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  • Mill on Autonomy

    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Handbook of Autonomy on 30/12/2022, available online: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Autonomy/Colburn/p/book/9780367258207

    Accepted author manuscript, 398 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Mill on Autonomy

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSNChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Published
Publication date30/12/2022
Host publicationThe Routledge Handbook of Autonomy
EditorsBen Colburn
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherRoutledge
ISBN (electronic)9780429290411
ISBN (print)9780367258207
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Publication series

NameRoutledge Handbooks
PublisherRoutledge

Abstract

The place in Mill’s work where the concept of autonomy seems most obviously relevant is in the argument of chapter III of On Liberty – and it on this chapter that I focus. Here, Mill argues that human beings should be allowed to live in accordance with their own natures, rather than ideals imposed externally. I outline his argument in section I, and the place of autonomy in Mill’s overall scheme of values, or “Art of Life”. In section II, I consider what it means to be governed by one’s own nature. As I note, in arguing that we should live according to our own nature, Mill does not intend to suggest that we should obey the diktats of an inbuilt pre-social essence. Rather, he has in mind that we live according to what he terms a ‘second nature’ shaped by processes of acculturation. To be autonomous in this sense, of course, involves socialised into certain modes of life, and questions arise as to what kinds of socialisation is truly compatible with autonomy. I conclude, in section III, by attempting to give an indication of Mill’s approach to this issue.

Bibliographic note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Handbook of Autonomy on 30/12/2022, available online: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Autonomy/Colburn/p/book/9780367258207