Revisiting Raz on Autonomy

Joseph Raz’s discussion of autonomy in chapters 14–15 of The Morality of Freedom is extremely influential, but rarely discussed in detail. This chapter is an attempt to fill in this gap. This chapter summarizes Raz’s main points and arguments about autonomy, and then focuses on the following themes: the relation between autonomy and the good (concluding that Raz’s claims here—that autonomy is only of value in pursuit of the good and that bad options do not matter for the value of autonomy—are too strong); the relation between autonomy and coercion (arguing that Raz’s account of autonomy is deeply relational, perhaps more so than others have appreciated), and to manipulation; and the way in which, according to Raz, we create our own reasons and values as part of creating our lives (where his discussion is not sufficiently clear on the kind of reason-giving involved; also, an interesting lesson about the “sunk-cost fallacy” emerges). This chapter then returns to Raz’s broader political arguments utilizing his conception of autonomy, commenting on what would have to be revised in them given the critical points about Raz’s conception of autonomy developed in earlier sections.