JOHN CHRISTMAN

RELATIONAL AUTONOMY, LIBERAL INDIVIDUALISM,

AND THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES∗

Philosophical suspicion of the normative presuppositions of liber-

alism have often focused on the alleged hyper-individualism of the
conception of autonomy and the autonomous person operating at
its center. Communitarians, feminists, theorists of identity politics,
and others have claimed in different ways that the model of the
autonomous agent upon which liberal principles are built assumes a
conception of human identity, value, and commitment which is blind
to the embeddedness of our self-conceptions, the fundamentally
relational nature of our motivations, and the overall social character
of our being. Feminists have been especially vocal in the claim that
the idea of autonomy central to liberal politics must be reconfigured
so as to be more sensitive to relations of care, interdependence, and
mutual support that define our lives and which have traditionally
marked the realm of the feminine.1
Emerging from this discussion is a view of the autonomous
person that is structured so as to fully embrace this social concep-
tion of the self. “Relational autonomy” is the label that has been
given to an alternative conception of what it means to be a free,
self-governing agent who is also socially constituted and who
possibly defines her basic value commitments in terms of inter-
personal relations and mutual dependencies.2 Relational views
of the autonomous person, then, valuably underscore the social
embeddedness of selves while not forsaking the basic value commit-
ments of (for the most part, liberal) justice. These conceptions
underscore the social components of our self-concepts as well as
emphasize the role that background social dynamics and power
structures play in the enjoyment and development of autonomy.
However, when conceptions of relational autonomy are spelled out
in detail, certain difficulties arise which should give us some pause
in the utilization of such notions in the formulation of principles of

Philosophical Studies 117: 143–164, 2004.

© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
144 JOHN CHRISTMAN

justice, especially those motivated by feminist and other liberatory

concerns. In this paper, I want to take a closer look at the conception
of relational autonomy as it has been developed in some recent work
and to suggest some friendly amendments to those views, amend-
ments which share the call for greater attention to the social nature
of the self but which, in the end (and with much qualification), direct
us back to a kind of individualism in the concept of the autonomous
person, a move that is necessary if that idea is to do the theoretical
and normative work that both liberal theorists and some of their
feminist critics want it to perform.

RELATIONAL SELVES AND RELATIONAL AUTONOMY

Taking off from the various criticisms of the hyper-individualism

of traditional liberal theories, many writers from different quarters
have insisted that a better understanding of the subject of prin-
ciples of justice sees persons as relational and socially constituted
in fundamental ways. Insofar, then, as the autonomous person func-
tions as a central idea in moral and political reflections, such a
“person” should be conceived as fundamentally and irreducibly
relational.3
It is certainly true that any plausible philosophical or political
theory must take into account the various ways in which humans
are socially embedded, intimately related to other people, groups,
institutions, and histories, that they experience themselves and their
values as part of ongoing narratives and long traditions, and that
they are motivated by interests and reasons that can only be fully
defined with reference to other people and things. But there are a
number of ways of expressing the idea that selves are “constituted”
by their relations with other persons and other external factors. First,
the thesis in question can be understood as a metaphysical claim,
such that relations with other persons, institutions, traditions, and so
on are seen as essentially part of the person (either at a time or over
time).4 Alternatively, the social self thesis can be understood as a
contingent psychological claim about a person’s self-concept, value
structure, emotional states, motivational set, or reflective capacities.
Such views consider interpersonal interaction (or social dynamics
more generally) as a constitutive element of psychological states and
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 145

processes while viewing such interactions as (in principle) alterable

and shifting (that is, contingent).5
The metaphysical version of this claim, at least in some of its
forms, should be met with some skepticism. Surely, to conceive of
the self as an individual devoid of necessary connections to society,
intimate others, cultural traditions and so on is to misunderstand
the perspective and interests of persons as social entities. But it is
equally important to understand the logical gap between the rejec-
tion of a metaphysical individualism in this realm and the embrace
of a metaphysically relational conception of the self.6 For it is one
thing to deny that persons can always or should always be conceived
without essential reference to social context, and it is quite another
to claim that they should be conceived with a particular reference
to some aspect of social context. The latter, relational, conception
of self – at least when posed as a metaphysical claim – runs the
risk of ignoring the very variability, contingency, and temporally
fluid nature of human existence that motivates the rejection of old-
style individualism. Just as conceiving of persons as denuded of
social relations denies the importance of such relations to the self-
understandings of many of us at various times in our lives, to define
persons as necessarily related in particular ways similarly denies
the reality of change over time, variability in self-conception, and
multiplicities of identity characteristic of modern populations.
Moreover, it is quite unclear that any particular conception of
self or the person can serve broadly as a model for normative
thinking in a wide variety of contexts, for identity is variable
according to the theoretical or practical setting in which it is asked
to operate. Self-conceptions (and so “selves”) change over time and
vary considerably across contexts.7 In some areas, embodiment and
physicality are prominent aspects of our existence and hence must
be included as a core element in models of the self (biological and
medical models come to mind); while in other areas, racial or gender
identity figures saliently, and in still others relational dynamics such
as being a parent or caring for a dependent matter the most. Concep-
tions of the self should not be offered as monolithic and all-purpose,
for what counts as our “self” will vary according to the point of
asking for the model. And a wide array of philosophical and psycho-
logical methodologies are in play in framing that question, all of
146 JOHN CHRISTMAN

