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Personal Autonomy or the Deconstructed Subject? A Reply to Hekman

Author(s): Diana T. Meyers
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), pp. 124-132
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
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COMMENT/REPLY

Personal Autonomy or the

Deconstructed Subject? A Reply t
Hekman

DIANA T. MEYERS

A response to Susan Hekman's article "Reconstituting the Subject: Femin

Modernism, and Postmodernism" and to her review of Diana T. Meyers' boo
Society, and Personal Choice both of which appeared in Hypatia 6(2).

In her review of Self, Society, and Personal Choice, Susan Hekman chide
for failing to deconstruct the unitary Enlightenment subject, and in "R
stituting the Subject: Feminism, Modernism, and Postmodernism
endorses Julia Kristeva's "subject in process" (Hekman 1991b, 224; 1991a
I believe, however, that Hekman underestimates the distance between
Lockean/Kantian unitary subject and the view I set forth in Self, Societ
Personal Choice, and, moreover, that she overestimates the advance J
Kristeva's decentered subject represents. Indeed, I think that Hekman do
realize how much we already agree. But neither does she realize that she
to demand more of a theory of the subject than Kristeva delivers.
Social scientists have amply documented the ways in which social ins
tions have constrained women's lives, yet feminists cannot concede th
women are altogether at the mercy of these forces while also claiming
women can overcome their oppression. Thus, Hekman identifies
dilemma for feminist theory: is the subject to be understood as self-constit
or as socially constituted? (1991a, 45) This issue is central and vex
self-constituting subject would be capable of freely choosing its destin
such a subject seems an anachronistic throwback to the Enlighten
However, a socially constituted subject, though consonant with current
lectual trends, seems to be so molded by society that it would be incapa

Hypatia vol. 7, no. 1 (Winter 1992) ? by Diana T. Meyers

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 Comment/Reply: Diana T. Meyers 125

political resistance. In traditional philosophical parlance, Hekman is raising

the problem of free will. The self-constituting subject has free will; the socially
constituted subject is determined.
Now, Hekman and I agree that it is a mistake to pose the question of the
subject this way; however, we reach this conclusion by different routes. For
Hekman, the culprit is the dichotomy between the self-constituting and the
socially constituted subject. This dichotomy should be "displaced," for its poles
are irreconcilable and this irreconcilability makes it impossible to furnish a
convincing account of the subject (Hekman 1991a, 50-51). While I agree that
a socially determined agent cannot also be capable of transcending social
forces, I have focused my critique on the futility of seeking an account of free
will.

Philosophers have been questing after the holy grail of free will for centu-
ries-to no avail. But even if a convincing account of free will were found, it
would not explain the phenomena we need to explain (Meyers 1989, 27-40,
43-45). What are these phenomena? On the positive side: people's capacity to
direct their own lives (sometimes conceiving and pursuing novel courses of
action) along with the unique exhilaration they experience when they do so
successfully. On the negative side: people's inclination to conform automati-
cally to social expectations along with the frustration, alienation, and self-
betrayal that they sometimes experience as a result of such conformity. I have
termed the former "personal autonomy" and the latter "heteronomy." In the
limited space I have here, I cannot rehearse the sophisticated attempts to
assimilate personal autonomy to free will that I examine in Self, Society, and
Personal Choice (27-41). However, I would urge that neither the idea of a self
in rebellion against social norms nor that of a self insulated from social norms
is particularly promising as a treatment of personal autonomy. Defying one's
enculturation need not be any less alienating than complying with it. Choosing
in accordance with the dictates of an asocial core self need not secure any more
control over one's life than following socially inculcated rules.
My view, then, is that the distinction between personal autonomy and
heteronomy should not be conflated with the metaphysical distinction
between free will and determinism. Rather, the distinction between personal
autonomy and heteronomy should be regarded as a phenomenological one. It
marks a difference in the quality of people's experience of the choices they
make and the lives they are leading. Roughly, the contrast I have in mind is
between feeling in control and right in your skin, on the one hand, and feeling
at sea and ill at ease with yourself, on the other. Most people are familiar with
this contrast, and there are a number of ways in which it may be articulated.
Sometimes, we say that a person has a sure sense of self or personal identity
and acts accordingly (Meyers 1989, 9). Sometimes, we say that people are
doing what they really want as opposed to what they merely seem to want
(Meyers 1989, 19). Sometimes, we say people are living in harmony with their

