66716277_Autonomy, History, And the Origins of Our Desires

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Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (2011) 415–434 brill.nl/jmp

JOURNAL OFMORAL

PHILOSOPHY

1 Laura Waddell Ekstrom (2005), “Autonomy and Personal Integration,” in James Staceyaylor, ed., Personal Autonomy : 154. Emphasis added.

2 John Christman, “Autonomy and Personal History,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (1991): 10. Emphasis added.

3 James Stacey aylor, “Introduction,” in Personal Autonomy , ed. James Stacey aylor(Cambridge University Press 2005): 16. Emphasis added.

Autonomy, History, and the Origins of Our Desires

Mikhail ValdmanDepartment of Philosophy, Virginia Commonwealth University

Richmond, VA 23284, [email protected]

Abstract A popular view among autonomy theorists is that facts about the history of a person’s desires,and specically facts about how they were formed or acquired, matter crucially to her autonomy.I argue that while there is an important relationship between a person’s autonomy and thehistory of her desires, a person’s autonomy does not depend on how her desires were formed oracquired. I argue that a desire’s autonomy lies not in its origins but in whether its bearer has ahistory of having engaged with it in the right sort of way. I argue that this view has importantadvantages, and no obvious disadvantages, over its historical and its non-historical rivals.

Keywords

autonomy, history, origins, desires, Mele

A popular view among autonomy theorists is that facts about the history ofour desires, and specically facts about how they were formed or acquired , mat-ter crucially to our autonomy. For instance, Laura Ekstrom claims that auton-omous desires must have been “uncoercively formed. ”1 John Christman arguesthat the “central focus for autonomy must make particular reference to theprocesses of preference formation .”2 James aylor claims that “an analysis of

autonomy must require that for a person to be autonomous with respect to adesire, she must have come to possess that desire as a result of some particularhistorical process….”3 Susan Brison suggests that the most defensible accountof autonomy is one that incorporates a historical condition on the formation



416 M.Valdman / Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (2011) 415–434

of higher-order desires.4 Cass Sunstein claims that an autonomous preferencemust have arisen in the absence of illegitimate constraints on the process of its

formation .5 For brevity, let us say that a desire (or preference, pro-attitude, etc.) that

was properly formed or acquired, whatever that involves, has properorigins . And let us say that if a person is autonomous with respect to a desire D, thenD is an autonomous desire . Tus, we can say that, according to the aboveauthors, autonomous desires must have proper origins. Naturally, theseauthors do not all agree on whatconstitutes a desire’s proper origins or on theother essential features of autonomous desires. But they all accept what I willcall the Origins View , according to which autonomous desires must have

proper origins. I will argue that the Origins View is false. As I will show, adesire need not have proper origins to be autonomous. Tis does not mean,however, that there isn’t a deep connection between a person’s autonomy andhis past. Indeed, I will defend a historical theory of autonomy that places no

weight on a desire’s origins.I begin by explaining the appeal of a historical approach to autonomy.

Ten, in section 2, I argue that the Origins View, despite its popularity, shouldnot be the preferred historical approach. In section 3, I present and defend analternative approach, which I call a historical agent-engagement view. On this

view, a desire’s autonomy depends not on its origins but on its historical rela-tionship with its bearer – specically on whether its bearer had engaged withit in a way that conferred upon it its special status. I do not explain in greatdetail what such engagement involves. Rather, I try to show that, on any rea-sonable account, locating a desire’s autonomy in its historical relationship

with its bearer has great plausibility, and that this view has clear advantagesover its historical rivals. One important rival view is that of Alfred Mele,and, in section 4, I explain my view’s advantages over his. Ten, in section 5,I defend my view against objections that might be raised by defenders of non-

historical theories of autonomy. Lastly, in section 6, I argue that there isn’t apressing need for me to explain what historical agent-engagement involvesbecause the problems I’d encounter in doing so are shared by all plausibletheories of autonomy. If we should judge a view by the advantages that it hasover its rivals and not by the problems that it shares with its rivals, then myview has much to offer, even without a detailed account of what historicalagent-engagement involves.

4 Susan Brison, “Te Autonomy Defense of Free Speech,”Ethics 108, 2 (Jan. 1998): 336-8.5 Cass Sunstein, “Preferences and Politics,”Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol. 20, No. 1(Winter 1991): 11.



M.Valdman / Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (2011) 415–434 417

1. Autonomy and History

Why think that there is a deep connection between autonomy and personalhistory? Te best answer, I think, is that we have a strong intuition that theextent to which one is self-governing depends, at least in part, on how onebecame the person that one is. Intuitively, some personal histories strike us asautonomy-affi rming, such as those with ample opportunities and diverseexperiences, while others strike us as autonomy-undermining, such as those

with extensive coercion and manipulation. Indeed, it seems that even twopsychologically identical people can differ in their autonomy if they have dif-ferent personal histories. Consider Alfred Mele’s case of two philosophers,

Beth and Ann, who differ in their commitment to their research.6

Teir dean, who wants Beth to be as committed to her research as is Ann, hires a team ofbrainwashers who manage to turn Beth into Ann’s psychological clone. Evenif we assume that Ann is autonomous, we seem to have reason to doubt Beth’sautonomy with respect to her new desires. Tese reasons, moreover, seemrooted in facts about Beth’s past – in facts about how she acquired her suddendeep interest in philosophical research.

