Abstract

This dissertation aims to provide a socially constitutive account of personal autonomy and begins to look at its relationship to authenticity. The basic difference between my view and those of the mainstream lies in how the constitution of autonomy is located. In most contemporary accounts, autonomy is psychologically constituted, whereas on my view it is socially constituted. ;My analysis of the dominant positions currently held in the field emphasizes the theoretical move of adopting a model intended for the free will debate and using it for the purposes of developing a theory of personal autonomy. My contention here is that co-opting a model made specifically for free will has contaminated the framework upon which autonomy is theorized. ;I assess the critics of the mainstream view as well as the subsequent theories developed out of their criticisms. I look specifically at the claims made about the loss of autonomy. The critics only go so far as to posit some missing element of autonomy without otherwise seriously altering the original model. This approach leaves the basic framework untouched, and so the new models continue to fall prey to the same concerns they were meant to resolve. ;On my account, what makes an agent autonomous is her place within the social spaces she navigates. The notion of having "one's place" is a complex composite of conditions, both internal to an agent and external. I further develop the model by looking more closely at the agent's role in qualifying for occupying one's place. I locate these largely in a feature of one's personal identity, the sense of entitlement. I show how the sense of entitlement makes one fit to occupy an autonomy enhancing social space. I argue that as agents move through different social spaces their sense of themselves alters significantly, and thus their fitness for standing in the appropriate relation to others is altered. ;I conclude by sketching a notion of authenticity that draws its inspiration from the contemporary framework used for autonomy. However, my model of the authentic agent is based upon projects of self-development that are physically, spatially, and relationally grounded