On The Normative Commitments Of Relational Autonomy

For nearly half a century,scholars have been dissatisfied with the traditional concept of autonomy because it ignores the impact of oppression on the individual,who may internalize oppressive standards and thus lose the possibility of self-reflection.In order to solve this problem,scholars have proposed the concept of relational autonomy,emphasizing the influence of social norms on individuals.However,this new concept of autonomy has been criticized for carrying too heavy a theoretical burden on the notion of autonomy and failing to respect the will of the agent.Scholars disagree with each other,bringing about a confrontation between substantive and procedural views.The substantive view requires the agent to possess correct beliefs,holding that the agent must have normative competence to judge what is good.By contrast,the procedural view does not make such a requirement.Instead,it takes a neutral attitude towards the agent’s desires,values,and beliefs,and does not think that these things are related to the autonomy of the agent.This kind of view is concerned only with whether an agent’s decision,or the process by which the agent forms his/her own preferences,satisfies some standards of critical reflection.Scholars have sorted out and discussed what kind of normative commitment autonomy should have.This article provides an overview of the history of this issue and important articles concerning the normative commitments.In the first part of this paper,a review of the history of the problem will be given: from the origin of the autonomy problem,the rise of relational autonomy theory to the transformation of problem consciousness in the past century,to the conflict and controversy in normative commitments;In the second part,three important normative positions on autonomy will be introduced,namely,Paul Benson’s weakly substantial theory,Diana Meyers’ two-dimensional theory and value-neutral position,and Marina Oshana’s strongly substantive view.In the end,I will give some of my own opinions,and conclude that thus far,the conflict of normative commitments in the present theories of autonomy have not been adequately solved or bridged,and all the theories I have examined in this paper fall into trouble in practice.