which yield fundamentally different conceptions.8 In addition, there

is evidence of cultural variations in self-concepts relating to the
degree of interdependence and inter-relatedness that figures in self-
schemas.9 Finally, conceptions of the self often fail to adequately
distinguish the different localities for the function of a “self” which
the models are meant to capture; these include the self as the seat
of agency, the self as object of introspective consciousness, the
“self-schema” which frames reflection and memory, the object of
recognition by others and social specification, and so on.10
Nevertheless, as others have noted, there is nothing about a social
conception of “self” that is incompatible with an individual concep-
tion of autonomy.11 Indeed, insofar as autonomy requires some
measure of internal integration of the disparate elements of the self,
and the self is constituted by social elements, then one cannot be
autonomous relative to those social elements unless one exists in
environments that allow their full manifestation. For one can claim
that I am autonomous just in case I can turn a reflective eye to certain
aspects of my character, even if those aspects can only be defined
relative to external relations I have (or have had) with others. If
political institutions and social patterns have the effect of distancing
me from those connections by which I, in part, define myself, and
if upon due reflection I experience profound self alienation when I
realize the extent of this distancing, then those social patterns that
induce this phenomenon are inimical to autonomy.12 So not only is
autonomy not resistant to support for communal and social struc-
tures that shape and undergird human identities, it in fact demands
them.
Still, several writers have taken up the mantle of the “rela-
tional” view by promoting a relational approach to autonomy
itself, a subject to which we now turn. What I will argue is that,
while I support the emphasis on relational elements of autonomy,
some versions of the relational conception problematically import
a perfectionist view of human values into the account of autonomy
and thereby threaten to undermine the usefulness of the concept in
certain theoretical and practical contexts in which it is often seen to
function.
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 147

RELATIONAL AUTONOMY, DIFFERENCE,

AND PERFECTIONIST POLITICS

In order to assess the plausibility of any central but contested

concept, such as autonomy, it is necessary to specify the theoretical
and practical context in which that concept is understood to func-
tion. Not only does the idea of autonomy set the boundaries of anti-
perfectionism and anti-paternalism in principles of justice, it also
(and relatedly) specifies the characteristics of the adult citizen whose
interests and perspective mold those principles of justice and democ-
racy. Such a conception must express sensitivity to the multiple
differences among citizens involving patterns of thought, modes of
identity, religious and other value commitments, and the like. The
autonomous person (so-conceived) has certain fundamental interests
which principles of justice are designed to protect; such a person
has a perspective through which those principles gain their basic
justification and ongoing legitimacy; autonomous persons are the
participants in democratic processes which (depending on one’s
view) compliment or constitute those just principles by which they
and their co-citizens are bound and guided.13
It is for these reasons that a hyper-individualist conception of
autonomy is so problematic, for it presents a model of the citizen
as fundamentally separated or able to easily become separated from
all connections with intimate others, surrounding culture, and other
identity-constituting elements of the social environment. There-
fore, a more robust conception of relational autonomy has been
suggested.
“Relational autonomy” does not refer to a single account but
is rather, as Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar put it, an
“umbrella term” which refers to all views of autonomy that share
the assumption that “persons are socially embedded and that agents’
identities are formed within the context of social relationships and
shaped by a complex of intersecting social determinants, such as
race, class, gender, and ethnicity.”14 But what also must be true to
make a conception of autonomy uniquely “relational” or “social”
is that among its defining conditions are requirements concerning
the interpersonal or social environment of the agent.15 In partic-
ular, to mark out such accounts from others in the literature, social
conditions of some sort must be named as conceptually necessary
148 JOHN CHRISTMAN

requirements of autonomy rather than, say, contributory factors.16

However, only a few have spelled out precisely the social conditions
that are being referred to in such alternative conceptualizations.
Since a full survey of these views cannot be undertaken here, I will
focus on representative samples of such accounts.
Autonomy has come to be understood in this literature as
requiring competence in reflection and decision making and (on
some views) authenticity of the values, desires, and so on that
constitute the person and motivate choice.17 “Proceduralist views”,
to which relational accounts are often said to contrast, hold that
autonomy obtains when the processes by which a desire, value, and
the like comes to be developed are of the proper sort, independent
of the content of such a desire, value, etc. “Substantive” views, by
contrast, demand that particular values or commitments must be part
of the autonomous agent’s value or belief corpus. This contrast in
views, we will see in a moment, will be at the heart of the discussion
of the viability of relational views of autonomy.18
Most who call for alternative, relational, accounts of autonomy
focus on the “authenticity” conditions typically specified in received
models, conditions such as that the agent must identify with first
order elements of the self in order to be autonomous.19 As Jennifer
Nedelsky has put it, the process of “finding one’s own law” specified
in traditional accounts of autonomy – the processes of establishing
the authenticity here referred to – can only occur in social conditions
that foster certain types of human relationships. While traditional
accounts of authenticity refer only to the isolated agent reflecting
on his or her own desires, relational accounts “think of autonomy in
terms of the forms of human interactions in which it will develop
and flourish”.20
Notice, however, that this specifies the conditions that allow
autonomy to develop rather than the conceptual conditions that
define it. Writers like Nedelsky are surely correct that discussions of
autonomy have focused on the individual agent as if “he” were able
to develop an authentic set of values and desires without the caring
support of various others and the social structures that contribute
to human self-development. And moreover, feminists have power-
fully claimed that relationships that are necessary for the growth and
development of healthy personalities are often ignored in accounts
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 149

