Ethical Autonomy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Swaine
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Reasonable Pluralism ◽  
Liberty Of Conscience ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Moral Structure ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
Good Lives

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.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-220
Author(s):  
Lucas Swaine
Keyword(s):  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Early Emergence ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Democratic Life ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
Elemental Form ◽  
Individual Human

From its early emergence in the discourse of classical antiquity to its expression in contemporary democratic life, autonomy has proven to be a gripping and engaging prospect. But the expansion of personal autonomy casts a long shadow across democracies, fostering unhealthy, morally defective understandings of the nature and limits of individual self-rule. Vaunted in philosophical scholarship and celebrated in the democratic mind, personal autonomy proves excessively lax in a normative sense, faulty and unworthy of endorsement in its elemental form. That problem cannot be solved by ignoring autonomy’s sinister side or by imagining personal autonomy as a singularly positive condition. Autonomy for individual human persons requires qualification and tighter moral specification in order to be worthy of endorsement and allegiance....

The Idea of Personal Autonomy

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-90
Author(s):  
Lucas Swaine
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Individual Self

This chapter elaborates a conception of personal autonomy as individual self-rule. The conception fits with a more general understanding of autonomy as self-rule, and it is not heavily moralized. Autonomy as self-rule is preferable to alternative conceptualizations such as autonomy as self-governance or autonomy as living under one’s own laws. Personal autonomy is different from individual freedom, and it is not identical to the absence of social control. There are several notable grounds for valuing personal autonomy; this chapter describes them, giving a fuller sense of the significance and attractiveness of autonomy of the personal kind.

“Canadians Are Not Proficient in the Art of Lynching”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent M. S. Campney
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Significant Problem ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The Individual

In this chapter, Nandana Dutta examines the turn to collective violence, especially lynching, in postcolonial India, tracing it to “the forms of agency that emerged in the peculiar understanding of issues of modernity, the rule of law, and the indigenous Gandhian form of self rule known famously as swaraj during and after the Independence movement.” Dutta reflects on the connotations of the word lynching as it has been used in recent years in India to refer both to the taking of life by a mob or group, and to also refer to occasions of mob fury/action where death may not actually occur but the dynamics of the individual/mob victim-perpetrator relationship are similar. Noting the influence of American culture in the spread of the term lynching in India, Dutta argues that Indian collective violence “has emerged alongside or in the wake of movements for autonomy, identity, and territory that have become independent India’s most significant problem because these provide both occasion and site for the exercise of agency in the form of extralegal violence.”

13. John Locke

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Waldron
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Short Biography ◽  
Political Thinker

This chapter examines and defends the relevance of John Locke's writings as political philosophy. Locke's political philosophy continues to have an enormous impact on the framing and the pursuit of liberal ideas in modern political thought — ideas about social contract, government by consent, natural law, equality, individual rights, civil disobedience, and private property. The discussion and application of Locke's arguments is thus an indispensable feature of political philosophy as it is practised today. After providing a short biography of Locke, the chapter considers his views on equality and natural law, property, economy, and disagreement, as well as limited government, toleration, and the rule of law. It concludes with an assessment of Locke's legacy as a political thinker.

Public Anger, Violence, and the Legacy of Decolonization in India

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandana Dutta
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Significant Problem ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The Individual

In this chapter, Nandana Dutta examines the turn to collective violence, especially lynching, in postcolonial India, tracing it to “the forms of agency that emerged in the peculiar understanding of issues of modernity, the rule of law, and the indigenous Gandhian form of self rule known famously as swaraj during and after the Independence movement.” Dutta reflects on the connotations of the word lynching as it has been used in recent years in India to refer both to the taking of life by a mob or group, and to also refer to occasions of mob fury/action where death may not actually occur but the dynamics of the individual/mob victim-perpetrator relationship are similar. Noting the influence of American culture in the spread of the term lynching in India, Dutta argues that Indian collective violence “has emerged alongside or in the wake of movements for autonomy, identity, and territory that have become independent India’s most significant problem because these provide both occasion and site for the exercise of agency in the form of extralegal violence.”

scholarly journals Striving to Maintain a Holistic Nation: Preventing Quebec Sovereignty

Federalism-E ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-42
Author(s):  
Kimberley Gosse
Keyword(s):  
Political Identity ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Identity ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
Canadian Federalism ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Political Turmoil

Federalism is essentially a system of voluntary self-rule and shared rule […] a binding partnership among equals in which the parties to the covenant retain their individual identity while creating a new entity.‖1 Canadian federalism illustrates how a political sub-unit such as a province, can maintain personal autonomy while contributing and recognizing its importance to the holistic entity. The federal and provincial governments‘ relationship is constitutional, as their division of powers is entrenched in our written Canadian constitution. However, ambiguity in legislature and a provinces belief of having a weak political identity can create tension among these levels of government. Historically, this has been an issue seen through the province of Quebec and the political turmoil experienced on each respective level of government [...]