On a related matter, including a historical condition in a theory of auton-omy seems to give us a way to address the problem of manipulation, which

consists in accounting for the autonomy-undermining potential of unwantedinterference in a person’s psychological states. It is not obvious how a purelyahistorical theory of autonomy can address this problem; it is not obvious howit can capture the intuition that hypnotically implanted desires or desires thatstemmed from coercion or manipulation are unlikely to be autonomous.7 Indeed, it is hard to see how the leading ahistorical theories, which (veryroughly) stress the importance to autonomy of identifying with one’s desires,endorsing them, having coherent desires, or being satised with one’sendorsements, can account for our intuition that intense coercion and manip-

ulation are likely to be autonomy-undermining.8

After all, in principle, one’s

6 Alfred Mele (1995), Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy (Oxford UniversityPress): 145-6.

7 I say “unlikely” because one could consent to having a desire implanted through hypnosis.In such cases, we are reluctant to say that the resulting desire’s autonomy has necessarily beencompromised.

8 Primarily I have in mind the theories of Gerald Dworkin and Harry Frankfurt. See GeraldDworkin, Te Teory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge University Press 1988): 20; HarryFrankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” in Harry Frankfurt, ed., Te

Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); see also“Te Faintest Passion,” in Frankfurt, ed., Necessity, Volition, and Love (Cambridge: Cambridge




identications could themselves have been manipulated, one’s satisfactions with one’s endorsements could have been articially induced in ways that call

their autonomy-conferring powers into question, and even coherent desirescould have been implanted by clever brainwashers.9 At rst glance, nothingseems to prevent Beth from satisfying any of these ahistorical conditions.

o be clear, I am not claiming that no ahistorical theory of autonomy canhandle the worries raised by the problem of manipulation (or at least I am not yet claiming this). Nor am I yet suggesting that the leading ahistorical theoriesfail in this regard. For now, I am suggesting only that the problem of manipu-lation presents ahistorical theories with a challenge that historical theoriesseem able to address. A suitably specied historical condition on autonomy, it

seems, can easily explain our reluctance to see implanted or manipulateddesires as autonomous (or as equally autonomous as their non-manipulatedcounterparts, all else being equal). Still, even if the problem of manipulationgives us reason to adopt a historical theory of autonomy, it does not followthat we should adopt some version of the Origins View. Tere are alternatives

worth considering, and the one that I will defend centers on an agent’s rela-tionship with his desires rather than on their origins. I will argue that, withrespect to a desire’s autonomy, the history that matters is not the history of itsformation or acquisition but the history of its relationship with its bearer –

specically whether its bearer engaged with it in a way thatmade it her own.Let me begin, however, by explaining what is wrong with the Origins View.

2. A Dilemma for the Origins View

Defenders of the Origins View face a dilemma when deciding what’s involvedin a desire’s having proper origins. o see it, imagine that Jill’s present love ofphilosophy was forged under the stern discipline of her domineering father.10

Suppose that, as a child, her father forced her to read Plato in the originalGreek and to memorize the ractatus . Suppose that he rewarded her for

University Press 1999), and his “Autonomy, Necessity, and Love,” in Frankfurt, ed.,Necessity,Volition, and Love .

9 Much has been written about these worries. See, for instance, Marylin Friedman’s“Autonomy and the Split-Level Self,”Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 (1986): 19-35; JohnChristman, “Introduction,” in Christman, ed., Te Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual Autonomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); James Stacey aylor, “Introduction,” in James Staceyaylor, ed., Personal Autonomy .

10

James Stacey aylor offers a similar case as a criticism of John Chistman’s historical theoryof autonomy in “Introduction,” ed. James Stacey aylor (2005),Personal Autonomy, p. 11.




making insightful philosophical observations and punished her for commit-ting philosophical blunders. Not surprisingly, as a child Jill loathed philoso-

phy and deeply resented her father. After many years of such coercion andmanipulation, however, and, let us suppose, because of it, she developed afondness for philosophy and decided to pursue it as a career. We can imaginethat, while browsing in a bookstore, she happened upon a volume of Plato’sdialogs – the very ones her father had forced her to read – but that, this time,she found them surprisingly captivating. She then took courses in philosophyat her local college and discovered that her interest in philosophy was no pass-ing fancy. Jill, let us suppose, cannot explain her change of heart. But let ussuppose that, had it not been for her father’s inuence, she would not now

nd philosophy so appealing. What should a defender of the Origins View say about the autonomy of Jill’s desires? Since, on his view, a desire’s autonomy depends on its proper formation or acquisition , I see no plausible way for him to argue that Jill’sdesires to study and to pursue a career in philosophy – her philosophical desires ,for short – have proper origins (though I will consider two arguments to thecontrary below). After all, if her desires have proper origins despite being theproduct of coercion and manipulation, then it is hard to see which desires

would lack proper origins or how the Origins View can address the worries

raised by the problem of manipulation, which, after all, is its main sellingpoint.11 It seems, then, that a defender of the Origins View must say that Jill’sphilosophical desires lack proper origins, and are hence non-autonomous. Buton what grounds? Here there is bound to be disagreement. Some might saythat Jill’s philosophical desires were likely not vetted by her rational facultiesat the moment of their acquisition. Others might apply a counterfactual test,arguing that Jill wouldn’t have had these desires but for her father’s undueinuence. No doubt there are other possibilities as well, and the ones I havementioned require more development before they can be properly assessed.

11 Based on his response to Alfred Mele, I suspect that John Christman might argue that Jill’sphilosophical desires have proper origins if she now approves of their development. It is not clear whether Christman thinks that what is relevant is whether Jill now approves of the fact that shedeveloped philosophical desires, whether she approves of how they developed, or whether, at thetime, she would have approved had she been engaged in the process of their development. IfChristman opts for options one or two, then his view is really not an Origins View but is rathera present-engagement view (I discuss these in section 5). If he opts for option three, then I wouldargue that he has failed to identify a necessary condition on autonomous desires for reasons thatshould become clear momentarily (see especially the case of the demonically implanted desire to

paint, discussed in section 3). See John Christman, “Defending Historical Autonomy: A Replyto Professor Mele,”Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1993).




