Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (37 page)

28. Ibid., 9.

29. Ibid., 28.

30. Ibid., 35.

have been made, it is not part of the social form of being a nun that the nuns should have those sorts of autonomy.
In other words, we can still identify first-order autonomy as something separate from second-order autonomy. This conclusion clearly supports the separation approach over the transformation approach.

Second, the fact that several of the nuns disagree with the position of the Church on issues such as the ordination of women priests and the acceptability of homosexuality shows that they would not be con- tent with a philosophical approach that cast them as autonomous by definition. Despite the fact that all the nuns have taken a vow of obedi- ence, and the fact that the Roman Catholic nuns are part of a church that is organized on the basis of hierarchy and authority, they still un- derstand themselves as having legitimate disagreements with Church tenets. It follows, then, that their behavior is limited by rules with which they do not agree and which they do not endorse. Surely, then, it makes sense to describe them as lacking first-order autonomy in this regard.

If this argument is right, it does seem rather dangerous to take the line that the only autonomy worth the name is second-order autonomy, or the line that second-order autonomy thereby entails first-order au- tonomy (the transformation approach). Either line means that there can be no autonomy-based claim for changes in a way of life whose form is laid down by tradition and authority. A Catholic woman could not claim that her autonomy is restricted by the fact that she is unable to be ordained, and a nun could not claim that her autonomy is re- stricted by the facts that there are no community votes and that she must have her letters opened. Even if one thinks that Catholic women and nuns
should not
have autonomy regarding these issues, one must concede that they do not in fact have it.

My argument, then, may seem trivial and obviously true. It seems that way to me. But, for all its triviality, it has consequences for perfec- tionist arguments. If I am right that nuns, and other people living restricted lives that are laid down by authority and tradition, lack first- order autonomy, perfectionists must adjust their attitude toward them. They might adopt one of two strategies. First, they might agree with political liberals that nonautonomous ways of life are acceptable in cer- tain circumstances (perhaps if they are chosen with second-order au- tonomy). This strategy would have several problems. It would under- mine the distinctiveness of liberal perfectionism, along with its key

claim that autonomous lives are better than nonautonomous lives. It would also mean rejecting Raz’s claim that one cannot be successful in a liberal society without being autonomous, since autonomy is part of the social forms of liberalism.

Second, then, a perfectionist might argue that ways of life that lack first-order autonomy should be discouraged or even prohibited by the state. Such a strategy would be deeply controversial. It would also have philosophical implications. It could be justified by the abandonment of the social forms thesis and the defense of autonomy as a universal value. Or it could be philosophically justified by a refinement of the social forms thesis: the abandonment of the loyalty thesis, and the abandonment of the idea that individuals ought to participate in recog- nized ways of life with certain determinate structures. The only rele- vant social form would be the social form of autonomy itself, so that individuals would be able to—and indeed could flourish only if they did—mix and match and hybridize traditions and ways of life.

An Alternative Formulation

Liberal feminist Marilyn Friedman has a different strategy for dealing with restrictive lives. Friedman’s strategy is to distinguish two types of autonomy and claim that only one is necessary for autonomy in general to exist. In this respect, her approach is similar to the transformation approach discussed so far. However, the two types of autonomy are not clearly defined.

Friedman’s distinction is between substantive and content-neutral autonomy, and it is content-neutral autonomy that she favors. Content- neutral autonomy is very similar to second-order autonomy since it is concerned with ‘‘the manner in which [an individual] reaches and makes her choices. . . . The substance of her choices and commitments does not matter.’’
31
This definition leads Friedman to conclude that convent life is compatible with autonomy: ‘‘Someone can autono- mously give up her own future autonomy, for example, by entering a religious order requiring unconditional obedience to church authority. She will become nonautonomous in her behavior after making and adhering to that sort of choice, but this does not mean that she was

1. Friedman,
   Autonomy, Gender, Politics
   , 19.
   

   nonautonomous when first making the choice.’’
   32
   So far, Friedman’s account looks very similar to Nussbaum’s political liberal account dis- cussed in Chapter 5, in that Friedman accepts that convent life is non- autonomous (in my terms, that it lacks first-order autonomy) but exon- erates it so far as it was entered into with second-order/content-neutral autonomy.
   

