UC Riverside

“Autonomy” is an equivocal term. The central problem of this dissertation is finding an adequate account of the most robust kind of autonomy, which I call “Philosophical Autonomy”. I argue there are two common ways of interpreting “self-governance”: governing from the self, and governing the self. These two notions are often confused in the literature, but they must be kept distinct. Philosophical autonomy is properly understood as governance of the self, not governance from the self. Governance from the self holds presupposes that I already have a substantial self which has the requisite authority needed for autonomy, and that I self-govern when I act from this substantial self. In contrast, governance of the self requires that I decide what my substantial self will be; I cannot simply accept the substantial self I already have. As the fullest kind of autonomy, philosophical autonomy must be governance of the self; it must require me to decide on my very self. After surveying current accounts of autonomy offered in the literature, I conclude that none of them provide a satisfactory account of governing the self. This is because they all fail to explain how we can be meta-active: that is, how we can decide what our substantial selves will be. I then proceed to diagnose why meta-activity has been impossible to account for, and propose a solution. The resulting theory is one which centers the need to be perpetually open to feedback about the ways I am/have been meta-passive. Perpetual openness requires that I take the question “Who will I be?” seriously such that I am committed to giving a good answer to this question. But the only way I can give a good answer is if I presuppose that there is some objective standard for what counts as a god answer. I must therefore take the world seriously. The fullest expression of autonomy, which started out as an ostensibly navel-gazing project, ends up requiring me to engage sincerely with the world and other people.