Still, even at this early stage, a devastating problem looms. Te problem is thatthe origins of many, if not most, of our desires predate the full development of

our rational faculties. Many of our desires were implanted in us by nature,society, or our parents. In a sense, we were all brainwashed without our con-sent during our formative years. And since, presumably, we cannot createdesiresex nihilo , it stands to reason that the content of our present desires canbe traced back to these “implanted” desires.12 Tus, if facts about a desire’sorigins are crucial to its autonomy, and if coerced, manipulated, and implanteddesires lack proper origins, it may well be that none of our desires is autono-mous. Indeed, it may be that if autonomy is attainable, it is so only in spite ofthe tainted origins of our desires.

Let me put the above point differently. As normal adults, we seem to havethe ability to choose which desires to act on and which to suppress based onour goals and plans. We may also have the power to shape our desires, andperhaps even to shed them and to acquire new ones in light of the reasonsthere are and our judgments about how best to live. But if we examined theorigins of our desires, it is doubtful that we would nd such rational processesat work. Instead we would nd coercion, manipulation, implantation, andnon-rational desire acquisition through processes like imitation, all of whichare a part of the normal socialization process. Indeed, Jill’s father’s system of

rewards and punishments isn’t differentin kind from what typically occurs inchildhood. And so, if stemming from coercion, manipulation, or implanta-tion undermines a desire’s autonomy, then the autonomy of nearly all of ourdesires is threatened. If, however, a desire can have proper origins despitestemming from coercion, etc., then it is hard to see how the Origins Viewmakes any important contribution to a theory of autonomy or how it canaddress the worries raised by the problem of manipulation.

In response, a defender of the Origins View might suggest that only certainkinds of manipulation are autonomy-undermining. She might point out, for

instance, that some agent manipulated Jill, whereas in the typical socializationprocess there is often no distinct or unique agent that is doing the manipulat-ing. It is not clear, however, why thesource of the manipulation should matterto the autonomy of the one being manipulated (it might matter for otherkinds of moral assessment, of course). Whether my desires are manipulated byan agent or, say, by gravitational elds, doesn’t seem relevant to whether I amself -governing. My autonomy, it seems, is threatened as long as I am controlled

12 I am not suggesting that only desires can give rise to other desires. I am suggesting only that

it is likely that our “mature” desires have been built up, at least in part, from these earlier“implanted” desires.




by something other than myself, whether it is my father, nature, or society. Infairness, the view that there is an autonomy-affecting difference between agen-

tial and non-agential manipulation has its defenders (and its critics).13 Buthere we can sidestep this debate since there is ampleagential manipulation inthe normal socialization process.

Perhaps a more promising defense of the Origins View lies in a ne-grainedapproach to desire individuation. One might argue, for instance, that Jill’spresent philosophical desires (D2) may not be the ones instilled in her by herfather (D1); while D2 may, in some sense, have grown out of D1, and whileD2 and D1 may have overlapping content, they may not be identical. And ifthey aren’t identical, then we cannot conclude that D2 lack proper origins

simply because D1 do.Tis defense raises deep and interesting questions about desire individua-tion, but it can be shown to be inadequate even without delving into thiscomplicated subject. After all, on the Origins View, what matters crucially toa desire’s autonomy is the origins of its content – what matters is where itscontent came from . Tus, as long as D2 owes its content to coercion andmanipulation, it shouldn’t matter on the Origins View whether D2 is identical to D1. And clearly D2 does owe its content to coercion and manipulation,since, by hypothesis, D2 emerged from D1, which, by hypothesis, were pro-

duced (largely) through coercion and manipulation. Had it not been for theextensive manipulation that Jill was exposed to, then, by hypothesis, she would not have acquired D2. A view that stresses a desire’s proper formationor acquisition cannot overlook this and still maintain its relevance.

For further clarity on the above objection, consider a case where defendersof the Origins View would likely agree that a desire lacks proper origins. I havein mind the much discussed case of the battered woman (Sally), who, afteryears of abuse, comes to identify with her subservience, claiming that this ishow she wishes to live.14 Sally seems non-autonomous with respect to her

attitudes towards subservience, presumably because of facts about her past. Yetone can imagine someone arguing that these attitudes (A2) may not lackproper origins because they may not be identical to those that were instilled inher by her manipulators (A1). A defender of the Origins View, however, would

13 See Double, R. (1989), “Puppeteers, Hypnotists, and Neurosurgeons,” PhilosophicalStudies , 56, 2, June 1989; Watson, G. (1999), “Soft Libertarianism and Hard Compatibilism,” Journal of Ethics , 3, 4, (Dec 1999); Arpaly, N. (2006), Merit, Meaning, and Human Bondage: anEssay on Free Will , Princeton University Press.

14 See, for instance, John Christman (1991), “Autonomy and Personal History.” He arguesthat Sally is not autonomous with respect to the attitudes in question.




surely reply that that is irrelevant – that what matters is not whether A2 isidentical to A1 but whether A2’s content can be traced back to coercion and

manipulation. He would likely point out that what matters for purposes ofautonomy is that Sally likely would not now have these attitudes had shenot been abused. But these points, it seems, can be made with equal force in

Jill’s case.In all, then, a defender of the Origins View is in a serious bind. She can

weaken her conditions for what’s involved in a desire’s having proper originsso that Jill’s philosophical desires pass muster, but then the Origins View won’tbe able to rule out a desire’s autonomy on the grounds that it was formed oracquired through coercion and manipulation. And since, on this view,all there

is to a desire’s having a proper history is that it was properly formed or acquired,it is hard to see how the Origins View could then handle the concerns raisedby the problem of manipulation or how it makes an important contributionto a theory of autonomy. Alternatively, she can insist on robust conditions fora desire’s proper origins on which Jill’s philosophical desires come out as non-autonomous. But that, it seems, would undermine the autonomy of most, ifnot all, human desires.