   However, Friedman’s ‘‘substantive autonomy’’ is not the same as first-order autonomy. Substantive autonomy has features of both first- and second-order autonomy. Thus Friedman states that substantive au- tonomy (but not content-neutral autonomy) is ‘‘stable and enduring,’’
   33
   since ‘‘someone choosing subservience would not be autonomous un- less she did so for some higher nonsubordinate purpose which contin- ued to be her own purpose even in the condition of her servitude.’’
   34
   This definition implies that substantive autonomy is the same as con- tent-neutral autonomy, except that the former must persist whereas the latter can be a once-in-a-lifetime matter. Friedman implies that some- one who autonomously entered a convent at time
   t
   only to regret that decision at
   t
   +
   1
   still has
   content-neutral autonomy at time
   t
   +
   1 (even though she lacks substantive autonomy). This aspect of Friedman’s account is closer to Raz’s endorsement of loyalty than Nussbaum’s prioritization of second-order autonomy; and since Friedman priori- tizes content-neutral autonomy, her account is open to the objections raised against the requirement of loyalty.
   

   Another similarity between Friedman and Raz is that Friedman at- tempts a version of the transformation strategy. For Raz, this consisted of the claim that a second-order choice of a way of life (e.g., to enter a convent) thereby transforms the nature of that way of life into one that is first-order autonomous, or autonomous in general. For Friedman, the transformation is in the other direction. She claims that a concern for substantive autonomy is, insofar as it is defensible, a concern for content-neutral autonomy. It is therefore preferable to prioritize con- tent-neutral autonomy. This argument runs as follows:
   

   A substantive conception requires someone to be committed to autonomy itself as a value. . . . What exactly should someone be committed to when she is committed to autonomy as a
   

2. Ibid.
   

33. Ibid., 20.

34. Ibid., 19.

value? . . . She wants to be able to reflect on and discern her own values and concerns without manipulation or coercion and to be able to act accordingly and with some capacity to persist in doing so in the face of opposition from others. This commitment is a commitment to nothing other than
content- neutral
autonomy! . . . A substantive account would seem to imply, in its very own terms, that content-neutral autonomy is sufficient to count as genuine autonomy.
35

However, this argument is inconsistent with the definition of content- neutral autonomy that Friedman gives. As we have seen, Friedman argues that a condition of servitude is compatible with autonomy even if it is no longer chosen or endorsed by the individual concerned. Con- tent-neutral autonomy therefore becomes a once-in-a-lifetime affair for those who choose restricted lives. But if an individual is living a life of servitude that she no longer endorses, then it is
not the case
that she will ‘‘be able to reflect on and discern her own values and concerns without manipulation or coercion and to be able to act accordingly and with some capacity
to persist in doing so
in the face of opposition from others.’’
36
A person who cares about these capacities will not, therefore be happy with content-neutral autonomy.

The problem with Friedman’s account is that there is a conceptual lacuna between the concepts of substantive and content-neutral auton- omy, a lacuna which is filled by the concept of first-order autonomy that Friedman does not use. Her concept of substantive autonomy re- quires that individuals’ choices ‘‘avoid conflicting in their
content
with the ideal of autonomy’’; that an individual actively ‘‘aims to pursue’’ autonomy; and that a commitment to one’s own substantive autonomy requires ‘‘valu[ing] my very valuing of my own activity of reflecting on my deeper concerns and acting accordingly.’’
37
These stipulations imply that it is never possible to be substantively autonomous while serving anyone else even for a moment, and that one’s reason for valu- ing autonomy must be the value of autonomy in and of itself, not the goals which one uses one’s autonomy to pursue. Friedman is right to suggest that such stipulations are not requirements of more defensible forms of autonomy. But it is important to note that they are not re-

35. Ibid., 21.

1. Ibid., emphasis added.
   

2. Ibid., 20–21, emphasis in the original.
   

   quirements of first-order autonomy, and so substantive autonomy and first-order autonomy are not the same. Friedman has no correlative concept to first-order autonomy, and so her account provides insuffi- cient space for the considerable value of being permanently able to question and separately endorse or reject the various ingredients of a way of life.
   