Ethical Autonomy

2020 ◽  
pp. 153-216
Author(s):  
Lucas Swaine
Keyword(s):  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrine ◽  
Reasonable Pluralism ◽  
Democratic Life

This chapter expounds the idea of ethical autonomy. Ethical autonomy is personal autonomy modulated by moral character. It is different in kind from personal autonomy. Fusing personal autonomy with moral character alters the autonomous individual’s utilization of her rational and imaginative faculties, her will, her capabilities, and her options. Ethical autonomy is supportive of various kinds of social, political, and religious forms of difference. It is not a comprehensive doctrine. It is suitable for inclusion in educational spheres and it supports citizenship in free societies. Ethical autonomy strengthens reasonable pluralism and the cardinal principles of a liberalism of conscience. It holds special promise for liberalism and democratic life.

Sino-Western Cultural Collisions on “Belt and Road” Initiative: A Comparison of Confucian Culture and Christian Culture

2018 ◽  
Vol 01 (03) ◽  
pp. 1850016
Author(s):  
Wenfa He
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Confucian Culture ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Authoritarian Government ◽  
Reform And Opening Up ◽  
Opening Up

“Belt and Road” Initiative is a major strategy for China’s further reform and opening up, and it welcomes participation of all the countries around the world. This paper mainly discusses the possible collisions between China’s Confucian culture and the Western Christian culture. The paper thinks that there exist the following seven culture collisions: Theism versus Atheism; Limited Government versus Authoritarian Government; Centralism versus Federalism; Freedom Autonomy versus Authority Order; Multiple Speeches versus Social Order; Majority Rule versus Minority Resistance; Morality versus Rule of Law. The paper concludes that whether East or West, benevolence and love are the basic elements recognized and shared by both parties, and that rightly may be the possibilities for mutual beneficial and win–win cooperation.

scholarly journals Islam and Democracy

ICR Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-439
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hashim Kamali
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Education And Employment ◽  
Islam And Democracy

RELIGIOUS VIEWPOINT: A democratic system of rule is on the whole acceptable to Islam. Muslim scholars have differed in their assessment of democracy and constitutionalism from the viewpoint of Islamic principles. The view has gained ground, however, that a democratic system of rule is on the whole acceptable to Islam. This acceptance is because democracy is about fundamental rights and liberties, the rule of law, a representative and participatory government, separation of powers and equality before the law. Rights and liberties are a manifestation of human dignity which must be protected against the coercive power of the state. A constitution is also an instrument of limitation, organisation and division of power among the various organs of state. Broadly, Islam approves of most of these concepts and takes affirmative positions on the protection and realisation of people’s welfare and maslahah, a consultative government committed to accountability (muhasabah) and justice. Islam advocates a limited government, which is committed to the advancement of the goals and purposes (maqasid) of Shariah. Islam and democracy both seek to realise people’s welfare and basic rights of life, personal security, privacy and ownership. The Shariah recognises these, as also the rights to education and employment, and the individual’s entitlement to the essentials of life.

A Universal Rule of Law for a Pluralist World Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Nijman
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
World Order ◽  
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
Universal Rule

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was committed to the idea of a universal rule of law that governed sovereign powers, and he argued that European rulers should learn from Chinese moral and political philosophy and from the Chinese emperor, who was in his view more successful in being the moral and responsible political ruler that the law required. Leibniz’s universal rule of law is an ideal for a pluralist world. China and Europe were different yet equal and they needed each other to critically assess and perfect themselves and humanity as a whole. Leibniz’s interest in Chinese moral and political thought testifies to his conviction that natural law—grounded on justice as ‘wise charity’—is universal and that it governs the inner life of human beings, whether sovereign or subject. If internalized through a rational practice of self-cultivation and self-perfection, a rule of law as justice guides and constrains acts towards the perfection of the individual self as well as towards the realization of ‘the empire of reason’, ie a world order based on a universal rule of natural law and justice.

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