3. Salvaging the Historical View

Te dilemma I’ve raised for the Origins View doesn’t threaten all historicalapproaches to autonomy. Te Origins View, after all, is just one suchapproach – one committed to the claims that a desire’s having the right historyis (1) necessary for its autonomy and (2) depends on its having proper origins.Insofar as we think that how we became the people we are matters to ourautonomy, we should be reluctant to reject (1). We may be able to reject (2),however, without severing the link between autonomy and personal history

if we can nd a suitable alternative account of what a desire’s having aproper history involves. I will propose just such an account – one based on adesire’s historical relationship with its bearer rather than on its origins. On myview, no matter where a desire came from, how it was acquired, or how it

was formed, it can be autonomous provided that its bearerengaged with itin a way that made it her own.15 Call this a historical agent-engagement view.

15 Or perhaps if its bearer would have engaged with it in the right way had she attended to it. Without this counterfactual condition, my account couldn’t explain how many of our ordinarydesires with which we have not engaged, such as desires for various types of food, to wear certainoutts, etc., might be autonomous. As nothing in this paper turns on this condition, I don’tdisc ss it f rther




With one qualifying condition that I explain in section 5, my view is thatsuch agent-engagement is both necessary and suffi cient for a desire’s

autonomy. What is involved in engaging with a desire in a way that makes it one’s

own? Very roughly, this involves evaluating it, deciding whether it is worthmaintaining and worth acting on, and making this decision effective. A keydifference between this view and the Origins View lies in the role envisionedfor the agent in the process that confers autonomy upon her desires. On theOrigins view, whether a desire D has the right history depends on whetherthere was coercion or manipulation in the process of its formation, and not onD’s bearer’s judgments regarding whether D is worth having. Such a view,

notice, gives agents at most a minor role in the autonomy-conferring process.On my view, by contrast, agents play a major role in this process, as the deci-sion to grant autonomy to a desire is theirs to make. On my view, D is autono-mous only if its bearerdecided to grant D its special status – only if shemade D her own. And this can happen during D’s formation or long after.

Naturally, my account cries out for development and clarication. How,one might ask, does oneconfer autonomy upon a desire or make it one’s own?Very roughly, this involves engaging in a process of deliberation whose pur-pose is to determine whether a desire is worth maintaining and worth acting

on. For two reasons, I will not attempt to say much more than this. First, sincethere is such widespread disagreement over autonomy’s nature, it behooves usto pursue a consensus on the broad outlines of a view before worrying aboutits details. Te Origins View, notice, is unacceptable even in outline – there isreason to reject it even before examining specic proposals for what’s involvedin a desire’s having proper origins. Second, as I will argue in section 6, theburden of explaining what is involved in the aforementioned deliberative pro-cess is shared byall plausible theories of autonomy -- even those that incorpo-rate the Origins View. And a burden that is so widely shared, I believe, can be

justiably set aside.Before proceeding, let me acknowledge that an agent-engagement view ofautonomy is not especially original. Indeed, many who write on autonomythink that it is important for autonomous agents to deliberate over theirdesires – to subject them to some kind of scrutiny or evaluation. WhatI intend to show, however, is that my view can be given ahistorical gloss, andthat, as a historical view, it is quite plausible, it is superior to its main rival (theOrigins View), and that, unlike its main non-historical rivals, it can handle theproblem of manipulation. And all this can be shown, I believe, without a

detailed account of what historical agent-engagement involves.Begin, then, with the advantages that my view has over the Origins View.First because my view does not insist that only desires with proper origins are




autonomous, it leaves open the possibility that Jill’s philosophical desires areautonomous despite her father’s role in shaping them. Tis, I think, is plausi-

ble. After all, if Jill now gets tremendous satisfaction from her philosophicalpursuits, and if she embraces her philosophical desires for that reason, it seemsat least possible for her to be autonomous with respect to them. Tough Jillmay always disapprove of how sheacquired these desires, it nevertheless seemspossible for her to reclaim her autonomy from her checkered past. My view,but not the Origins View, allows for this.16

Second, and on a related matter, the Origins View holds that a desire’simproper origins are an autonomy defeater. I have argued that this claim,if true, would undermine the autonomy of nearly all human desires. Still,

it seems that a desire’s improper origins could provideevidence of its non-autonomy. My view could explain this by noting that a history of manipula-tion could call the quality of an agent’s engagement with his desires intoquestion. After all, such manipulation could have damaged an agent’s desireassessment faculties or those used in deciding whether to make a desire one’sown (exactly which faculties these are will depend on the correct theory ofagent-engagement).17 On my view, whether manipulation undermines a per-son’s autonomy depends on whether it damages these faculties; if an act ofmanipulation results in no such damage, we should not assume that its vic-

tim’s autonomy has been compromised. Tis too seems plausible. After all,imagine that a demon implants in me a desire to paint which, suppose, doesnot damage my desire assessment faculties. And suppose that I embrace thisdesire, engaging with it in a way that makes it my own. With respect to auton-omy this does not strike me as relevantly different from simply discovering

within myself an interest in painting (one with less troublesome origins) andthen embracing it as my own. Tough I may not have been engaged in theprocess that produced this desire, and though this desire was coercively (or atleast deceptively) formed, it nevertheless seems possible for it tonow be auton-

omous (even if, at the time, I wouldn’t have approved of its acquisition hadI been engaged in the relevant acquisition processes – see note 11).18 o think

16 o reply to Christman, it seems possible for Jill’s philosophical desires to be autonomouseven if, at the time, she wouldn’t have approved of their acquisition had she been engaged inrelevant acquisition processes (see note 11).

17 Having damaged desire-assessment faculties is perhaps what best explains Sally’s (the bat-tered woman’s) non-autonomy, as the manipulation that she was subjected to may have made herincapable of making reasonable judgments about the direction and shape of her life.