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126 Hypatia

authentic or true self (Meyers 1989, 19). I doubt that when people describe
their own conduct or plans in these ways they mean to ascribe any esoteric
form of free will to themselves. Rather, I believe that they are affirming that
they have a sense of wholeness or integrity that derives from feeling clear about
their desires, beliefs, affections, values, and the like, and from being able to
adequately express these attributes in action.
Unfortunately, when this experience is framed in terms of a privileged self
or real desires, it is tempting for philosophers to infer that everyone must have
a core self that is untainted by social experience and that fulfilling this
unsullied self's desires is personal autonomy. To posit an asocial core self is to
adopt what I call the ontological view of the authentic self and to revert to a
free will analysis of personal autonomy (Meyers 1989, 45). But the pervasive-
ness and power of socialization belie this view. In its place, I propose a
procedural view of the autonomous or authentic self. Instead of seeing the
autonomous self as an asocial core, I see it as the "evolving collocation of traits
that emerges when someone exercises autonomy competency" (Meyers 1989,
76; note that this passage is misquoted in Hekman [1991b, 223]). What, then,
is autonomy competency? And how does exercising autonomy competency
account for the phenomena I have characterized as personal autonomy?
Autonomy competency is a repertory of coordinated skills, including intro-
spective skills, communicative skills, reasoning skills, imaginative skills, and
volitional skills. By exercising these skills-typically, it is important to stress,
most effectively in the context of supportive intimate relationships-people
come to grasp who they are, what matters to them, how they want to develop
or change, what constraints limit them and what opportunities are available
to them, and how they can best give expression to their integral desires, beliefs,
affections, values, and the like (Meyers 1989, 79-87). In sum, these skills
collaborate to make self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction possible.
The satisfaction of proficiently using autonomy skills coupled with the sense
of wholeness that stems from successfully exercising these skills constitutes the
exhilaration associated with personal autonomy.
I want to emphasize that this view of autonomy in no way presupposes that
people are able to transcend the effects of social experience. Autonomy skills
do not give anyone access to an asocial core, nor do they generate a suprasocial
core. Autonomy skills are themselves learned through social experience.
Hekman misunderstands me on this point. She claims that I take the authentic
self to be a "core self that is affected but not overcome by socialization"
(Hekman 1991b, 224). If that were my view, her skepticism about its tenability
would be warranted, for in that case my view would be a resurrection of the
free will analysis founded on an ontological account of the authentic self that
I myself reject.
Nevertheless, as I reread Self, Society, and Personal Choice, I can understand
how Hekman might have been led astray on this point, and I would like to

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 Comment/Reply: Diana T. Meyers 127