   Perfectionism and Autonomy
   

   Both Raz and Friedman, in their different ways, provide insufficient room for first-order autonomy—for questioning, reacting against, or reforming the social norms that constrain people, particularly those which are unequal and unjust—conceived of as separate from, not a necessary side effect of, second-order autonomy. Friedman’s concep- tual framework leads her to identify two forms of autonomy that are rather polarized. Neither captures what is of value in first-order auton- omy, and so Friedman is compelled to endorse only the most limited version of autonomy. Raz attempts to package first-order autonomy with second-order autonomy but in doing so he too misses the distinc- tive value of the former.
   

   The question of the compatibility of perfectionism and autonomy is one that exercises all liberal perfectionists. As liberals, they are keen to avoid the implication that perfectionism leaves no room for individual choice and freedom. Raz, Hurka, Sher, and Wall all devote considerable space to showing that perfectionism does leave room for autonomy. Two main strategies are used. First, the perfection for which liberal perfectionism aims may be defined as autonomy: the claim might be that the best possible life is one that is autonomous, or perhaps even maximally autonomous. This strategy has two main problems: first, how to distinguish perfectionism from other kinds of liberalism by giving autonomy some substantive meaning that is missing in alterna- tive accounts but which does not controversially rule out things such as convent life; and, second, the fact that autonomy cannot be the only perfectionist value, since if it were, there would be nothing of value that people could autonomously choose and autonomy would have no real purpose.
   38
   These problems mean that few perfectionists adopt the
   

3. Thomas Hurka,
   Perfectionism,
   148–52; Sher,
   Beyond Neutrality
   , 50, 57ff.
   

   first strategy of defining autonomy as the perfection to be maximized by perfectionism.
   39
   

   The second strategy, then, aims to solve these problems by showing that autonomy is one perfection or value among others, but that other perfections can only be fully realized if they are performed autono- mously.
   40
   The problem with this second strategy, however, is that it seems to rule out perfectionist state action. For if other perfections or values are valuable only insofar as they are chosen autonomously, then state action aimed at overriding or directing people’s choices will be self-defeating. To return to the example of breast implants: if it is more perfect or valuable for Jenna Franklin to respect her own body and gender equality by rejecting appearance norms that objectify women and not having breast implants, then, according to the second perfec- tionist strategy, that value will be lost if her lack of implants is the result of state coercion rather than autonomous choice. The issue, then, is how to retain the value of autonomy in a way that does not rule out perfectionist state action.
   

   At this point, perfectionists might want to invoke a distinction be- tween coercive and noncoercive perfectionist state action.
   41
   Whereas some perfectionist state action might be directly coercive, such as a ban on breast implants, other state action might leave more room for individual choice, such as an advertising campaign against breast im- plants. It is worth noting that perfectionists have worried about whether even noncoercive state action undermines the perfectionist idea that valuable things lose some or all of their value if they are not autonomously chosen. In an attempt to solve this problem, Sher uses the thesis of social construction to argue that individuals cannot be made autonomous simply by leaving them alone, since noninterfer- ence leaves social construction intact. As Sher puts it: ‘‘If all political arrangements do nonrationally shape preferences and provide incen- tives, a government will not
   further
   diminish autonomy simply by pro- ducing these effects intentionally.’’
   42
   Indeed, if the thesis of social con- struction is accepted, it cannot be an objection to noncoercive perfectionist action that it renders people’s choices value-less. Consider
   

4. See Wall,
   Liberalism, Perfectionism and Restraint
   , 183–89, for more criticisms of the goal of maximizing autonomy, some of which were discussed in Chapter 6.
   

5. Hurka,
   Perfectionism
   , 152–53; Sher,
   Beyond Neutrality,
   58–60.
   

6. See, for example, Caney, ‘‘Anti-perfectionism and Rawlsian Liberalism,’’ 252.
   

7. Sher,
   Beyond Neutrality,
   67; emphasis in the original.