18 Indeed, there may be a spectrum of manipulation cases, ranging from the mild (e.g.

implanting in someone a desire to paint) to the extreme (i.e. the kind that damages a person’sdesire-assessment faculties). As noted above, Sally’s manipulation may have been of the latter




otherwise, as I have explained, is to embrace a view that undermines theautonomy of nearly all human desires.

But then what about Mele’s case of Beth and Ann? Beth, after all, seemsnon-autonomous with respect to her sudden interest in research because ofhow she acquired it. I will discuss this case in the next section. For now, how-ever, notice that even here my view better captures our intuitions than theOrigins View. On the Origins View, not only are Beth’s new desires non-autonomous, but they can never become autonomous so long as they maintaincausal ties to her implanted desires. But surely a more plausible view is that

while Beth’s new desires may be non-autonomous at the moment of theiracquisition, they can become autonomous if she judges that she has good

reasons to maintain and to act on them and if she maintains and acts on themfor those reasons. She can become autonomous, it seems, if she establishes theright kind of history of engagement with her new desires, provided that herdesire assessment faculties have not been damaged.19 o think otherwise wouldcommit one to the view that any creature that undergoes non-rational or coer-cive desire modication is incapable of autonomy. We, of course, are suchcreatures.

With respect to the problem of manipulation, then, my view is similar toManuel Vargas’s views on manipulation and moral responsibility. His view,

roughly, is that having been manipulated affects one’s responsibility for one’sactions only when the manipulation damages the faculties involved in being aresponsible agent.20 Similarly, on my view, someone’s autonomy is under-mined not simply when his desires are manipulated, but when they are manip-ulated in a way that damages his desire-assessment faculties, or those used indeciding whether to make a desire his own. As I will argue in the next section,manipulation that damages one’s desire-assessment faculties is likely to beautonomy-undermining but manipulation that merely distorts these faculties

variety. Jill’s manipulation, by contrast, might occupy a middle ground as it may havedistorted her desire-assessment faculties without havingdamaged them (more on this distinction in amoment). Unlike Sally’s mistreatment, Jill’s, I trust, is unlikely to have made herincapable ofmaking reasonable judgments about the direction of her life.

19 Naturally, if Beth were informed that she had been made into a psychological clone of Ann,she might be so angry or disturbed that she would be incapable of thinking clearly about thedirection and shape of her life. I suspect, however, that, in time, her anger would subside andthat she would then be able to consider whether she is happy being the kind of person that shehas become. Sally, by contrast, might respond to information about the history of her desires with indifference, as she might no longer have a robust capacity to reect on the direction andshape of her life.

20 Manuel Vargas (2006), “On the Importance of History for Responsible Agency,”Philosophical Studies 127, pp. 351-382.




may not be. Roughly, these faculties aredamaged when they no longerfunction properly and they aredistorted when the values that guide them have

been non-consensually altered.Finally, an important advantage of my view is that it unequivocally affi rms

the importance to autonomy of having the agent confer autonomy upon hisdesires. Tough the Origins View is not committed to excluding the agentfrom the autonomy-conferring process, it is fully compatible with such exclu-sion since, on the Origins View, what matters crucially to a desire’s autonomyare facts about its origins and not facts about its relationship with its bearer.Of course one could add further conditions demanding such a relationship,but, on the Origins View, one need not do so. And indeed, here a defender of

the Origins View faces yet another dilemma, for either he incorporates a con-dition into his theory requiring autonomous agents to be involved in theautonomy-conferring process or he does not. Not requiring such involvementis not plausible; self-governing agents must surely be autonomyconferrers andnot mere spectators with respect to the autonomy-conferring process. But if adefender of the Origins View insists on agent engagement in this process, shethen acquires whatever problems are had by an agent-engagement view. Tatis, in addition to the problems I have already raised for the Origins View, any full theory of autonomy that incorporates this view may well inherit whatever

problems plague my own view.21

I will return to this point in section 6.

4. Mele’s Teory

Consider how my view compares with Alfred Mele’s historical theory ofautonomy. In a nutshell, Mele argues that the origins of our desires, or, morebroadly, our pro-attitudes, matter to our autonomy only when they are“practically unsheddable.”22 Roughly, Mele’s view is that creatures that have a

robust capacity to control their pro-attitudes – to change them, to alter theirintensity, and to shed them altogether – have no autonomy-based reason forconcern about their origins.23 We, however, sometimes have pro-attitudes thatare “practically unsheddable,” where, for Mele, an attitude is practicallyunsheddable for an agent A if, roughly, the conditions that would have tomaterialize in order for A to shed it are unlikely to materialize and are beyond

21 Note that the Origins View is not a complete theory of autonomy as it species only anecessary condition on autonomous desires.

22 Alfred Mele (1995), Autonomous Agents, pp. 144-76.23 Ibid. pp. 149-56, 173.




A’s control to bring about.24 For Mele, such attitudes can be autonomous onlyif their bearer didn’t come to possess them in ways that bypassed his capacity

for control over his mental life.25 Should we follow Mele in adjusting our theory’s standards for unsheddable

pro-attitudes? I believe that we should not – that the conditions for an unshed-dable desire’s autonomy should be no different than those for a sheddabledesire. Indeed, I suspect that unsheddable desires pose no deep problem fortheories of autonomy – that even if Iacquired a desire in a way that bypassedmy capacity for control over my mental life, and even if I am notnow able toshed it, it could still be autonomous. For suppose that, overwhelmed by Sarah’sbeauty, I fall madly in love with her (imagine that, had I tried to resist falling

in love with her, I would have failed). And suppose that my love for herbecomes so deep as to be practically unsheddable. If, however, in a coolmoment, I am able to reect on my feelings for Sarah, assess them, and decidethat they are justied, it does not seem implausible to consider them autono-mous. Tese feelings, it seems, can be “my own” even if they “forced” them-selves upon me (bypassing my rational faculties) and even if, in the relevantsense, I cannot now shed them.

