Critique of the modern autonomous subject

Linked to the argument that the thinking of modernity is too abstract, is a varied and widespread critique of the modern idea of the autonomous subject. In her book Ekte kvinne?

Identitet på kryss og tvers⁴⁵⁰ sociologist of religion Eva Lundgren’s ambition is to facilitate the emergence of what she refers to as a new “paradigm” within feminist studies (2001: 24).

Central to this new paradigm is a defense of a “hermeneutical”, “contextual” notion of the

“actor”, the “subject” or the “I” as “embodied”, “social”, “relational” and “interacting”

(op.cit.: 24, 26, 28, 30). In her elaboration of this new notion of the subject, Lundgren relies on a magnitude of philosophical and sociological sources, from Gadamer, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Merleu-Ponty and Mead to contemporaries such as Richard Senneth, Charles Taylor and Seyla Benhabib.⁴⁵¹ Together they give a “modern-critical” portrayal of the self which, according to Lundgren, differs from and is preferable to the “modern” portrayal of the self drawn within “the Enlightenment project” (op.cit.: 278, 281).⁴⁵²

The Enlightenment notion of the self relies on “the Cartesian dualisms”; between “nature” and

“culture”, the “subject” and the “body”, as well as an “inner-outer” distinction: Behind outer social, cultural and biological differences there are considered to be “individual persons” with

“a substance, an identity”, with “inherent characteristics and qualities” common to “all humans” (op.cit.: 278, 279). What is unfortunate in these dichotomous abstractions is that those who rely on them consider them not as abstractions but as perfect representations, when in fact “real life, human beings of flesh and blood, daily life” are not “dual” in the sense the Cartesian dichotomous scheme suggests. Moreover, the dichotomous abstractions are

449 From the Kantian perspective Serck-Hanssen and Nagl-Docekal have in common.

450 Real Woman? Crisscrossing Idenitity.

451 She refers also to Norwegian philosophers and sociologists, such as Jakob Meløe, Kjell S. Johannessen and Willy Guneriussen.

452 Lundgren’s critique of modernity is also introduced as an alternative to the postmodern notion of the subject, exemplified by Judith Butler: “In postmodern theories the individual subject is either determined by collective discourses, or disconnected from the collective level and thus self-absorbed (an individualist individual); it is reduced to non-relational non-identity. […] the focus [is] on what the individual is in itself, whether it is a product of the collective or an aestheticized surface independent of the collective” (original emphasis, 2001:

280). The notion of the individual ‘in itself’ that postmodernists, paradoxically, adopt from the discourses of modernity (i.e. essentially the notion is not ‘post-‘ at all), is what Lundgren wants to challenge.

inadequate qua abstractions. Lundgren stresses that “analytical distinctions are by definition simplifications” (op.cit.: 39); there is no such thing as a complete representation. The fact that real life is more complex and less ordered than the Cartesian scheme orders it to be, is not in itself a problem for the proponents of this scheme, unless of course they fail to recognize that the scheme is in fact a simplified conceptualization and ordering of real life. The problem is rather that the Cartesian “analytical distinctions” are not suited to feminist investigations (ibid.). Lundgren’s critical point is “methodological”: It is impossible to adequately understand “the creation of meaning and identity”, in particular the meaning of gender and gender identity, on the basis of these distinctions; they “close, shut, yes, limit or simplify to the extent that they confuse more than guide” feminist inquiry (ibid.).

Tied to the Cartesian approach to human beings as something “in themselves”, as “detached”

and “isolated” from one another, is the notion of individual autonomy (op.cit.: 293): The modern self-identical subject is framed as autonomous. Indeed, the human person is more or less autonomous; “outer” social, cultural and biological factors might facilitate but also limit his or her possibilities of deliberating, deciding and acting autonomously. However, our capacity for “reason”, conceived by the modern as a “quality” that is “inherent” and shared by

“all humans”, also gives us qua human individuals a unique capacity for autonomy (op.cit.:

169). Lundgren argues that the thinking of modernity misconceives and exaggerates the possibility of “detached “ individual self-government: “’I’ can never be master of my own house, as the household consists of others with concrete wishes, needs, demands – and who, thus, remind me that I myself have all these things” (op.cit.: 26). This argument for the possibility of autonomy is also a premise when defenders of modernity argue that individual autonomy is our right. Lundgren characterizes the moral emphasis on “autonomy”, “rights and justice” as “male”: To become men in our society is intimately connected with adopting this moral approach (op.cit.: 169). When “moral judgments” are made on the basis of

“abstract and universalizing principles and rules”, when “the moral imperatives are respect for other human beings, reciprocal non-interference and the equal worth of persons”, and when we deal with “an ethic of justice or rights” based on a “liberal and humanist notion of a human being, characterized by individualism and autonomy”, then we speak of a “male moral voice” (op.cit.: 169, 170). Carol Gilligan has defended instead the supremacy of a “different

female voice”, based on her studies of girls’ moral socialization (op.cit.: 169).⁴⁵³ The

“different” voice is characterized by

[…] contextualism, particularism, care and responsibility. […] moral judgment is not to be based on principles deduced from reason, but also on sentiments like empathy. All human beings stand in the middle of a network of relations, and the notion of human beings is thus relational and not individualist. The moral imperatives are […] primarily that we should care and not hurt each other or ourselves (ibid.).

