ABSTRACT
Some theories, reflecting the real depth of the moral challenges leadership presents, go right to the source by questioning the role of individual leaders or by trying to do away with the concept of leadership altogether. Leadership solves the problem of specification by preventing the helping duty from being overly burdensome for helpers or overly intrusive for the autonomous agents receiving help. The possibility of deep disagreement gives leaders an opportunity to respect the ends of followers based on the true value of these ends, not as ends that they—the leaders—and other group members value independently of any connection to other autonomous agents. Autonomous agents can permissibly defer to the direction of someone else in the pursuit of particular ends only on the condition that they—the targets of influence—endorse the ends. A commitment to autonomous relationships is thus a response to pluralism about value.
