s (2002) call for more high impact, low stakes assessment in the first year and secondly a need to avoid creating a culture of ‘testing’ (Sambell, McDowell, & Montgomery, 2013) in which students position themselves as submitting to others’ judgments rather than developing rational autonomy (Baxter-Magolda, 2003). In other words, we needed to design an assessed activity which encouraged students to engage in learning but created a supportive and collaborative approach. The embedding process together with some of the resources and tools which we developed are described in this paper as well as the respective contributions of the various participants. We explore the impact of two years of implementation based on student interviews and tutor evaluations. Recommendations and examples are provided to demonstrate how a similar approach might work elsewhere either as a local, course-specific intervention or as part of an institution-wide approach to improving students’ digital literacy.