Subjects: LCSH: Autonomy (Philosophy) | Life.
Classification: LCC B808.67 .R6413 2021 (print) | LCC B808.67 (ebook) | DDC 128--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042602
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042603
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Preface to the English Edition
Since the initial publication of my book on autonomy by Suhrkamp in 2017, I have had many opportunities to give lectures and take part in discussions about the propositions found in it – and I am enormously grateful to all the participants for their many suggestions and critical contributions. For the English translation, then, I was faced with the choice of either thoroughly reworking large parts of the book, incorporating the most recent literature, and thus almost writing a new book – or having the book translated and published in its original form, in full awareness of its shortcomings. I decided on the latter option, changing only a few details here and there, and I hope that I can nevertheless count on a similarly positive reaction to the one I was so happy to see the German edition receive.
I owe great thanks to the many bilingual friends and critics who read, commented on, and discussed the book and parts of the translation with me – including and especially those who helped to get the translation going. I only want to mention two here: Robert Pippin, who encouraged me enormously and at decisive moments; and Hannah Ginsborg, whose enthusiasm and whose assistance and support in discussing the translation of some of the more unwieldy words (like Unhintergehbarkeit or Lebenslüge) were a huge help.
At Polity, Elise Heslinga was always patient and endlessly helpful during these difficult pandemic times. I would also like to thank my translator James Wagner, who transformed my sometimes rather long sentences into shorter English units meticulously and with great dedication, and who tolerated my at times unhappy search for what I really wanted to express with an abundance of patience and persistence.
Finally, I am very grateful to Maarten van Tunen, whose bibliographical assistance with the many footnotes was invaluable.
Amsterdam, July 2020
Preface
This book is about the contradictions or tensions between our conception of ourselves as autonomous persons and our everyday experiences of a not particularly self-determined life. It is not a purely academic treatment but rather aims to be accessible also to readers who haven’t studied philosophy but are interested in the idea of autonomy and the life well lived. Hence on the whole, I have tried to write this book differently than I would have were it only for my philosophical colleagues; this was certainly easier to manage in some chapters than in others. I also frequently use an inclusive “we,” in the hope that I have in fact written this book for the people who may pick it up and find themselves in it.
I have been occupying myself with the problem of autonomy for many years now. During this time, I have had frequent opportunities to deliver lectures on the topics covered in this book. I profited greatly from the discussions that followed these talks, and I thank all those who participated for their critiques and suggestions. Particular gratitude is owed, however, to those friends and colleagues who read earlier versions of some of the chapters and those who patiently discussed numerous problems with me again and again: Joel Anderson, Katharina Bauer, Gijs van Donselaar, James Gledhill, Eva Groen-Reijman, Elisabeth Holzleithner, Naomi Kloosterboer, Thomas Nys, Andrew Roberts, Kati Röttger, Holmer Steinfath, and Henri Wijsbek. Their constructive comments were a great help to me.
I would also like to give special thanks to Robin Celikates and Stefan Gosepath, who were markedly consistent critical readers. They, along with Catriona Mackenzie and John Christman, belong to our autonomy workgroup, whose meetings and discussions were always highly instructive for me. My long conversations with Catriona Mackenzie about autonomy and the meaning of life – in Amsterdam and Sydney as well as in the Australian desert – also helped me immensely.
Thanks to my brothers, Martin Roessler and Johannes Roessler, for faithfully providing their respective expertise, and to Elke Rutzenhöfer for her advice as well as for her loyalty and friendship.
Large parts of this book were written in the Library of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, which is a wonderfully quiet place to work, especially in the summer, and I owe great thanks to Lidie Koeneman for her quick assistance in cases of bibliographical emergency. Lara von Dehn helped me with technical details at the very beginning, but the lion’s share of the editing of every chapter was carried out by Johannes Sudau – I am deeply grateful to him for his care and diligence. Finally, I would like to thank Eva Gilmer for her critical reading and numerous suggestions for improvements, and Philipp Hölzing for his patience as I was completing the book.
Amsterdam, December 2016
Introduction: Autonomy in Everyday Life
In liberal societies in the West, we generally assume that we are autonomous. We take it to be self-evident that we have the right to make autonomous choices and live a self-determined life. We believe that we are capable of living such a life, of reflecting on what we want to do and how we want to live, and then converting these thoughts into action. And we value this, for a heteronomous life – a life in which I would have to live and do existentially important things against my own will and my own choices – could never be a good, well-lived life.
Autonomy has long been a fundamental theme of philosophy, especially since Kant. The contemporary theory landscape thus features, on one side, normative theories that describe in detail the conditions – frequently idealized – under which an autonomous life is possible, including, of course, theories that declare leading an autonomous life to be utterly unproblematic. On the other side, however, we find fundamental doubts about the possibility and meaning of autonomy, for instance in positions that seek to establish that leading an autonomous life is impossible by demonstrating just how much each and every one of us is dependent on circumstances and relations that we do not choose ourselves. So, while autonomy is morally and legally fundamental to our societies, what exactly this means for our lives remains largely unclear. It is therefore a pressing question how to develop and substantiate a plausible concept of autonomy between the detailed normative theories and their defenders, on the one hand, and the fundamental skeptics, on the other. Interestingly, both normative concept and fundamental skepticism can be described from the perspective of the autonomous person herself – at which point we are dealing no longer with two opposing theories but with the tension between our normative understanding of ourselves and our everyday experience.
Although we most often proceed from the assumption that it is possible to lead a self-determined life, there are countless situations and aspects of our lives that we precisely did not choose for ourselves, in which we ask ourselves how it could come to this, in which we decide that fate or, more simply, our own carelessness is to blame. The possibility that we succeed or fail in shaping our own lives is part of our everyday experience. Nevertheless, there are very different reasons why this tension is connected