Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (34 page)

1. Steven Wall,
   Liberalism, Perfectionism and Restraint,
   183.
   

   tonomy should not be the sole consideration of liberal justice. As Wall puts it: ‘‘
   Autonomy is not all that matters.
   It is one, but only one, compo- nent of a fully good life. . . . Sometimes the pursuit of maximal auton- omy will obstruct the pursuit of other goods, and sometimes these goods will contribute more to a person’s life than the increased auton- omy.’’
   53
   Autonomy is not the only value, and cannot be the only value in a liberal theory of justice, because
   equality
   and
   well-being
   are also central (liberal) values. We must value things other than autonomy, for otherwise there is no value in the things we might wish to be autono- mous
   about.
   Autonomy would seem to be without purpose or worth.
   54
   I have argued throughout that concerns for equality, coupled with the theory of social construction, must lead to a modification of the liberal prioritization of choice and of some liberal accounts of autonomy. I have also argued that we must take some account of well-being, which I have discussed in terms of the absence of harm. This argument is supported by Simon Caney, who argues: ‘‘We would like to live valuable lives and wish to avoid shabby, boring and worthless conceptions of the good. . . . [Thus] citizens also have an interest in wellbeing.’’
   55
   It follows that autonomy cannot be the supreme value in a way that rules out trade-offs with other values.
   

   Moreover, the goal of autonomy-maximization would have extreme or bizarre implications that liberals are not willing to accept. The dis- tinction between first- and second-order autonomy shows that it is quite possible for an individual to choose a way of life but not choose all its elements. If we were to attempt to maximize autonomy, we would have to say that second-order ways of life should entail no con- straints whatsoever on first-order choices. In other words, it would have to be possible for individuals to be priests without believing in the basic tenets of the Church, or to be academics without marking exams. If autonomy were truly to be maximized, it would have to be open to each individual to choose precisely which elements of their second-order goals to pursue and which to reject. The equality tribunal would have to be replaced with an autonomy tribunal, in which any individual could complain that a group or institution’s rules breached their first-order autonomy. Such a tribunal would not, I take it, be attractive. Indeed, as
   

2. Ibid.
   ,
   185; emphasis in the original.
   

3. See Will Kymlicka,
   Liberalism, Community, and Culture
   , 48–50.
   

4. Simon Caney, ‘‘Anti-perfectionism and Rawlsian Liberalism,’’ 260.
   

   Will Kymlicka points out, it would be ‘‘perverse’’ to think there is al- ways more value in making more autonomous choices rather than fewer: ‘‘We don’t suppose that someone who has made twenty mar- riage choices is in any way leading a more valuable life than someone who has no reason to question or revise their original choice.’’
   56
   

   Enhancing Autonomy
   

   The arguments of the previous sections should not, finally, be taken to imply that my approach has only negative effects on autonomy. On the contrary, there are several ways in which my proposals enhance individual autonomy, all of which have been discussed previously. So as to end on a positive note, I briefly summarize them here.
   

   First, my proscriptive proposals enhance an individual’s first-
   and
   second-order autonomy when they destroy a norm that conflicted with the individual’s first-order autonomy, but with which she complied so as to achieve some second-order goal. Thus proscribing breast implants increases the autonomy of the woman who does not want breast im- plants in and of themselves but feels she has to have them so as to be famous (if, after proscription, she can become famous without im- plants).
   57
   If the woman would merely prefer not to have the breast implants if possible, then her first-order autonomy is enhanced; if breast implants conflict with another of her second-order goals (such as health) then her second-order autonomy is also enhanced.
   

   Second, my proposal of the equality tribunal, outlined in Chapter 4, should only enhance autonomy. As I argued, the equality tribunal leaves individuals’ autonomy to live unequal lives intact since it affects only the rules that are imposed on them from above, not those which they set themselves from within. A woman who autonomously wished to have an unequal say in divorce, for example, could simply decide not to petition for divorce unless her husband consented. For individuals without such an autonomous desire to be unequal, the equality tribu- nal is even clearer in its enhancement of autonomy. The aim of the
   

5. Kymlicka,
   Liberalism, Community, and Culture
   , 49.
   

6. Similar examples from earlier in the book are that a woman’s first- and second-order autonomy are enhanced if she does not have to undergo
   fgm
   to become marriageable and Rachel’s first- and second-order autonomy are enhanced if she does not have to smoke so as to find success in her career. In the latter case I have not argued for state proscription; I do think, however, that autonomy would be better if Rachel could interact informally with her boss over tea rather than cigarettes.
   

equality tribunal is to undermine the degree to which second-order goals require individuals (unequally and therefore unjustly) to alienate their first-order autonomy, so that individuals have more scope to choose for themselves which aspects of their second-order goals they uphold and which they reject. This scope is not absolute—the equality tribunal is not an autonomy tribunal—but it is much wider than at present.

