The Scope of Autonomy: Kant and the Morality of Freedom - Tapa dura

[T]his is an important book, which looks at some old debates in new and interesting ways. (Journal of the History of Philosophy)

Deligiorgi does an impressive job of bringing her interpretation of Kant into dialogue with contemporary theories. (Jeppe von Platz, Mind)

Deligiorgi's erudite and wide-ranging study The Scope of Autonomy. Kant and the Morality of Freedom situates the core concepts of Kantian ethicsautonomy, freedom, reason, universalizabilitysquarely within the context of contemporary debates in ethics, philosophy of mind and language, metaethics and moral psychology (Adrian Piper, Critique)

Katerina Deligiorgi offers a contemporary defence of autonomy that is Kantian in orientation but which engages closely with recent arguments about agency, morality, and practical reasoning. Autonomy is a key concept in contemporary moral philosophy with deep roots in the history of the subject. However, there is still no agreed view about the correct way to formulate an account of autonomy that adequately captures both our capacity for self-determination and our responsiveness to reasons.

The theory defended in The Scope of Autonomy is distinctive in two respects. First, whereas autonomy has primarily been understood in terms of our relation to ourselves, Deligiorgi shows that it also centrally involves our relation to others. Identifying the intersubjective dimension of autonomy is crucial for the defence of autonomy as a morality of freedom. Second, autonomy must be treated as a composite concept and hence not capturable in simple definitions such as acting on one's higher order desires or on principles one endorses. One of the virtues of the composite picture is that it shows autonomy lying at the intersection of concerns with morality, practical rationality, and freedom. Autonomy pertains to all these areas, though it does not exactly coincide with any of them. Proving this, and so tracing the scope of autonomy, is therefore essential: Deligiorgi shows that autonomy is theoretically plausible, psychologically realistic, and morally attractive.