of autonomous personhood, most likely because of a devaluation

of the traditional feminine roles of educator, mother, and caretaker.
In addition, feminist concerns of this sort point to the ways that
many of us find our authentic selves only in relation to various
others (those we care for as well as cultural traditions, communities,
and causes). Authenticity conditions that fail to mention the
contributory role of those relationships serve to valorize the life
of the separated individual and to denigrate the social and inter-
personal aspects of many or all of our lives. However, if these
lessons were all taken to heart, as they should be, we might still
define autonomy as an individual undertaking, as a set of capacities
which a person, apart from others, might exercise.21 For reasons that
will emerge as we proceed, I want to focus, then, on relational views
that see interpersonal and social factors as conceptually necessary
for autonomy.
One of the most developed and powerfully defended accounts
of “social” autonomy has been put forth by Marina Oshana,
who insists that autonomy should be seen as a “socio-relational”
pheonomenon.22 This is in contrast to the purely “internalist”,
“psychological” accounts that pepper the literature (accounts that,
for our purposes, can be seen as equivalent to the procedural views
mentioned earlier). Oshana faults internalist accounts of autonomy
for running afoul of our intuitions in cases where agents seem
to accept social conditions that deny their dignity, stature as an
independent agent, and essential self-determination. Such “essen-
tially subjective” accounts (p. 81) are also unacceptably individual-
istic.
Oshana defends this view by describing a series of cases which
illustrate the way that internalist conditions of autonomy come up
short: they consistently ignore the importance of various social
conditions that, while at some level are “acceptable” to the person,
are fundamentally oppressive and restrictive. Examples include
voluntary slavery, a subservient housewife, a religious devotee, and
a conscientious objector. The structure of these cases is familiar,
in that they follow in line with the “happy slave” examples that
are often mentioned in this context. We are to imagine persons
that meet all the conditions of competence and authenticity that
internalist accounts of autonomy demand, but choose to enter or
150 JOHN CHRISTMAN

continue in conditions which deny them the basic opportunities for

self-determination that mark autonomy. Such cases, Oshana claims,
systematically offend our intuitions that the “autonomous person is
in control of her choices, her actions, and her will, that she is able
to meet her goals without depending upon the judgments of others
as to their validity and importance. . . . [While she] may require the
assistance of others in meeting those goals, she decides which of
them are most important” (p. 82).
As a replacement for the individualist, internalist accounts that
render this result, Oshana puts forth a provocative alternative view
of autonomy. On her account, autonomy obtains only when social
conditions surrounding an individual live up to certain standards. In
addition to allowing the person to develop critical reflective abilities
and procedural independence (of the sort internalists demand), the
surrounding social conditions in which the autonomous person
resides must allow her significant options,23 they must ensure that
she can defend herself against psychological and physical assault
when necessary or against attempts to deprive her of her rights, she
must not be forced to take responsibility for others’ needs unless
agreed to or reasonably expected, and they must allow her to pursue
goals different from those who have influence or authority over
her (pp. 94–95). In all autonomy attaches to persons “in light of
their socio-relational standing” and not merely their current or past
psychological states (p. 96).
Oshana says much in support of this view that, regrettably,
cannot be brought out in this brief treatment. However, there are
elements of this view that pull us in different directions, and it
will be fruitful I think to trace them out.24 First, as fundamentally
“social” as this account appears, there are curiously individualistic
elements to it that bear emphasis. In cases where a person authenti-
cally and competently remains in a condition of strict obedience, a
proceduralist will count her as autonomous if the (rather stringent)
conditions of authentic acceptance are met. This mirrors the
assumption that selves, at least in some ways and in some instances,
should be seen as constituted by the social and interpersonal
dynamics that surround them. But Oshana’s view insists that to
be autonomous, she must, as an individual, maintain the ability to
“pursue goals different from those who have influence and authority
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 151

over her”. This view is in some tension with the idea that persons
should be understood to be constituted by social relations (in some
ways or in some instances), at least when those identity constituting
relations are overly authoritative.
This points to the fact that views like Oshana’s actually
combine substantive, perfectionist, conditions for autonomy – that
autonomous agents must have certain value commitments and/or
must be treated in certain normatively acceptable ways – with socio-
relational conditions. Proceduralists defend their views in part in
order to be able to utilize the concept of autonomy in as broad a
value terrain as possible; indeed such views are often called “value-
neutral” accounts in that they attempt to define autonomy without
direct reference to the content of the value systems that define
and motivate agents. What views like Oshana’s rest upon is the
claim that certain substantive value commitments – such as the view
that I must obey my superiors unconditionally – are conceptually
inconsistent with autonomy.
But there is in fact a tension between the perfectionist aspect
of the relational view and its anti-individualism. The latter aspect
shows itself in the need to not only make room for but reify the
social nature of the person, her values, and her psychology. The
perfectionist strain, however, appears in the form of the denial of
purely procedural, that is, content-neutral conceptions of autonomy.
Relational theorists who decry procedural views on the grounds that
they would allow voluntary slavery to masquerade as autonomy are
in fact supporting a conception of autonomy which is an ideal of
individualized self-government, an ideal that those who choose strict
obedience or hierarchical power structures have decided to reject.
Those whose value conceptions manifest relatively blurred lines
between self and other, who downplay the value of individualized
judgments and embrace devotion to an externally defined norma-
tive structure (which may include obedience to particular human
authorities) stand in defiance of the normative ideals that relational
views of autonomy put forward. It is one thing to say that models
of autonomy must acknowledge how we are all deeply related; it
is another to say that we are autonomous only if related in certain
idealized ways. I will return to this issue momentarily.
152 JOHN CHRISTMAN

