Substituting the kantian ideal of autonomy for the Millian ideal of individuality is one of the most innovative moves accomplished by Rawls, deeply modifying the self-understanding of classical liberalism and overcoming the opposition within it of “ancient” and “modern” liberties (PL 5). This definition of liberty is borrowed from Rousseau and Kant: “Kant’s main aim is to deepen and to justify Rousseau’s idea that liberty is acting in accordance with a law that we give ourselves” (TJ 225).

Rawls’s thinking about autonomy can be roughly divided into two phases. In his earlier papers and in TJ, he argues that, in contrast to utilitarianism, the social contract doctrine he advocates is based on a Kantian conception of the autonomous moral person (TJ 221). However, his thinking takes a new turn when, in the 1980 Dewey Lectures and in PL, he begins to question this Kantian interpretation of autonomy and introduces a distinction between moral and political autonomy as well as between various subcategories of the concept.

A deeply ingrained ideal of democratic regimes is that a just and well-ordered society is one that treats its members as autonomous agents, “respecting their wish to give priority to their liberty to revise and change their ends, their responsibility for their fundamental interests and ends, their autonomy, even if, as members of particular associations, some may decide to yield much of this responsibility to others” (CP 260 and TJ 456).