"The Kantian idea of moral autonomy as “self-determination” is as good a place as any to begin elaborating the conception of personal autonomy I favour. The autonomous life cherished by liberals is the life that can be characterised as (in part) self-determined, self-authored or self-created, following plans and ideals - “a conception of the good” - that one has chosen for oneself. Choice, on this view, is prerequisite to leading a successful, fulfilling and authentic existence according to one's own moral rights. To have an autonomous life a person must be free to deliberate about and choose the projects he or she will take up in life from an adequate range of options accommodating the diversity of human aptitudes, abilities, interests and tastes. In contrast to the value of liberty conceived as the negative right to be left alone, that is an active, “positive” conception of autonomy which requires, as Rawls nearly summarised, the opportunity “to form, to revise, and rationally to pursue a conception of the good”. Jeremy Waldron helpfully expands: The dominant theme in modern liberalism is that an individual conception of the good life is a plan of life or a strategy for living that an individual uses as a basis for making and reflecting on his more important decisions and for scheduling his enjoyments and set backs (to the extent that he has any control over them). His conception, moreover, defines what is to count as a setback or any enjoyment for him; and it defines for him the things that are most, and least, important in his life."
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Jeremy Waldron, “Legislation and Moral Neutrality”, reprinted in this “Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981-1991”, at 161; as quoted on p.59
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