We are discussing these issues largely in the context of liberal

approaches to justice and the person, but the point I am making
extends beyond that scope. For theorists who decry the potentially
exclusionary implications of liberal conceptions of the person –
so-called “difference feminists” for example – should be doubly
concerned about conceptions of relational autonomy that connect
that term – and the status of responsible agency, equal standing,
and so on that relates to it – to modes of social life that not all
women and men embrace. Liberation from oppression must be
undertaken within a normative framework that leaves the most room
for disparate voices, even those who endorse traditional and author-
itarian value systems, for it must be accepted, in principle at least,
that many women and marginalized people will embrace traditional
conceptions of social life and cultural roles that offend western,
liberal ideals of individual self-sufficiency. While some version of
that ideal is certainly worth defending, it is dangerous to couch that
defense in the definition of the autonomous person.25 I will return to
this point below.
We should be also be clear about another point: all I mean by
“perfectionism” here is the view that values and moral principles can
be valid for a person independent of her judgment of those values
and principles.26 Such a view implies that there are certain intrinsic
values – grounded in human nature perhaps – that should guide indi-
vidual and social action independent of the endorsement of those
values by minimally rational, autonomous individuals. This is not
the same as requiring certain normative conditions of autonomy
itself, where, for example, it is argued that to be autonomous, one
must have value commitments stronger than simply what is subjec-
tively desired, commitments grounded in considerations external to
the self (“strong evaluations” in Charles Taylor’s phrase).27 The
critique of relational autonomy being considered here merely claims
that viewing non-authoritarian relations as constitutive of autonomy
implies that certain values – egalitarian ones of this sort – are
valid for individuals even if they (ex hypothesi) authentically and
freely reject them. It may well turn out that autonomy does require
commitment to values grounded in considerations external to the
self, but it should not require that those values are valid independent
of the person’s authentic embrace of them.28 But the point here is
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 153

that conceptions of autonomy should not imply perfectionism of the

sort described.
One might argue, however, that seeing autonomy in a way
that allows the possibility of autonomous but thoroughly obedient
(passive, unquestioning, etc.) persons makes it highly questionable
that such a trait has value. Why would we value the character-
istic of autonomy if, by definition, one can be autonomous but
subservient?29 The value of autonomy is not a topic I can take up
here, but let it suffice to say that an anti-perfectionist conception
of autonomy of the sort I outline here has value simply because it
constitutes, in part, the human agency and capacity for authentic
choice that grounds respect for ourselves and other persons.30
Insofar as a person has authentically embraced even (what we
might call) oppressive social status or subservient roles, that person
deserves respect insofar as her judgment about those roles has
the same formal features as our own judgment about our own
lives. Moreover, collective political decisions have binding force on
individual citizens in part because they are chosen by free, authentic
co-citizens under conditions of optimal choice; to say that such
decisions are binding implies (by virtue of a complex argument left
out here) that we value the ability of those co-citizens to authen-
tically judge for themselves. Both these positions can be consistently
held without requiring that the content of the judgments in question
reflect a high regard for personal independence or other values of the
sort that views such as Oshana’s demand of the autonomous agent.
In addition to writers defending relational views, many others
have claimed that proceduralist, value-neutral accounts fail to
adequately identify autonomous agents, because of the way that
some oppressed and dominated individuals might nevertheless
endorse many of their first order commitments and connections (the
very ones forced upon them by their oppressive circumstances).
Proceduralist accounts leave the door open for labeling such persons
as autonomous in counter-intuitive ways, such that only substantive
views of autonomy are plausible.
Recall that on procedural accounts of autonomy, that condition
obtains when a person has (hypothetically perhaps) reflected upon
elements of herself and endorsed (or failed to be deeply alienated
from) those elements. And it must be admitted that merely reflecting
154 JOHN CHRISTMAN

upon one’s values and identity will not be sufficient to secure the
authenticity of those elements of the self. So more must be said
of this requirement to meet the challenge being considered here.
That reflection must be undertaken free from the influence of factors
which we know severely restrict free consideration of one’s condi-
tion and one’s options. The hypothetical self-endorsing reflection
we imagine here must be such that it is not the product of social and
psychological conditions that prevent adequate appraisal of oneself.
This includes ability to assess the various aspects of one’s being,
and the freedom from those factors and conditions that we know
independently effectively prevent minimal self-understanding. A
person who endorses his decisions while in an uncontrollable rage,
or while on heavy doses of hallucinogenic drugs, or having been
denied minimal education and exposure to alternatives does not
adequately reflect in this way. A general test for such a require-
ment might be this: a person reflects adequately if she is able to
realistically imagine choosing otherwise were she in a position to
value sincerely that alternative position.31 That is, her reflective
abilities must contain sufficient flexibility that she could imagine
responding appropriately to alternative reasons (where “appropri-
ately” and “reasons” are understood from her own point of view).
Adequate reflection requires that a person can see herself doing
otherwise, under at least some imaginable conditions; otherwise
she is not manifesting a true capacity to consider her own internal
states.32 Such a requirement needs much more description and
defense of course, but a fully worked out notion of “adequate reflec-
tiveness” could, in principle, be worked out which (a) did not rest
on specific contents concerning the values and norms a persons is
moved by in her reflections, but which (b) rules out cases where
reflective self-endorsement simply replicates the oppressive social
conditions that autonomous living is meant to stand against.
In this way, the person who engages in subservient devotion to
external authorities (or who leads a lifestyle of the sort described
in the critiques of proceduralist autonomy being considered) is
only autonomous if she would not reject those conditions while
reflecting adequately (in the way just described). The contention
being defended here is that one is autonomous in a way worth
valuing even if one exhibits this autonomy in conditions and rela-
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 155