take this opportunity to restate my view. Near the end of a discussion of

Michael Sandel's distinction between the voluntarist, disembodied self and
the cognitive, radically situated self, I conclude that the "authentic self... is
a self that is shaped by social experience as well as by individual choice" (96).
If one read that sentence without recalling the context, it would be natural to
suppose that I was "graft[ing] elements of a socialized self onto an essentially
unexamined concept of the self as it has often been articulated since the
Enlightenment" (Hekman 1991b, 224). But the discussion that precedes my
remark discredits this interpretation. Indeed, my line of argument in this
section anticipates Hekman's call for displacing the dichotomy between the
self-constituted self and the socially constituted self. Moreover, I suggest a
model designed to capture this new view of the self that Hekman recycles in
"Reconstituting the Subject: Feminism, Modernism, and Postmodernism."
Sandel's distinction between the voluntarist, disembodied self and the
cognitive, radically situated self corresponds to Hekman's distinction between
the self-constituted self and the socially constituted self. The voluntarist,
disembodied self is a socially detached subject that chooses its attributes,
whereas the cognitive, radically situated self is a socially connected subject
that understands its attributes. Responding to Sandel, I argue that this dichot-
omy cannot be maintained, for neither of the polar conceptions is cogent. The
voluntarist, disembodied self requires that all of the self's preferences be
chosen, but this requirement would lead to an infinite regress of choices
(Meyers 1989, 94). Likewise, the cognitive, radically situated self reduces
critical reflection to arbitrarily shuffling and reshuffling ends that are equally
compelling to the individual, but this reduction trivializes critical reflection
(Meyers, 1989, 94). Nevertheless, these diametric conceptions have domi-
nated much thinking on this topic, partly because each seems to account for
an important dimension of everyday experience. The voluntarist, disembodied
self seems to make the emergence of new ideas and ways of life intelligible, for
this subject is unencumbered by cultural tradition. The cognitive, radically
situated self seems to make fidelity to other people, values, causes, and the like
intelligible, for relentless social experience instills this dedication in this
subject. What we need, however, is a conception of the subject that allows for
both commitment and innovation.

To obtain such a conception, we must stop construing the self-constituting

subject and the socially constituted subject as mutually exclusive metaphysical
positions. On the contrary, we must construe this distinction phenomenolog-
ically-that is, as specifying the poles of a continuum on which we routinely
locate our experience of our lives. Sometimes, we experience our own initiative
and effort as most salient; sometimes, we experience circumstances as most
salient; sometimes, the two seem to converge. Furthermore, we must construe
this distinction neutrally-that is, the attributes, relationships, projects, and
so forth that one has acquired through socialization may be as integral or as

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128 Hypatia

alien to one's authentic self as any attributes, relationships, or projects that

one may have conceived entirely on one's own (Meyers 1987a, 626). Whether
our choices and actions are autonomous or heteronomous does not depend on
whether one experiences them as primarily self-generated or primarily socially
instilled. It depends on whether they have been prospectively embraced or can
be retrospectively ratified through the exercise of autonomy competency.1
In Self, Society, and Personal Choice, I suggest linguistic competency as a
model that circumvents the dichotomy between the self-constituting and the
socially constituted subject and that accounts for innovation. As I put it,

Though we often use language to mouth banalities or to repeat

well-worn ideas, language competency enables us to utter new
propositions. Similarly, exercising autonomy competency can
reinforce established reasons and courses of conduct, but it can
also propel people in new directions. (Meyers 1989, 96)

Surprisingly, Hekman's "Reconstituting the Subject: Feminism, Modernism,

and Postmoderism" invokes the same model:

The constitution of subjectivity is much like the acquisition of

language. Speakers who acquire a language are constrained by
the available vocabulary of that language and the rules that
govern its use. Yet part of learning a language is acquiring the
ability to be creative within those constraints. We do not define
someone as a competent speaker of a language unless that
person can create unique sentences in that language. The same
principle holds for the creation of subjectivity. (Hekman 199 la,
59)

Exactly right. Instead of focusing on people's independence of or immersion

in social experience, we must focus on their capacities-specifically, their
autonomy competency.
At this point, Hekman might object that I have carried my line of thought
a step too far. Linguistic competency can explain innovation; autonomy
competency is superfluous. For Hekman, "Subjects are constituted by multiple
and sometimes contradictory discourses. Individual subjects resist, mutate, and
revise these discourses within them; resistance does not require recourse to the
modernist notion of an 'inner world' untainted by discursive forces." (Hekman
1991a, 59) Hekman's view combines two main lines of thought. On the one
hand, the plurality of ideas to which people are exposed fosters fresh thinking
and unconventional behavior. On the other hand, non-conscious materials-
in Julia Kristeva's phaseology, the semiotic as opposed to the symbolic-disrupt
regimented conscious thought and precipitate innovation. Now, it is undeni-
able that discursive heterogeneity suffices to explain innovation, but to
account for commitment we must introduce autonomy competency.

