Autonomy: The Commitment Of Liberalism

Although pluralism, freedom, rights, equality and distributive justice are seen to be the basic commitments of liberalism, there is a reason why liberals attach such a great importance to them. There is something that needs to be added to explain why these commitments are so important and valued. That “something” is the core and most important commitment of liberalism— autonomy. Autonomy is an ideal governing how people should go about living their lives. Liberals do not think it is an idea of a specific conception of the good life but as an ideal of what individuals should pursue no matter what their conceptions of a good life are. Autonomy is what all the other values and commitments of liberalism are intended to foster and protect. The essential
feature of autonomy is a specific form of control that individuals exercise over their actions. According to Gerald Dworkin, “A person is autonomous if he identifies with his desires, goals, and values, and such identification is not itself influenced in ways which make the process of identification in some way alien to the individual” (Dworkin 1978). Autonomy therefore has to do with choice, but it goes beyond that. Making a choice could fall short of real control because the choice might be between alternatives that are forced on a person and the person might not have evaluated the available alternatives, or they might lack