STOIC AUTONOMY
John M.
Cooper
a1
a1 Philosophy, Princeton University
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As it is currently understood, the notion of autonomy, both as
something that belongs to human beings and human nature, as such,
and also as the source or basis of morality (that is, duty), is
bound up inextricably with the philosophy of Kant. The term
“autonomy” itself derives from classical Greek, where
(at least in surviving texts) it was applied primarily or even
exclusively in a political context, to civic communities possessing
independent legislative and self-governing authority. The term was
taken up again in Renaissance and early modern times with similar
political applications, but was applied also in ecclesiastical disputes
about the independence of reformed churches from the former authority in
religious matters of the church of the Roman popes. Kant's innovation
consisted in conceiving of (finite) individual rational persons, as such,
as lawgivers or legislators to themselves, and to all rational beings (or
rather to all that are not perfect and holy wills), for their individual
modes of behavior. For Kant, rational beings possess a power of
legislating for themselves individually, according to which they each
set their own personal ends and subject that selection, and their pursuit
of the ends in question, to a universal principle, which is expressed in
Kant's categorical
imperative. The categorical imperative
requires that one set one's own ends only within a framework that
would warrant acceptance by all other such beings.
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