The Illusion of the Free Press by John Charney

Author:John Charney [Charney, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: law, Media & the Law, Constitutional, political science, human rights
ISBN: 9781509908875
Google: whMevgAACAAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2018-01-11T23:47:51.256812+00:00

III.Personal Autonomy and Freedom of Speech

Now that the connection between autonomy and self-discovery has been established, it is possible to begin our exploration of relevant theories of freedom of speech and to analyse to what extent these theories conceive of this freedom as a modern instrument of self-discovery. To begin this inquiry, it is necessary to say that these theories are generally grounded in conceptions of personal or individual autonomy,31 and that these conceptions are overtly different from the Kantian conception of moral autonomy just analysed.32 While the latter, as has been seen, is related to the capacity to give to oneself the moral law, the former have been identified with a trait that individuals can exhibit in any aspect of their lives, not only the moral.33 According to Waldron, personal autonomy ‘evokes the image of a person in charge of his life’, and although it is not an immoral idea, ‘it has relatively little to do with morality’. He adds that those who value it ‘see it as a particular way of understanding what each person’s interest consists in’.34 Similarly, for Raz, a fundamental aspect of personal autonomy is to be the author of one’s own life.35 To analyse the differences between personal and moral autonomy, it will help to start with a general reassessment of the elements of moral autonomy (universality, reciprocity and self-examination) and compare them with those of personal autonomy.

First of all—as was seen in the previous section—although moral autonomy presupposes the capacity to give to oneself the moral law, the moral law is still universal. Universality, on the other hand, seems to be at odds with conceptions of personal autonomy that centre on the uniqueness of each individual’s interests, choices and decisions. Similarly, if those who value personal autonomy do so as way of valuing the unique character of each and every individual, as Waldron suggests,36 those who value moral autonomy recognise that each person’s interests must be reconciled with the interests of others. This is why Johnston states that while moral autonomy involves certain conceptions of justice, personal autonomy involves only conceptions of the good.37 Hence, while the element of reciprocity is essential for conceptions of moral autonomy, it is not so for conceptions of personal autonomy. Accordingly, moral reflection leads to a universal law that any rational agent should be capable of identifying and applying to a particular circumstance; this is a law that enjoins one to consider all those who might be affected by one’s actions. The exercise of personal autonomy, by contrast, might produce a number of varied responses potentially equal to the number of autonomous individuals making decisions on their own; this is why, for example, a person who renounces her talents and decides to dedicate her life to self-indulgence might do so as an exercise of personal autonomy.38 However, this would certainly count as a failure to exercise moral autonomy.39

Despite these differences and the sharpness with which proponents of personal autonomy separate their conceptions from those of moral autonomy,40

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