tionships that we (quite rightly) would label oppressive. Defenders

of relational views go astray at times when they include relational
conditions for autonomy that effectively rule out freely choosing a
life of strict obedience. Insofar as the self is socially constituted, it
is counterintuitive to claim that such a self is only autonomous if
she can break away from those very social conditions, authoritarian
though they are, that constitute her being. As long as she maintains
the ability to adequately reflect on those conditions and embrace
them, I argue that we should continue to label her autonomous.
A final point, however, about the grounds that are usually
offered to reject overly individualist views of autonomy: Procedural
accounts are most often taken to task for their inability to counte-
nance social identity in virtue of their emphasis on detached reflec-
tion and self-endorsement (or non-alienation) from aspects of the
self.33 These critiques, then, focus on the authenticity conditions in
models of autonomy. However, the real failing of those accounts
lies in the competency conditions that are typically (and often
incompletely) laid out as necessary for autonomy.
Individualist, procedural views of autonomy include conditions
of both competence and authenticity. Competence conditions typi-
cally refer to such things as self-control, capacities for rational
thought, and freedom from debilitating pathologies, systematic self-
deception, and so on.34 But, as feminists and other “relational”
theorists have been insisting, many life patterns (particularly for
women and marginalized groups, according to some) crucially
involve intertwined personalities, close relations of care and depend-
ence, embedded cultural identities and values, and the like. For
autonomy to pick out the ability of persons to lead lives that they
can fully embrace as their own, then surely people need to develop
those abilities that are central to interpersonal relations of a variety
of sorts. So while I cannot spell out a list of such competences here,
and other (non-proceduralist) theorists have done much to do so in
their own views – most notably Diana Meyers35 – let me note that it
is competency conditions in proceduaralist views of autonomy that
are problematic insofar as they do not include or make room for
the wide variety of capacities for care, intimacy, social interaction,
and the like that will be crucial for socially embedded persons to
flourish.36
156 JOHN CHRISTMAN

But our main focus here is on the claim by defenders of relational

autonomy that, on the one hand, autonomy should be defined in
terms of social dynamics, but, on the other, this label should be with-
held from those persons enmeshed in social dynamics and power
relations of particular sorts. In what follows, I want to suggest why
understanding autonomy in this way threatens to rob that concept of
its usefulness as a marker of the (equal) moral and political status
that principles of social justice (of a certain sort) depend upon.

AUTONOMY AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT

As I noted earlier, the concept of autonomy functions to define and

“mark” the citizen-subject of principles of justice, where fair terms
of cooperation, the meanings of social goods, and basic rights and
needs articulated in those principles mirror the perspective of the
autonomous person. Further, insofar as democratic processes and
other modes of collective choice play an instrumental or constitutive
role in the derivation of such principles, autonomy indicates the
characteristic of persons who are candidates for full participation
in those collective decision-making processes.
To adopt a thoroughly relational view of autonomy is to see it
as a property, not merely of an individual and her capacities, but of
the relations that comprise those conditions. To protect autonomy in
this way is to protect those relations. What is powerful about these
views is the emphasis they place on securing the social conditions
that are required for the enjoyment of autonomy, conditions relating
to education, social structures and opportunities, access to basic
resources, housing, and so on.37 But relational views that see social
conditions as not only supportive of autonomy but definitive of it
carry with them a danger that autonomy-based principles of justice
will exclude from participation those individuals who reject those
types of social relations demanded by those views.
In Oshana’s view, for example, a person who adopts the lifestyle
of strict obedience is not autonomous despite having done so with
no sign of constrained reflection or manipulation, or a “failure on
her part to give her preferences for this lifestyle whatever measure
of deliberation it merits.” Now certainly such a person is being
oppressed, and her social condition, if it is in any way enforced
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 157

by surrounding conditions or institutions, does not manifest equal

status in ways that liberal theories of justice certainly want to
promote (concerning, for example, equal access to social resources).
But to say that she is not autonomous implies that she does not
enjoy the status marker of an independent citizen whose perspective
and value orientation get a hearing in the democratic processes that
constitute legitimate social policy.38
Just institutions are built upon and must help foster the operation
of public reason, which in turn generates, if they are successful, the
grounds of legitimacy for those institutions.39 Public deliberation
also generates the substance of just principles and correlative social
policy, principles and policies that determine which social relations
must be allowed as part of freely chosen life paths and which are
to be prohibited or discouraged as indicative of unjust or restrictive
hierarchies of power.
Distinguishing such relations involves, in part at least, the testi-
mony of those involved, including the voices of the marginalized
and discriminated within the ranks of these contested social institu-
tions and practices. To label such persons non-autonomous because
they do not stand in the proper social relations to their alleged
“superiors” means that deliberations about the meaning of equality
and legitimate authority is circumscribed to exclude voices who
are otherwise (by hypothesis) competent and authentic in ways that
procedural accounts of autonomy require (standards which, it bears
repeating, are high enough that virtually all imaginable cases of
“voluntary slavery” would fail to meet them).40
Further, all agree in this context that another function of the
concept of autonomy is to mark out the parameters within which a
person is immune from paternalistic intervention; it is, as Oshana
writes, the “value which paternalism fails to respect” (p. 82).
Consider, then, that a women who has “chosen” a family situation in
which her husband makes all significant decisions, and she accepts
the subservience described earlier. Despite her authentic, competent,
and “sober” acceptance of such situations (again, by hypothesis), her
lack of relational autonomy – should we accept that view – would
allow other agents and representatives of coercive social institutions
to intervene to relieve her of this burden and to restore her autonomy
(at least in principle). This implication should be troubling, however,
158 JOHN CHRISTMAN