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 Comment/Reply: Diana T. Meyers 129

In addressing the problem of innovation, Hekman is principally concerned

to account for the possibility of political resistance, for people cannot challenge
political authority unless they can innovate. But establishing the possibility of
innovation only partially accounts for political resistance. In addition, political
progress must be distinguished from mere change.
In this connection, it is important to keep in mind that the outcome of
attending to heterogeneous intrapersonal and interpersonal inputs need not
be politically progressive. For example, Kristeva regards the anti-Semitic,
fascist novelist Louis-Ferdinand Celine as a literary revolutionary whose
creativity was based on accessing the semiotic (Kristeva 1980, 140-45). Of
course, Kristeva maintains that the cruel, violent dispositions of the uncon-
scious must be defused, and she claims that psychoanalysis and maternity are
mechanisms through which this aggression can be quieted (Kristeva 1980, 145;
1986, 185). In my judgment, Kristeva's view of motherhood as a check on
dangerous unconscious drives is politically retrograde, for it perpetuates ster-
eotypical gender norms (Meyers 1991, 144-51). Moreover, proposing psycho-
analytic therapy as an alternative remedy is elitist, at best. Nevertheless, it
seems to me that there is some justification for Kristeva's adverting to psycho-
analysis. Insofar as psychoanalytic therapy enables people to tap into and
contend with non-conscious material in a fruitful way, it is because psychoan-
alytic dialogue helps people to develop and exercise autonomy competency.
What is missing from Kristeva's theory, then, is an egalitarian account of the
cultivation and use of autonomy competency. Hekman overlooks this gap in
Kristeva's thought.
If political resistance is not to be reduced to random defiance, it needs an
anchor. People have to be able to decide which discursive currents they should
follow and which they should repudiate. They cannot just be washed along by
the strongest current. Now, if there is no transcendent rational will to make
these judgments, but if we are unwilling to concede, for instance, that Celine's
politics are just as good as feminist politics, we must search the phenomeno-
logical world for the requisite anchor.2 I am convinced that personal autonomy
provides one arm of this anchor. Since people commonly find the experience
of personal autonomy to be uniquely satisfying, it seems to me that societies
ought to be organized to support autonomous living. To do this, societies must
socialize children-at home and in school-in a way that nurtures autonomy
competency and that encourages the use of autonomy skills. Furthermore,
political and economic institutions must be responsive to the autonomous
desires and values of the people who participate in them. People's adeptness
in the use of autonomy skills ensures that they are capable of separating their
integral desires and values from petty or transitory impulses. The more auton-
omous people are, the more they are able to identify settled and important
commitments and to enter the political arena and effectively press demands
that embody those commitments. The more autonomous people are, the more

