Autonomy, Experience, and Reflection. On a Neglected Aspect of Personal Autonomy

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to suggest that a necessary condition of autonomy has not been sufficiently recognized in the literature: the capacity to critically reflect on one's practical attitudes (desires, preferences, values, etc.) in the light of new experiences. It will be argued that most prominent accounts of autonomy-ahistorical as well as historysensitive-have either altogether failed to recognize this condition or at least failed to give an explicit account of it.

Updating our Selves: Synthesizing Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Incorporating New Information into our Worldview

“…However, these standard claims about the critical reflection required by autonomy do not look to be sufficient when thinking about the process of pro-attitude incorporation. To see this clearly, consider Blöser et al's [18] case of "older Pat".…”

“…But then imagine that Pat, for whatever reason (capacitarian, dispositional, or otherwise), fails to question his pro-attitudes in light of new experiences. Picking up the earlier example, the fact his son's family provides a safe and supportive environment in which he can see that his grandchildren are flourishing, despite their parents being unmarried, fails to make Pat reconsider whether marriage really is a basic requirement of good parenthood [18].…”

“…1 In the case of older Pat, which is constructed so that there is no inconsistency between his pro-attitudes, it is clear that it is his failure to recognize and respond appropriately to his new experience of child-rearing and, in turn, the evidence that this provides against his pro-attitude (i.e., his value-based child-rearing belief), that undermines his autonomy with respect to this proattitude. In line with this distinction, in order to recover autonomy with respect to this "encrusted" pro-attitude, Pat would need to exercise "experience-responsive" critical reflection, that is, to consider this new experience as a touchstone for his pro-attitude [18].…”

“…In this way, relevant new experiences and other, non-sensory evidence -specifically, those that convey unexpected information, given one's set of pro-attitudes -have "the power to call into question [pro-attitudes] in a way that so far has not been accounted for by either internalist or history-sensitive accounts of autonomy" [18]. Still, both of these accounts can be supplemented with the experience-responsiveness condition:…”

“…For our purposes, we use the term "experience-responsiveness" to capture both "the acquisition of information through direct perception", i.e., experiential information [18] and the more expansive idea of any evidence -experiential or not -that offers a reason to review the relevant part of one's worldview [7].…”