not merely out of a knee-jerk reverence for individual “rights” and

privacy but from the recognition of the social reality that there
are any number of women and men who have accepted value
systems that inscribe traditional and severe hierarchies of power
and authority. The bases for these decisions vary from religious
devotion to ideological commitment (for example to the ideal of the
“good wife”). While those of us who shudder at the prevalence of
such value systems in a purportedly egalitarian society might work
hard to make such practices socially unacceptable, it is difficult to
endorse the position that such systems of belief must be ruled out of
court with the blunt edge of “autonomy”. It is one thing to publically
criticize modes of social practice that denigrate their participants,
but it is another to define autonomy in a way to claim that those
participants are not fully functioning agents at all.41
For these reasons, I suggest that we distinguish closely related
but importantly different aspects of relational views. It is one thing
to claim that social conditions that enable us to develop and maintain
the powers of authentic choice and which protect the ongoing inter-
personal and social relationships that define ourselves are all part
of the background requirements for the development of autonomy.
This is a powerful contribution to the discussions of autonomy to
date made by feminist (and other) defenders of relational concepts.
(Indeed, I have tried to suggest that greater attention to these
sorts of factors should be given in the “competence” conditions
of procedural accounts of autonomy.) It is another thing, however
– and a more dangerous and ultimately problematic move, I have
argued – to claim that being autonomous means standing in proper
social relations to surrounding others and within social practices and
institutions. Taking this position, I have argued, turns the concept
of autonomy into an unacceptably perfectionist idea that carries
with it the danger of exclusion and overarching paternalism that
attention to autonomy should well protect against. The lesson of
relational theories, then, is that socially constituted and interperson-
ally embedded selves, in all their varieties and complex perspectives
on value and justice, are autonomous only when that variable and
multiplex position in those social relations reflects the authentic and
self-imposed standards of the free person. In this way, relational
theories have taught us how far we should go in the direction of
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 159

seeing justice as concerning social dynamics as well as individual

choice, but they also point to the dangers of reifying any particular
set of such dynamics as the only ideal to be taken into account in the
public deliberations constitutive of justice itself.42

NOTES

1 See, for example, Allison Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Totowa,
NJ: Rowman and Allenheld, 1983), p. 29.
2 The most often cited source for the call for a new notion is Jennifer Nedelsky,

“Reconceiving Autonomy: Sources, Thoughts and Possibilities”, Yale Journal

of Law and Feminism 1 (1989), pp. 7–36. See also Marina Oshana “Personal
Autonomy and Society”, Journal of Social Philosophy 29(1) (Spring, 1998),
pp. 81–102. For an overview, see the essays in Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie
Stoljar (eds.), Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency,
and the Social Self (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). For an excellent
survey of the critical issues, see especially Mackenzie and Stoljar “Introduction:
Autonomy Reconfigured”, same volume, pp. 3–31.
3 The dimensions along which a self can be seen as non-individualized are

numerous, and calling the self simply “relational” suggests merely a dyadic
dynamic constituting the self. But theorists in the tradition I am describing, of
course, accept multiform elements as constitutive parts of the person (not merely
relations with some particular being). That said, however, I will use the term
“relational” and “social” more or less interchangeably in this context to refer to
the non-individualized conceptions I am considering.
4 Naomi Scheman claims, for example, that certain affective states, and many

mental states in general, that partially define individuals can only be specified in
social terms. To be “in love” is to be in love “with someone”, she writes. See
“Individualism and the Objects of Psychology”, in S. Harding and M. Hintika
(eds.), Discovering Reality (Boston, MA: D. Reidel, 1983), p. 232; see also
Scheman, Engenderings: Constructions of Knowledge, Authority, and Privilege
(New York: Routledge, 1993). For discussion of this issue, see Louise Antony, “Is
Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology?”, Hypatia 10 (1995), pp. 157–
174. For a response to Antony, see Scheman, “Reply to Louise Antony”, Hypatia
11(3) (1996), pp. 150–153.
5 For an excellent survey of points parallel to this, see Stoljar and Mackenzie,

“Introduction: Autonomy Reconfigured”. Also, see Linda Barclay, “Autonomy

and the Social Self”, in Mackenzie and Stoljar (eds.), Relational Autonomy,
pp. 52–71, George Sher, “Three Stages of Social Involvement”, in Beyond
Neutrality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), Chap. 7, David
Wong, “On Flourishing and Finding One’s Identity in Community”, in Peter
French et al. (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. XIII (South Bend, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), pp. 324–341, and Jack Crittenden, Beyond
160 JOHN CHRISTMAN