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130 Hypatia

likely it is that they will succeed in devising mutually satisfactory policies and
programs to resolve their inevitable differences.
Though it should go without saying, it is, perhaps, advisable to state that
nothing I have said entails that only an autonomous elite is entitled to act
politically. Autonomy skills are common-few people altogether lack them.
But most people, advantaged men included, lack some of them. The point is
to expand the development and use of autonomy competency, and one way in
which this can occur is through participation in political organizations struc-
tured to support the autonomy of their members. A paradigmatic instance of
autonomy-sensitive political engagement is the consciousness raising group.
In this context, political practice is never severed from personal insight, and
theoretical innovation goes hand-in-hand with evolving commitment.
Autonomy is thus a personal and political reality in the making.
But, to Hekman, my position sounds old-hat (Hekman 1991b, 224).
Although I would grant that my work is indebted to a number of philosophical
traditions, I would urge that it by no means recapitulates them. My view departs
significantly from these traditions both in taking the depth of gender identity
seriously and in showing how the self-in-relation can be reconciled with
personal autonomy.
It is true that, like John Stuart Mill, I am advocating equal education for
girls and boys. However, the sort of education I envisage is radically different
from anything that most children have heretofore encountered, not to men-
tion anything Mill contemplated. Universalizing traditional masculine social-
ization is not the solution. Autonomy skills must be explicitly taught in an
egalitarian environment (Meyers 1989, 189-98). Furthermore, I do not rule
out the possibility that gender differentiated schooling might be needed on a
transitional basis in order to compensate for repressive forces operating else-
where in society, nor do I assume that autonomous women will want to do the
same things semi-autonomous men have done in the past (1987a, 628).
Likewise, it is true that I am advocating more autonomy for women. It would
be better to socialize girls in a way that promotes autonomy competency and
to create a social and economic environment that allows women to exercise
autonomy competency. However, I am certainly not joining Simone de
Beauvoir and arguing that women should transcend their immanence. In fact,
I contend that women are already much more autonomous than de Beauvoir
realizes, for, unlike de Beauvoir's existentialist theory, mine makes sense of
degrees of autonomy, autonomous episodes, and autonomous practices (Meyers
1989, 156-62). Moreover, unlike de Beauvoir, I maintain that personal auton-
omy is compatible with deep emotional commitments to family and friends
(Meyers 1987a, 622; 1989, 85).
In using the language of autonomy, Self, Society, and Personal Choice runs
the risk of being inundated by the liberal and existentialist theories of auton-
omy that are so philosophically prominent. However, it seems to me that those

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 Comment/Reply: Diana T. Meyers 131

risks are worth taking, for feminist theory cannot do without a subject whose
needs and choices matter and whose political opposition is grounded. Though
Hekman is right to discard the self-constituting subject-a subject dissociated
from society and possessed of free will-she needs a richer account of the
subject than Kristeva supplies. As I conceive it, the autonomous subject, while
socially constituted, is endowed with critical judgment and integrity.

NOTES

1. One criticism that is often raised against theories of autonomy is that they require
people to spend so much time deliberating about living that they have little time to do
much living. Accounting for personal autonomy in terms of autonomy competency
obviates this objection (Meyers 1989, 53-55). If one has well-developed autonomy
competency, many decisions will be made with little or no ado. But if one starts to lose
sight of one's real needs, desires, goals, etcetera, the attunement to signs of dissatisfaction
and alienation that comes with proficient autonomy skills ensures that one will notice
the problem and modify one's course as needed. Moreover, autonomy competency allows
for the possibility of retrospective autonomy. One may spontaneously act in an
uncharacteristic way and then use one's autonomy skills to see that one had indeed done
what one really wanted.
2. Hekman mistakenly asserts that I am committed to the Kantian moral subject
(Hekman 1991b, 224). In an earlier paper, I argue that even the moral subject of Lawrence
Kohlberg's Kantian inspired Justice Tradition is a product of a distinctive type of
socialization, and I defend a form of moral reflection-responsibility reasoning-that is
designed to explicate the moral thinking of interpersonally connected proponents of
Carol Gilligan's Care Perspective (Meyers 1987b, 145, 147-52). One need not endorse
Kant's transcendent rational will to reject galloping relativism and to take critical moral
reflection seriously.

REFERENCES

Hekman, Susan. 1991a. "Reconstituting the subject: Feminism, modernism, and

postmoderism." Hypatia 6(2): 44-63.
.1991b. Review of Self, society, and personal choice by Diana T. Meyers. Hypatia
6(2): 222-25.
Kristeva, Julia. 1980. Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art, trans.
Thomas Gorz, Alice Jardine, Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University
Press.

Meyers, Diana T. 1987a. Personal autonomy and the paradox of feminine socialization.
The Journal of Philosophy 84(11): 619-28.
. 1987b. The socialized individual and individual autonomy: An intersection
between philosophy and psychology. In Women and moral theory, ed. Eva Feder Kittay
and Diana T. Meyers. Totowa NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.
.1989. Self, society, and personal choice. New York: Columbia University Press.

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132 Hypatia

. 1991. Psychoanalytic fem

Chodorow, Flax, Kristeva. InRe
Bartky. Bloomington IN: India

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