In fairness, Mele would be unimpressed with this counterexample. Heexplicitly claims that an unsheddable pro-attitude P could be autonomous if

(1) its bearer has other pro-attitudes that support P and (2) these supportingattitudes are not themselves unsheddable products of unsolicited bypassing(see note 22). Mele’s concerns with a pro-attitude’s origins, then, are limitedto cases of wholesale manipulation – cases where a person’s desiresand herdesire assessment faculties, or the values that guide these faculties, have beentampered with. Many of Mele’s examples feature such manipulation, such ashis case of Beth and Ann. Surely, Mele would say that victims of wholesalemanipulation like Beth are not autonomous even if, in a cool moment, theyapprove of their new desires since their judgments about whether these desires

are worth maintaining and acting on will likely have been distorted by manip-ulation. Yet, on my view, even Beth can be autonomous, and even if all of herdesires are practically unsheddable and are products of unsolicited bypassing.Let us consider, then, who has the more plausible view.

24 Ibid. p. 153.25 Here is his full view: “If an agent S comes to possess a pro-attitude P in a way that bypasses

S’s (perhaps relatively modest) capacities for control over his mental life; and the bypassing issuesin S’s being practically unable to shed P; and the bypassing was not itself arranged (or performed)by S; and S neither presently possesses nor earlier possessed pro-attitudes that would support his

identifying with P, with the exception of pro-attitudes that are themselves practically unshed-dable products of unsolicited bypassing, then S is compelled to possess P” Ibid. p. 172.




First, note that we should take great care when using cases of wholesalemanipulation to test the merits of any theory of autonomy because, in such

cases, our judgments may be inuenced by our views on personal identity. Ifthe brainwashers altered not only Beth’s desires but also her entire value sys-tem, it is not obvious that post-manipulation Beth (new Beth) is the sameperson as pre-manipulation Beth (old Beth). On a psychological continuitytheory of personal identity, old Beth and new Beth are different people. On abodily continuity theory, they are the same person. If they are the same per-son, it is tempting to think that new Beth is non-autonomous, and that, if themanipulation were indeed wholesale, that autonomy may now be beyond herreach.26 If they are different people, it is tempting to think that new Beth is

non-autonomous at the moment of her “birth”, but that she can becomeautonomous later in life. And since, at least for now, any theory of personalidentity is controversial, it may be that wholesale manipulation cases cannotyet settle disputes between competing theories of autonomy. With that inmind, let us compare my view with Mele’s in wholesale manipulation cases.

Suppose that new Beth and old Beth are different people. On my view,then, new Beth cannot be autonomous just after her “birth” because she lacksa history of engagement with her desires; once that has been established, how-ever, she can be autonomous provided that she has engaged with her new

desires in the right way. Tis seems plausible. Presumably, all of us were born with innate desires and dispositions, and we do not think that this fact aloneprevents us from ever becoming autonomous. If new Beth, who is a new per-son, can never become autonomous, then neither, it seems, can the rest of ussince we too came into the world bearing desires. Tis suggests that, if newBeth is indeed a new person, then shecan become autonomous, which myview clearly permits. Now, my view would be implausible if it implied thatnew Beth is autonomousat the very moment of her birth . But it is Mele’s view,and not mine, that has this implication. Unlike my historical condition, Mele’s

historical condition is a negative one – it requires only that agents lack a his-tory of compulsion. On his view, “an agent who magically comes into exis-tence with a wealth of beliefs, desires, and values in place”27 would have nocompelled pro-attitudes and would thus satisfy his historical condition onautonomy. And since, by hypothesis, new Beth is the psychological clone of

26 Perhaps the only way for Beth to reclaim her autonomy would be to have the brainwashingreversed. Tis, presumably, would have to be done without her permission since her decision toauthorize re-manipulation would be tainted by the very manipulation that she would be seeking

to undo.27 Ibid. p. 172




autonomous Ann, it follows that Beth would satisfy any non-historical condi-tions on autonomy. And so, on Mele’s view, if new Beth and old Beth are

different people, then new Beth is autonomous at the very moment of herbirth, and just as autonomous as Ann. Tat is implausible.

Now suppose that new and old Beth are the same person. As before, on myview, new Beth cannot be autonomous immediately after the brainwashingbecause she has no history of engagement with her new desires, but she canbecome autonomous after having engaged with them in the right way pro-vided that her desire-assessment faculties have not been damaged. But hereMele would likely object that since new Beth is still the same person that she

was prior to being brainwashed, her engagements with her new desires at least

would be distorted by manipulation and so cannot be autonomy-conferring. Why should the fact that Beth is still the same person matter? Perhaps because,if Beth were now a different person, the manipulation’s victim (old Beth)

would no longer exist. And so, while new Beth’s engagement with her desiresmight be guided by brainwashed values, it might be inaccurate to describethese asmanipulated , since it was old Beth who was manipulated. Tat mightexplain why we are more certain of Beth’s non-autonomy when she survivesthe brainwashing than when she does not.