Individualism: Reconstituting the Liberal Self (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1992).
6 For an interesting discussion of whether the logic of identity always and

everywhere implies an unacceptable repression of difference, see Allison Weir,

Sacrificial Logics: Feminist Theory and the Critique of Identity (New York:
Routledge, 1996).
7 For a penetrating discussion of themes parallel to this, see Diana T. Meyers,

“Decentralizing Autonomy: Five Faces of Selfhood”, in John Christman and Joel

Anderson (eds.), Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays (New
York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). Also, for an interesting argu-
ment that conceptions of both autonomy and the self should be more sensitive to
the temporally extended nature of our lives, see Genevieve Lloyd, “Individuals,
Responsibility, and the Philosophical Imagination”, in Mackenzie and Stoljar
(eds.), Relational Autonomy, pp. 112–123.
8 For discussion of the historical development of theories of the self see Susan

Harter, “Historical Roots of Contemporary Issues Involving Self-Concept”, in

Bruce A. Bracken (ed.), Handbook of Self-Concept: Developmental, Social, and
Clinical Considerations (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996), pp. 1–38,
and Kenneth J. Gergen, The Concept of Self (New York: Holt, Rinehard, and
Winston, 1971), pp. 1–12. The monolithic models of the self I am describing can
be contrasted with purely “political” conceptions which posit provisional models
of personhood, not as accurate accounts of our psychological profiles, but as
representative schemas used for the purposes of generating political principles.
See John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press,
1993), pp. 29–35, 72–88.
9 See H.R. Markus and S. Kitayama, “Culture and the Self: Implications for

Cognition, Emotion, and Motivation”, Psychological Review 98 (1991), pp. 224–

253.
10 For discussion, see the essays in Shaun Gallagher and Jonathan Shear

(eds.), Models of the Self (Thorverton, UK: Imprint Academic, 1999) and Roy
Baumeister, “The Self”, in Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske and Gardner Lindzey
(eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. I (Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, 1998),
pp. 680–740.
11 Mackenzie and Stoljar, “Introduction: Autonomy Reconfigured”, p. 8. See

also, Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and Culture (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1989), Chap. 5, Jack Crittenden Beyond Individualism: Recon-
stituting the Liberal Self.
12 Robert Bellah and his colleagues, for example, underscore the ways that

certain individuals in the U.S. experience a rash of inner conflicts which result
from being unable to engage sufficiently in the self-constructing communal inter-
actions that their own sense of flourishing demands. This shows that autonomy in
my sense is being undermined by those social tendencies that induce this result.
See Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American
Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1985).
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 161
13 Also, while non-autonomous persons will not be candidates for the fully func-
tioning citizen described here, it should not be seen as following that their interests
and the interests connected with the networks of dependence and interaction of
which they are a part, should not play a crucial role in the fashioning of just
principles. But the non-autonomous agent will not represent those interests herself
in the various fora which constitute the derivation and application of social prin-
ciples by which basic institutions are constructed. For discussion of the role of
dependency in theories of justice (and the limitations of traditional liberalism in
this regard) see Eva Feder Kitay, Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and
Dependency (London: Routledge, 1999).
14 Mackenzie and Stoljar, “Introduction”, p. 4.
15 The terms “relational” and “social” do not mean the same thing, and it would

be instructive to examine their different connotations and implications, given

the variety of motivations for such non-individualized accounts. For example,
“relational” views seem to express more thoroughly the need to underscore
interpersonal dynamics as components of autonomy, dynamics such as caring
relations, interpersonal dependence, and intimacy. “Social” accounts imply, I
think, a broader view, where various other kinds of social factors – institutional
settings, cultural patterns, political factors – might all come into play.
16 The most often cited source for the call for a new notion is Jennifer Nedelsky:

see, e.g., “Reconceiving Autonomy: Sources, Thoughts and Possibilities”. For

an argument that autonomy may well not be able to shed its atomistic baggage,
see Lorraine Code, “The Perversion of Autonomy and the Subjection of Women:
Discourses of Social Advocacy at Century’s End”, in Mackenzie and Stoljar
(eds.), Relational Autonomy, pp. 181–212.
17 For discussion, see the Introduction to The Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual

Autonomy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); for a more recent discus-
sion, see my “Autonomy”, in Christopher B. Gray (ed.), The Philosophy of Law:
An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1999), pp. 72–73.
18 See, for example, Gerald Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), Chapter 1, Lawrence Haworth,

Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986). Cf. Bernard Berofsky Liberation from Self: A Theory
of Personal Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), Chapter
6, and Diana Meyers, Self, Society and Personal Choice (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1989), Part II. Also, see my “Autonomy and Personal History”,
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (1991), pp. 1–24.
19 I refer to “elements of the self” rather than simply “desires” for reasons

Richard Double and others have put forward, namely that conceptions of
autonomy that see only desires as the focal point will be too narrow, as people
can exhibit autonomy relative to a wide variety of personal characteristics, such
as values, physical traits, relations to others, and so on; any element of body,
personality, or circumstance that figures centrally in reflection and action should
be open to appraisal in terms of autonomy. See Double, “Two Types of Autonomy
Accounts”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22(1) (March, 1992).
162 JOHN CHRISTMAN

20 Nedelsky, p. 12.
21 For a similar distinction, see Marilyn Friedman, “Autonomy and Social Rela-
tionships”, in Diana T. Meyers (ed.), Feminists Rethink the Self (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1997), pp. 40–61, esp. 57–58. Notice also that, despite the label,
relational autonomy is still meant as a characteristic of individuals, not the groups,
relationships, or social collectivities in relation to which autonomy is enjoyed. To
pursue the latter route would mean that only “we” are autonomous, not “I” in
relation to you and them.
22 “Personal Autonomy and Society”. Parenthetical page numbers in the text

refer to this article.

