Abstract
This chapter aims to present the second structuring element of practical life: autonomy, understood in terms of reciprocal recognition. I presented this way of conceiving autonomy in my book Elements of a Critical Theory of Justice. I have developed this conception of autonomy in continuity with the works of Habermas, Apel and Honneth. Reciprocal recognition autonomy is conceptualized from the perspective of intersubjectivity, which assumes vulnerability and progressiveness in its acquisition, since in this process, the conditions that enable autonomous action can be affected by external or internal circumstances. This kind of autonomy emphasizes the processes of justification in which interpersonal or intrapersonal reasons are given for choosing a course of action. As with practical rationality and imagination, this kind of autonomy is also specifiable in different practical contexts in which there will be different requirements and justifying logics for its exercise.
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Notes
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The insight of reciprocal recognition autonomy can be reconstructed in Brandom’s explanation of the ‘attitude-dependence of normative statuses’ in Kant and Hegel (Brandon 2009: 67–72).
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This idea is present in what Agustín Reyes (2019), following the work of Andy Clark and Joel Anderson, calls ‘scaffolding autonomy’.
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The internal relationship between intersubjectivity, vulnerability and autonomy has been specially developed by Joel Anderson (2016).
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This relation can be seen in Korsgaard’s argumentation, in which ethical autonomy, which in her case is equivalent to the conceptions of practical identity, leads to moral autonomy (1996: 120–1).
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Pereira, G. (2019). Autonomy. In: Imposed Rationality and Besieged Imagination. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26520-5_2
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