KANT ON THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF AUTONOMY
Paul
Guyer
a1
a1 Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania
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We all know what Kant means by autonomy: “the property of the
will by which it is a law to itself (independently of any property of
the objects of volition)” (G, 4:440), or, since any law
must be universal, the condition of an agent who is “subject
only
to
laws
given
by
himself
but
still
universal”
(G, 4:432). Or do we know what Kant means by autonomy? There
are a number of questions here. First, Kant's initial definition
of autonomy itself raises the question of why the property of the will
being a law to itself should be equivalent to its independence from any
property of objects of volition. It is also natural to ask, how does
autonomy as Kant conceives it relate to more familiar notions of freedom.
For example, consider Locke's conception of freedom as the condition
of a person “to think, or not to think; to move, or not to move,
according to the preference or direction of his own mind,” rather
than according to the preference or direction of any other person. What
is the relation between autonomy and this traditional conception of
freedom as the liberty of an agent? And what is the relation of autonomy
to the traditional conception of freedom of the will; that is, the
condition that obtains, as G. E.
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