Mele’s view, then, may seem better equipped than my own to handle cases

of wholesale manipulation where the victim survives the ordeal, since my viewimplies, somewhat implausibly, that these victims can regain their autonomyeven without employing extraordinary means (see note 26) so long as theirdesire-assessment faculties have not been damaged. But Mele doesn’t get thisadvantage for free. Recall that, on his view, the origins of our pro-attitudesmatter for their autonomy only when they are practically unsheddable . But whyshould we limit our concerns only to practically unsheddable attitudes in

wholesale manipulation cases? Te worry, I take it, is that new Beth, if she isthe same person as old Beth, is non-autonomousregardless of the sheddability

of her pro-attitudes, for even if she could shed them, any decision to do so would be distorted by manipulation. After all, Beth’s entirevalue system hasbeen manipulated. Tis means that if the origins of our desires matter to theirautonomy in cases of wholesale manipulation, then origins matter irrespectiveof practical unsheddability. But without the sheddability constraint, Mele’sview is essentially an Origins View. Tus he too has the problem of explainingthe difference between the manipulation that Beth was subjected to and whattypically occurs in childhood, since it is not only children’s desires that areoften non-rationally shaped but also theirvalue systems . Indeed, Mele’s insis-

tence that origins matter in cases of wholesale manipulation leads to the con-clusion that virtually no human desires are autonomous. After all, if new and




old Beth are different people, and new Beth is non-autonomous by virtue ofthe origins of her desires, then any creature that comes into existence already

possessing desires will be non-autonomous. If, on the other hand, new and oldBeth are the same person, and new Beth is non-autonomous by virtue of theorigins of her desires, then any existing creature that undergoes non-rationalvalue modication will be non-autonomous.But we are just such creatures .

We all, presumably, came into existence (or at least into the world as separateorganisms) with desires, and we all, I trust, underwent non-rational valuemodication in childhood. And so, if autonomy is achievable for creatureslike us, we had better resist any theory that makes a desire’s proper originsnecessary for its autonomy, even if it’s one that, like Mele’s, tries to limit the

Origin View’s scope.

5. Te Problem of Recalcitrant Desires

Is my view genuinely historical? Why not maintain that a desire is autono-mous if and only if one now engages with it in a way that makes it one’sown? First, such a present-engagement view cannot easily capture the intuitionthat how one became the person one is matters to whether one is now self-

governing. Second, and on a related matter, it is hard to see how such viewscould handle the case of Beth and Ann, for Beth and Ann differ only withrespect to their histories and not with respect to their present engagements.Te challenge for a present-engagement theorist is to explain how a psycho-logical clone of an autonomous person may nevertheless lack autonomy.Perhaps, to blunt the counter-intuitiveness of classifying Beth as autonomous,such a theorist could appeal to a psychological continuity theory of personalidentity on which new Beth would be a different person from old Beth. Butthis view would still imply that new Beth is autonomous, and just as autono-

mous as Ann, at the very moment of her birth. Tat seems implausible.Defenders of present-engagement views, however, might argue that myview has a deep problem of its own – one that their view easily avoids. Tis isthe problem of “recalcitrant” desires, which are desires that one once endorsedbut that one now wishes to be rid of. A standard example involves a heroinresearcher who, for good reason, cultivated an addiction to heroin, but is nowunable to stop using heroin despite desperately wishing to do so.28 Here we

28 Tis example comes from Alfred Mele, “History and Personal Autonomy,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1993): 271-80.




can say that her present desire for heroin is recalcitrant – though she had pre-viously endorsed it, it now persists despite her wish that it would recede or

vanish. Intuitively, such recalcitrant desires seem not our own – they seem tointerfere with our ability to govern ourselves – especially if we repudiate themfor good reasons. Defenders of the Origins View needn’t worry about recalci-trant desires because they don’t claim that a desire’s proper originssuffi ce for itsautonomy, and defenders of present engagement views needn’t worry becausethey don’t believe that, with respect to autonomy, an agent’s past endorse-ments matter. Yet on my view, according to which having engaged with adesire in the right way suffi ces for its autonomy, recalcitrant desires, it seems,can be autonomous. And so, Origins Views and present-engagement views

seem to have an advantage over my view.I don’t think, however, that recalcitrant desires pose a serious problem formy view. At most, they force a slight emendation. Previously, I claimed that adesire D is autonomous if and only if one has a history of having engaged withD in the right way. We should add a qualier: that one doesn’t also have acomparable history of having “disengaged” from D. My full view, then, is thatD is autonomous if its bearer has engaged with it in a way that made it hisown, provided that he hasn’t also engaged with it in a way that made it nolonger his own. Like the former kind of engagement, the latter kind involves

similar deliberative and evaluative processes, except that these issue in a judg-ment that D is not worth having. Notice that this emendation is very much inkeeping with the spirit of my view, the key idea of which is that a desire’sautonomy hinges on its historical relationship with its bearer. Since this rela-tionship can be positive or negative – since it can be one of approval or one ofdisapproval – it stands to reason that if it can support a desire’s autonomy,then it can also undermine it. Tat is, if having a history of judging that adesire is worth having confers autonomy upon it, then nothing, it seems, pre-vents having the opposite history from stripping it of its special status. Now,

in the case of recalcitrant desires, there is typically both a history of approvaland of disapproval (though at different times). But this seems to raise no majordiffi culties since, at least in principle, we could weigh the former against thelatter.29 Indeed, such weighings may already be involved in our attributions ofautonomy since agents may well be at leastsomewhat conicted about manyof their desires. I might, for instance, be largely committed to philosophy as acareer but still harbor some doubts. So long as these doubts do not overwhelm

29 Exactly how this “weighing” is to be done cannot be determined apart from a specicaccount of what agent-engagement involves, which is beyond this paper’s scope.




my commitment, however, we would think that my philosophically orienteddesires would be good candidates for autonomy. Presumably, we can make

similar comparisons when the pro- and anti-attitudes in question are not con-temporaneous, as in the case of recalcitrant desires.

But why not say that a desire is non-autonomous as soon as its bearer has anegative attitude towards it? Why insist on ahistory of disapproval? In part, weshould insist on such a history for all of the reasons heretofore presented indefense of a historical view of autonomy. In addition, though, it seems that,having established a history of engagement with a desire, and thus havingmade it one’s own, we have reason to believe that amere change of attitudetowards it should not suffi ce to displace it. o see this, consider the popular

idea that an autonomous person is, in some sense, the “author of his life.”30

Now, notice that the mere fact that my desire D happens to have proper origins – that D was acquired or was formed in the absence of manipulation –gives us little reason to regard me as D’sauthor . Tis, I believe, explains whysuch desires, when recalcitrant, seem non-autonomous. After all, why regard adesire that I never authored and of which I now disapprove asmy own ? Butconsider a desire Q that I made my own. By having engaged with Q in theright way, I may not have authored its content but I at least gave it a specialrole in my motivational set. I promoted it, as it were, to the level of autonomy.

