Autonomy as Critical Appropriation

• In Event: Feminism and Politics

Abstract

One of the popular critiques of liberalism today is that liberalism has been intertwined with imperialistic tendencies. (Mehta 1999; Pitts 2006) Nonetheless, a substantial number of “non-Western” individuals who experienced the imperialistic imposition of liberalism still utilize liberal values to construct their life projects and organize movements against existing oppression. It would be unfair to denigrate these efforts as a mere imitation of or blind submission to “the West.” However, at the same time, it is undeniable that these liberal practices are often intertwined with the idea that “Western” experiences construct the standard model of liberalism, whereas other societies are on the receiving end of this process. To what extent can we say these individuals made autonomous judgments in relation to liberal values in this context?
The mainstream conception of autonomy does not provide adequate conceptual tools to answer this question because it revolves around the following two elements. First, the idea of the authentic individual, the idea that it is possible to identify my authentic desires and commitments that are truthful to my inner voice, as opposed to being derivatives of something else. However, I argue that any discussion about individual authenticity is incomplete without considering the impact of imperialistic ideology that devalued “non-Western” collective identities as inferior or derivative. Second, I point out the ambiguity of the common intuition that manipulative norms contradict autonomy. This rhetoric is commonly used to criticize the oppressive influence of cultural or religious norms on individuality. While I sympathize with concerns that internalizing oppressive norms may seriously undermine a person’s reflective and critical capacities, I doubt whether this problem can be effectively addressed with a counterfactual framework revolving around the talk of manipulation. In fact, emphasizing manipulation as a central aspect of autonomy can backfire for liberals because the individuals’ preferences for liberal values in “non-Western” societies cannot be fully comprehended without the influence of liberal hegemony and imperialistic ideologies that may have distorted their motivational structures.
Nevertheless, I uphold individual autonomy as a necessary concept to achieve the ideal of equal respect, which I believe is integral to the well-being of many individuals. Therefore, instead of rejecting the concept altogether, I explore possible ways to untie individual autonomy from these ambiguous or demanding conceptual elements, drawing on the feminist theory of relational autonomy (Mackenzie & Stoljar 2000; Westlund 2009; Nedelsky 2011; Veltman & Piper 2014). While not all conceptions of relational autonomy can ally with the liberal notion of autonomy, I sift out conceptual resources that can be used to complement the mainstream conception and properly address the aforementioned problem. More specifically, I propose autonomy as critical appropriation: a capacity to construct one’s life by appropriating existing life-constructing materials and justifying one’s judgment from critical challenges posed by meaningful others. Critical appropriation consists of two central components: (a) appropriation, whether an agent reinterprets and situates existing norms and life projects in a way that they fit into her experiences and given social contexts; and (b) the act of reason-giving, whether an agent is capable of engaging in a critical dialogue about her decisions with actual or imagined others with whom she has meaningful social relationships. I explain why this conception provides a useful understanding of how people maneuver the conflict between “foreign” and “traditional” values and maintain self-authorship.

Author

• Yujin Choi, Columbia University