7

liberal perfectionism and the autonomy of restricted lives

Is it possible to follow a restricted life and still be autonomous? To put the question more precisely, is it possible to submit to a form of life that is laid down by one’s culture or religion, and which allows for little or no individual decision-making, innovation, or control, and for this submission to be compatible with autonomy? In the previous chapter I argued that a concern for autonomy does not rule out all forms of paternalism—in part because it does not make sense to attempt to
maximize
autonomy. Nonetheless, autonomy remains a key liberal and feminist value, and so in this chapter I consider the liberal perfectionist attempt to protect or enhance autonomy while using the coercive pow- ers of the state.
1

In Chapter 5, I identified two different sorts of autonomy, which I labeled first- and second-order autonomy. First-order autonomy per- tains when one leads a daily life of active questioning, following only those norms one actively endorses. Second-order autonomy occurs when one chooses one’s overall way of life. Liberal theories differ in their understandings of the
priority
of each order of autonomy and the
relationship
that holds between them. In this chapter I endorse the lib- eral perfectionist claim that a life of autonomy is more valuable than one without, and therefore that such a life is worthy of state promotion, protection, or even enforcement. However, several prominent liberal perfectionists attempt to render restrictive culturally defined ways of life compatible with autonomy. They can do so only by making prob- lematic philosophical arguments concerning the concept of autonomy, arguments that must be rejected in the light of social construction. Throughout this chapter, I illustrate my argument with the general

1. For an account of autonomy’s value to feminism, see Friedman,
   Autonomy, Gender, Politics,
   3.
   

   case of convent life, and with specific testimonies from several nuns drawn from interviews by Mary Loudon. Other sorts of restrictive lives that might also be considered include military life; life in traditional and restrictive cultures, religions, or marriages; and the example be- loved of political philosophers of selling oneself into slavery.
   

   In Chapter 5, I argued that political liberals such as Martha Nuss- baum prioritize second-order autonomy over first. In response to con- vent life, a political liberal would say that nuns may well lack first-order autonomy, but that this lack is unproblematic from the point of view of justice if the choice to enter the convent was second-order autono- mous. It does not seem possible for liberal perfectionists such as Jo- seph Raz to accept that such lives lack any sort of autonomy, since a key part of the liberal perfectionist claim is the idea that, in liberal societies at least, autonomous lives are more valuable than nonautono- mous ones. Indeed, Raz goes further, claiming that we can prosper in a liberal society ‘‘
   only
   if we can be successfully autonomous.’’
   2
   From this point of view, it seems that perfectionists must say one of two things about convent life and other lives that lack first-order autonomy. Perfectionists could agree with political liberals that such lives do in- deed lack autonomy, but would then have to part company from politi- cal liberals and conclude that such lives are
   pro tanto
   undesirable or incompatible with well-being. Given the perfectionist desire to use the state to promote autonomy, such an approach would invite state prohi- bition, discouragement, or regulation of convent life. Such a policy would be entirely consistent, but perfectionists do not seem to want to endorse it. Raz speaks approvingly or at least uncritically of monastic life, and Steven Wall explicitly endorses it, as we shall see shortly.
   

   If convent life is to be acceptable from the perfectionist point of view, then, perfectionist liberals must follow a rather complex alterna- tive. They must claim that convent life and other similarly restrictive lives are in fact compatible with autonomy. Thus, the reason that the perfectionist liberal state does not discourage or prohibit convent life is that convent life is autonomous life. At first sight, this strategy looks distinctly unpromising. After all, becoming a nun requires making two vows—poverty and chastity—that look at least potentially autonomy- reducing, and one vow—obedience—that seems paradigmatically so. How can a vow of lifelong obedience be compatible with autonomy?
   

2. Raz,
   Morality of Freedom,
   394; emphasis added.
   

The simplest way in which one can argue that convent life is autono- mous is by ignoring the idea of first-order autonomy and defining au- tonomy
per se
as second-order autonomy. Raz seems to follow this strat- egy when he claims ‘‘the autonomous life is discerned not by what there is in it but by how it came to be.’’
3
This statement implies that one might live a very restricted life in which one submits to others in many areas and has no first-order autonomy (such as convent life), without threatening Razian (second-order) autonomy. As long as the life is the result of a conscious second-order autonomous decision, it would be autonomous on Raz’s terms. In Nozickian terms, autonomy would be a historical concept, not an end-state concept.
4
In asking whether a person is autonomous we should ask not ‘‘is she living an autonomous kind of daily life?’’—in other words, a life of first-order autonomy—but rather ‘‘is she living her daily life as a result of prior autonomous decision-making?’’

