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Rethinking Relational Autonomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Andrea C. Westlund
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Abstract

John Christman has argued that constitutively relational accounts of autonomy, as defended by some feminist theorists, are problematically perfectionist about the human good. I argue that autonomy is constitutively relational, but not in a way that implies perfectionism: autonomy depends on a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external, critical perspectives on one's action-guiding commitments. This type of relationality carries no substantive value commitments, yet it does answer to core feminist concerns about autonomy.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , Fall 2009 , pp. 26 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Hypatia, Inc.

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