ABSTRACT
The arguments in the last chapter led to the conclusion that, from the point of view of a defender of autonomy, a person’s having more choices is (generally) better than her having fewer. This conclusion would seem to imply that a person’s being subject to constraints would serve to compromise her autonomy, insofar as such constraints would result in her having fewer choices available to her. However, a person’s being subject to constraints is not only compatible with her being able fully to exercise her autonomy, but being subject to constraint is a condition of her being able to be autonomous at all. This point is not, however, of only parochial interest to autonomy theorists. This is because, as will be noted below, the discussion over the degree to which persons must be constrained to be autonomous is parallel to discussions in bioethics concerning the status of ethical decisionmaking in situations in which there is no recognized objective morality.1
To argue for the conclusion that persons need to be subject to constraints to be autonomous what might be termed an “extreme voluntarist” (or neoexistentialist) approach to autonomy will be examined, according to which a person is most autonomous if she is free from all constraints. It will be argued that this position is incoherent. Insofar as a person’s exercise of her autonomy requires that she guide and direct her actions in accordance with her own desires and values and that these be authoritative for her, then a person whose choices are unconstrained by such desires and values cannot exercise autonomy at all.