This strategy, though internally consistent, is somewhat simplistic on its own. After all, it seems to imply that autonomy is nothing more than a once-in-a-lifetime choice; that one could be autonomous if one had sold oneself into slavery or simply made some conscious decision at some long-past point in one’s life. Raz’s theory is by no means sim- plistic, however. Behind this straightforward method of rendering con- vent life autonomous is a far more complex theory, one that combines the two sorts of autonomy along with other concepts such as social forms and loyalty. It is this more complex theory I want to examine. In particular, I want to examine the idea that a second-order autonomous choice of a way of life in some way
transforms
the first-order autonomy status of that way of life. This idea of transformation is expressed by Wall:

People in modern western societies sometimes choose to lead relatively non-autonomous lives. For example, they join con- vents or enlist in the military for life. . . . Does this not show that one can live a fully good life in these societies without realizing the ideal of autonomy?

This objection overlooks something important. People in modern western societies who lead relatively non-autonomous

3. Ibid., 370.

1. Robert Nozick,
   Anarchy, State and Utopia.
   

   lives can choose to lead those lives. This fact is important, for
   it transforms the nature of the way of life they engage in.
   The self- conscious decision to become a nun or have a career in the military is not incompatible with the ideal of autonomy.
   5
   

   The rest of the chapter considers whether the fact that one has chosen to live a nonautonomous life really does transform the nature of that life.
   

   The Connection Between First- and Second-Order Autonomy
   

   I have labeled a woman who wants to be a nun as having second- but not first-order autonomy. Her second-order autonomous choice to be a nun means that she will have to submit to the rules of the convent, and it is on that basis that I say she lacks first-order autonomy. But it might be objected that I have misdescribed the case. According to this objection, what it
   means
   to be a nun is that one must submit to the rules of the convent. A life as a nun is a life of obedience, to God and to the convent’s rules and hierarchies. One cannot second-order autonomously choose to be a nun without, at the same time, autono- mously choosing to submit to the rules of the convent. But, the objec- tion continues, if one autonomously submits to the rules of the con- vent, one has first-order autonomy: in one’s daily life, one is following rules that one actively wishes to follow, rather than following rules that are forced upon one or on which one does not reflect. It follows that the nun obeys the rules of the convent with first-order autonomy (albeit without negative freedom). Without these first-order desires, the sec- ond-order desire to live a life of obedience does not make sense. So, the objection concludes, one reason to defend a woman’s autonomous choice to be a nun is that her choice does not involve alienating her first-order autonomy at all. It realizes that autonomy.
   

   We now have two competing interpretations of convent life. Accord- ing to the first interpretation, which I call the separation approach, the woman has second-order autonomy (because she has chosen to be- come a nun) but not first-order autonomy (because, once she is a nun, she must obey the rules of the convent, either without engaging in any
   

2. Wall,
   Liberalism, Perfectionism and Restraint,
   170; emphasis added.
   

   critical reflection on their value, or regardless of the results of such reflection). This is the approach taken by political liberals such as Nuss- baum. According to the second interpretation, which I call the transfor- mation approach, the woman has second-order autonomy (because she has chosen to become a nun)
   and
   first-order autonomy (because her choice to become a nun was in itself a choice to live a life of obedience, following the rules of the convent, so that the convent rules are
   therefore
   followed autonomously).
   

   These alternative interpretations open up a number of complex is- sues, which will become clearer if we extend the example. At the time of the interviews which I quote from, Eva Heymann was a sixty-three- year-old nun in the Roman Catholic Holy Child Jesus Convent in Ox- ford Circus, London. She joined the convent at the age of thirty, and at that time there was a rule in the convent that incoming mail was read by the convent leaders. Eva recalls:
   

   The second year I was dead scared of being sent home. I really wanted to stay, even though it was a struggle and so much of our lifestyle was totally foreign to me.
   

   For instance, our letters were opened, and I thought that was horrendous. The incoming letters were read, and it smacked to me of the Nazi regime where letters and phone calls were intercepted. The whole business of somebody invad- ing your life, your person, seemed to me appalling.
   6
   

   Eva’s discomfort concerning the rule is even more understandable when one learns that she converted to Catholicism from Judaism after fleeing from Nazi Germany as a child. So, is she autonomous? Even on the separation approach, once Eva is a nun she obeys many of the rules of the convent that confirm her commitment to Christ—rules governing times of prayer, for example—with both first- and second- order autonomy. Her second-order autonomy is realized because she wanted to be a nun; her first-order autonomy is realized because she has considered, questioned, and adopted wholeheartedly for herself the specific rules of prayer and the commitment to Christ.
   

