ABSTRACT

In everyday conversation, to be one’s own person—or, as we used to say in the old days, to be one’s own man—is to be someone who acts independently, free of undue influence from anyone else. We have all been in committee meetings in which we were struck by the fact that when we hear what person A says, we know immediately how person B is going to vote—and person B does not even realize that he is following person A. To be one’s own person, by contrast, is to act for reasons of one’s own—reasons that one reflects on and accepts. To have reasons of one’s own—to affirm some reasons and to repudiate others—is to be a rational agent in the fullest sense.