23 This is a condition that Joseph Raz makes central to his conception of

autonomy, see The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986),
pp. 372–377.
24 While my purpose here is not to criticize Oshana’s view directly, there are

elements of it that need to be reconsidered I think. For example, the condition

that autonomy obtains only when the person is protected from physical threat is
too strong, as most women in most societies cannot be fully protected in this way;
moreover, many people such as firefighters, police officers, and military personnel
take on roles that subject them to extreme danger, yet we would not call them non-
autonomous.
25 In making this point, I am sensitive to the claim that definitions of autonomy

are not at fault for robbing oppressed individuals of their voices, rather the social
conditions that put such people in a position of strict obedience accomplished
this. But the question of what counts as oppressive social conditions, as distin-
guished from lives of devotion to sacred authority or unquestioned tradition, must
be answered in light of all authentic voices; and the purpose of an account of
autonomy is to determine such authentic agency in order to proceed to conduct
that very inquiry.
26 This account is, I think, largely co-extensive with the view of perfectionism

put forth by Thomas Hurka, though it is not equivalent to it. See his Perfectionism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 3. Note also that according to the
sense of perfectionism I define, Will Kymlicka’s liberalism is not perfectionist
in its conception of the autonomous person, since he includes an “endorsement
constraint” on all values valid for free citizens. See Liberalism, Community and
Culture, pp. 9–13.
27 See Charles Taylor, “What is Human Agency?”, in Human Agency and

Language: Philosophical Papers Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1985).
28 I am grateful to Catriona Mackenzie for comments which induced this clarifi-

cation. For a discussion of autonomy in a political context which touches on this

issue, see my “Autonomy, Self-Knowledge and Liberal Legitimacy” in Autonomy
and the Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays.
29 This interesting point was made by Marina Oshana in commentary on this

paper.
 THE SOCIAL CONSTITUTION OF SELVES 163
30 For an argument for the relation between autonomy and respect, though
one that relies on a conception of autonomy different from mine, see Christine
Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995).
31 A development of an idea similar to this (though not couched in the context

of a proceduralist conception of autonomy) can be found in Catriona Mackenzie

“Imagining Oneself Otherwise”, in Stoljar and Mackenzie, Relational Autonomy,
pp. 124–150.
32 Cf. Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom, pp. 372–377, where he argues

that autonomy requires an adequate range of options. Notice, however, that the
requirement I am proposing is importantly different: I am not claiming that an
autonomous person must face actual open options but only that, in order to be able
to reflect adequately she be able to imagine alternative choices under (counter-
factually) optimal conditions. Moreover, these alternative are defined subjectively,
on my view, not, as with Raz, from a purely philosophical, external, viewpoint.
For discussion of a similar point, see my “Liberalism, Autonomy, and Self-
Transformation”, Social Theory and Practice 27(2) (2001).
33 See, for example, Mackenzie and Stoljar, “Introduction: Autonomy

Refigured”, pp. 13–17.

34 For discussion of this condition, see my “Liberalism, Autonomy, and Self-

Transformation”.
35 See Self, Society, and Personal Choice.
36 As Virginia Held has said in a different context, we should view “maturity

. . . as competence in creating and sustaining relations of empathy and intersub-

jectivity” Held, Feminist Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993),
p. 60.
37 For a discussion of the way that some poverty-related welfare policies

systematically undercut the provision of such conditions, see John Christman,

“Autonomy, Independence, and Poverty-Related Welfare Policies”, Public Affairs
Quarterly 12(4) (October, 1998), pp. 383–406.
38 Paradoxically, use of a substantive conception of autonomy in order to exclude

those participants living under (arguably) oppressive value systems – such as

women under some versions of religious fundamentalism for example – implies
that the victims of oppression have lower moral status, are less morally responsible
for their choices, and (depending on one’s view) less eligible for participation
in democratic deliberation (if autonomy is necessary for all these) than their
oppressors. For the latter will presumably enjoy the freedom from restrictions,
abilities to resist authority, and the like which merit the label autonomy in a
substantive, relational sense (depending on the details of those views).
39 This is a complex and controversial process of course. For discussion, see, for

example, Gerald Gaus, Justificatory Liberalism (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1996).
40 For discussion of whether it is really possible to freely choose “slavery”,

see Oshana, “Personal Autonomy and Society”, pp. 89–90 and Thomas
Hill, “Servility and Self-Respect”, in Autonomy and Self-Respect (Cambridge:
164 JOHN CHRISTMAN

Cambridge University Press, 1991). For an elaboration of this view of the role
of autonomy in conceptions of democratic deliberation, see my “Autonomy,
Self-Knowledge, and Liberal Legitimacy”, in Autonomy and the Challenges to
Liberalism.
41 For a deconstructive account of the motivations and perspectives of conser-

vative women, see Andrea Dworkin, Right Wing Women (New York: Perigee
Books, 1983).
42 An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Pacific Division APA, San

Francisco, April, 2003. The present version has benefitted from commentary by
Catriona Mackenzie and Marina Oshana as well as helpful comments by Diana T.
Meyers, for all of which I am very grateful.

Department of Philosophy
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802
E-mail: jchristman@psu.edu