   What about Eva’s submission to the rule that her incoming letters will be opened? Clearly, if this surveillance were part of what Eva val-
   

3. Mary Loudon,
   Unveiled
   , 64.
   

   ued about being a nun, if she had thought about the rule and endorsed it, she would have first-order autonomy regarding it even on the separa- tion approach. However, this is not her situation. Eva allows her letters to be opened and read simply so as to serve her second-order goal of being a nun, despite finding the rule unrelated to her religious motiva- tions and beliefs and resonant of Nazi oppression. Nonetheless, she submits to the rule because, and to the extent that, it is a requirement of convent life. If she had been able, she would have remained in the convent without having her letters opened. Since there is a rule to the contrary, she submits to surveillance so as to be allowed to stay. Does she, then, submit with first-order autonomy?
   

   According to the transformation approach, Eva does have first-order autonomy. On this interpretation, it is not possible to break down the rules of the convent and say that they have different implications for Eva’s autonomy. The life of a nun must be considered as a whole, as a life of obedience to rules, regardless of the specific content of any indi- vidual rule. Surveillance of mail is a rule of the convent, part of what it means to be a nun, and so it is not possible for her to will autono- mously to be a nun without at the same time autonomously willing that she submit to surveillance.
   

   In effect, someone taking this transformation approach would deny the very possibility of any cases in which someone has second-order but not first-order autonomy.
   7
   Anyone with second-order autonomy would thereby have first-order autonomy with respect to all the norms that comprise the second-order goal. But this approach is problematic. First, it is conceptually impoverished. It ignores the philosophically coherent distinction between Eva’s attitude to surveillance and her atti- tude to prayer, and does so in a way that flatly contradicts the definition of first-order autonomy. First-order autonomy, I argued, is when an individual lives a life in which one obeys only those rules that one endorses after reflection. If Eva’s mail being opened counts as an in- stance of first-order autonomy, it undermines the meaningfulness of this definition, of the distinction between the two types of autonomy,
   

4. A trivial point in the name of precision: such a respondent would be denying the possibility of such cases only where the first-order choice is related to the second-order choice. One could still have second-order autonomy but lack first-order autonomy in an en- tirely unrelated matter. For example, a nun might have full autonomy as regards convent life but lack first-order autonomy with regard to her habit of biting her nails. In the discussion I am ignoring these kinds of cases and assuming that the two sorts of autonomy are related.
   

   and of the distinction between how she feels about the surveillance and how she feels about committing herself to Christ.
   8
   

   Note that at this point I am not making any normative claims about the relative importance of first-order autonomy. I am simply arguing that, in relation to her mail, Eva does not have it. Political liberals must agree. For political liberals, as we have seen, autonomy is valued in the political sphere partly because it is compatible with people being nonautonomous in private. But the transformation argument that we are considering effectively says that cases of freely chosen nonautono- mous lives do not exist, as a matter of conceptual impossibility. Politi- cal liberals cannot follow this line of reasoning; to do so would mean that there can be no such thing as a freely chosen nonautonomous life. Imposing autonomy in the political sphere effectively imposes it in all spheres. However, such an outcome is not problematic for liberal perfectionists; indeed, that is their desired goal.
   

   Raz and the Social Forms Thesis
   

   Turn to liberal perfectionism, then, and to Raz’s version of it in particu- lar. A useful outline of Raz’s theory is provided by David McCabe, and I largely follow his interpretation. According to McCabe, Raz’s theory combines three ‘‘strategies of defense’’ of liberalism: ‘‘autonomy, value pluralism, and the appeal to social practices.’’
   9
   These strategies, which other theorists have viewed as competing, are combined in Raz’s ac- count. First, Raz argues that political arrangements must be judged according to their contribution to human well-being. Well-being, in turn, is determined by success in valuable comprehensive goals. These valuable goals ‘‘are determined by the social forms of one’s commu-
   

5. Note that it remains possible for one to have first-order autonomy and regret, at one level, one’s lack of negative freedom. For example, it might be convenient for me to be able to use my mobile phone while I am in the British Library, for then I could take important calls without having to interrupt my work by leaving the reading room. In this sense I regret the lack of negative freedom imposed on me by the library’s rule forbidding mobile phones. However, I would be very annoyed if others made phone calls in the library. Moreover, I see that it would be unfair if only I were allowed to use my phone. So, although it would be far more convenient for me to disobey the rule, I obey willingly in the sense that I endorse the rule. The rule reduces my liberty but not my first-order autonomy.
   

6. David McCabe, ‘‘Joseph Raz and the Contextual Argument for Liberal Perfectionism,’’ 493.