And if I made Q my own in this way, it isn’t obvious that itsmere recalcitranceshould strip it of its special status, just as it isn’t obvious that my regrettinghaving formed, say, a business partnership should, by itself, invalidate it. Tisis hardly a perfect analogy, but the basic point seems compelling: that, havingmade a commitment in good faith, it does not evaporate simply by becomingburdensome or undesirable. And so, even in the case of the heroin researcher,there can be reason to regard her present desire for heroin as autonomousdespite its recalcitrance.31 Of course, on my view, a comparable history ofdisengagement from this desire would make it no longer her own.

30 Among those who use the “author of your life” metaphor are Joseph Raz, Tomas Nagel,and Joel Feinberg. See Joseph Raz,Te Morality of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press,1986), pp. 369-78; Tomas Nagel , Te View From Nowhere (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1986), p. 114; Joel Feinberg,Harm to Self , Vol. 3 of Te Moral Limits of the Criminal Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

31 Let me qualify this a bit. First, it is possible that her addiction has turned her into a differ-ent person from the one she was when she decided to become an addict. In that case, her desirefor heroin may indeed be non-autonomous with respect to the person she now is. Second, it isimportant to specify exactly which desire she authored. Was it a desire to experience heroin

addiction for, say, just a week, or was it a desire to be a genuine heroin addict? If it was the latter,and if there are no legitimate concerns about personal identity, then there is at least some reasonto regard her desire for heroin as autonomous, its recalcitrance notwithstanding.




6. Why any Plausible Teory of Autonomy Will Share My View’sProblems

Perhaps I have been unfair to my critics because I have not subjected my ownview to equal scrutiny. Indeed, a critic might argue that were I to try to specify

what’s involved in historical agent-engagement – what’s involved indeliberat-ing about the merits of one’s desires – I would encounter problems at least astroublesome as those that I have raised for the Origins View. For instance, shemight argue that my view will likely get ensnared in a familiar regress. Tisregress can be generated by assuming something seemingly plausible: thatsuch deliberation is autonomy-conferring only if it is properly motivated, and

it is properly motivated only if it is motivated by desires that are themselvesautonomous.32 Tis generates an innite regress that the Origins View seemsable to avoid by grounding autonomy in processes of desire formation andacquisition rather than in agent-engagement.33

Admittedly, this regress should concern anyone espousing an agent-engagement theory of autonomy, historical or otherwise. But on this issuenon-agent-engagement theories earn no real advantage. Tis is because, onsome level, all plausible theories of autonomy must be agent-engagementtheories; all such theories must claim that at some point in the autonomy-

conferring process an agent must take an active role in evaluating his desiresand deciding whether they are worth maintaining and worth acting on.Otherwise, “autonomous” agents would be relegated to the role of spectatorsvis-à-vis their desires, which is incompatible with the core idea that suchagents must be governors, authors, or legislators. Whether one conceivesof autonomy as a kind of self-government, self-legislation, self-determination,or being the author of one’s life, one conceives of autonomous agents asactors ,as doers , as persons who engage with their desires to determine whether theyare worth having and worth acting on. An autonomy theorist, then, can

eschew agent-engagement only at a very steep price – by making autonomysomething other than it is – something other than self-government, self-determination, self-legislation, or being the author of one’s life.

32 One can reject the claim that agent-engagement must be motivated by desires that arethemselves autonomous, but then one would face the problem of explaining how autonomy canarise from non-autonomy. Tis is sometimes called the Ab-Initio problem. A good discussion ofthis problem can be found in James Stacey aylor, “Introduction,” in James Stacey aylor, ed.,Personal Autonomy : 6-7.

33

An interesting discussion of this regress can be found in Robert Noggle’s “Autonomy andthe Paradox of Self-Creation: Innite Regresses, Finite Selves, and the Limits of Authenticity” in James Stacey aylor, ed.Personal Autonomy (Cambridge University Press, 2005).




Tus no plausible theory of autonomy can avoid appealing to agent-engagement at some level. And so, whatever problems I may encounter in

developing my account of agent-engagement will be shared by any plausiblealternative theory of autonomy. Moreover, this means that any plausible the-ory of autonomy that incorporates the Origins View (call this an OriginsTeory ) will have to include an agent-engagement component; on top of itsrequirement that autonomous desires be properly formed, it will have to adda requirement that agents engage with their desires to determine whether theyare worth maintaining and worth acting on. But by adding this requirement,an Origins Teory acquires whatever problems my view may have. So if myview is ensnared in the aforementioned regress, then so is any plausible version

of the Origins Teory. And if an Origins Teory can avoid this regress whilemaintaining a commitment to agent-engagement, then I can avail myself of whatever strategy enabled it to do so.

Let me conclude with a methodological point. In choosing between theo-ries of autonomy, we should set aside the problems that they all have in com-mon, such as explaining how agents can play an active and meaningful role inthe autonomy-conferring process, and focus instead on thespecial problemsthat affl ict them or on the advantages that they have over their rivals. UnlikeOrigins Teories, my view does not undermine the autonomy of nearly all

human desires. Unlike non-historical agent-engagement theories, my view canproduce a plausible analysis of the Beth and Ann case and it can handle at leastsome of the worries raised by the problem of manipulation. And a problemthat seems unique to my view – that of recalcitrant desires – turns out to beless problematic than it may have initially seemed. On the whole, then, wehave good reason to prefer my view to its rivals, even without a precise accountof what historical agent-engagement involves. Eventually, of course, the details

will have to be forthcoming.



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