Shifting the autonomy debate to theory as ideology

Some feminists have been critical about the dominant conception of autonomy, questioning, for example, its conception of persons and ideal of personhood. Tom Beauchamp and James Childress (B&C), the major proponents of the dominant conception of autonomy, believe that these feminists have misunderstood their theory and, moreover, that their theory is immune to feminist attack. Their response to feminist critics, however, has been dismissive and does nothing to assuage these critics' concerns. In this paper I briefly review the state of play in this debate about autonomy, showing that B&C are not without positive rejoinders to objections raised by feminist critics. These rejoinders rest on the notion that feminist concerns are a matter of what is logically entailed by B&C's theory of autonomy and attempt to show that feminist commitments are logically consistent with that theory. However, these rejoinders are less than convincing for reasons illuminated by Cheshire Calhoun. Calhoun reminds us that feminists are sensitive to ways in which the shape of discourse is influenced by non-epistemic considerations. In particular, Calhoun draws our attention to the cumulative effect of a whole tradition of moral reasoning that focuses on too narrow a range of moral problems and too narrow an understanding of people and the human condition. B&C's conception of autonomy relies on and reinforces ideologies of the moral life created in just this way. Following Calhoun, I show that criticism of their theory as ideology is not criticism of its logical implications, but something far more damaging, something without available rejoinders.