Lundgren emphasizes that her own “moral-philosophical” ambitions are limited (op.cit.: 45).

Moreover, she does not subscribe generally to Gilligan’s approach, which in her view encourage women in effect “not to protest or confront those harassing them as well as not demand respect and rights, but instead take on a huge responsibility for caring” (op.cit.:

170).⁴⁵⁴ However, like Gilligan, Lundgren defends a “relational” notion of the self, in opposition to modern ideas, and argues that the relational character of the self has moral implications:

Basic notions like joy, grief, life-spirit, dignity, shame, shamelessness, honor and so on, says something not only about how a human being relates to reality on an abstract level, in principle. The notions refer to norms and values that are considered important to adhere to or oppose, and in every day life they are intimately connected with our embodiment. […] they are norms and values that cannot be disconnected from human embodiment […], and the large universes of symbols and social organization of which the living embodied subjects are part.

Grief, joy, dignity and so on are words related to what it means to be an individual in a particular context, with a certain identity (op.cit.: 300-301).

Thus, Lundgren for one thing does not want the discussion on “norms and values” to be governed by the modern “male” vocabulary of “autonomy”, “justice” and “rights” (ibid.).

More importantly, she argues that the decision to “adhere to” or “oppose” “norms and values”

cannot be made on the basis of modern abstract reasoning (ibid.). To do what is right and good is something we learn in embodied discourse and interaction where we meet one another as concrete persons with “concrete wishes, needs and demands” (op.cit.: 26).

Lundgren’s critique of the modern subject contains several elements, which are elaborated in different ways by other contributors. First, there is the critique of the abstractions on which

453 In her book In a Different Voice Gilligan criticizes Lawrence Kohlberg’s model for moral development, which connects moral maturity with the adoption of ‘an ethic of justice and rights’, for reflecting boys’ moral socialization.

454 In addition, she argues that Gilligan, like Nancy Chodorow, Evelyn Fox Keller and others who rely on the social-psychological object-relation theory, still works within the Cartesian dualist scheme (Lundgren 2001: 188-189).

descriptions of the modern subject are based. Many contributors raise similar concerns, whether they consider abstraction generally suspect,⁴⁵⁵ or whether they, like Lundgren, disapprove of the particular categorizations and distinctions relied on in the construction of the modern subject. In an article on “life and caring in the light of Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’”, philosopher Ingunn Elstad criticizes “the contract theorists” for making “the isolated individuals” or the “individual, self-sufficient man” their “only scope” (1992: 147, 156, 157, 158):⁴⁵⁶

Hobbes […] thought that humans should be regarded initially as mushrooms, as not being involved with each other at all. For Hobbes, modern society is thus the coming-together of alienated individuals (op.cit.: 156).⁴⁵⁷

This, however, is a “fiction”, Elstad argues: “Consciousness knows itself only as it is recognized by others” (ibid.). This was the central insight of Hegel. However, she goes on, […] the concept of mutual recognition, where sociality and individuality simultaneously presuppose each other, continues to make symmetrical relations the basis of society […]. […]

the concept of symmetry is not complemented by a conception of dialectically productive asymmetry (ibid.)

Thus, what Elstad calls for, referring among others to the Norwegian philosopher Kari Martinesen and the Swedish philosopher Ulla Holm,⁴⁵⁸ is the notion of a subject that recognizes that it is embedded in inevitably “asymmetrical relations” which oblige us to

“care” for each other:

Caring is the universal structure necessary for keeping each individual alive from birth, […]

the only activity in modern society which takes account of vulnerability and dependency as realities throughout life (op.cit.: 158).

455 See 5.4.3.

456 In addition to Hegel she refers to Aristotle and Marx in elaborating this point, but also contemporary theorists such as Charles Taylor, Benjamin Barber and Seyla Benhabib.

457 Hobbes is often referred to when the modern subject is under attack, sometimes elaborately: ”[…] Hobbes’

mechanical model of human nature does [not] include the traits traditionally ascribed to women, like for example sociability, nursing and care for helpless and dependent persons. In the Hobbesian universe the individual – man – is primarily motivated by fear of being deprived of satisfying his desires, which are anti-social and boundless […] human beings are naturally lonely, […] social relations are not natural” (original emphasis, L’orange Fürst 1995: 196).

458 And her Modrande och praxis (1995). Also referred to is Hans Jonas: “[…] the consciousness of asymmetry, in its form of responsibility for the weak, seems to transcend the mere self-consciousness of mutual recognition.

It is the dependent person who demands, while the one who has power, becomes obliged, as Hans Jonas puts it”

(Elstad 1992: 161).

Another example of critique against the abstract construction of the modern subject is the literary scholar Drude von der Fehr’s critical analysis of Richard Rorty’s notion of “identity as narrative practice” (1995: 168). Feminism, according to Rorty, is about women’s struggle to invent “new moral identities for themselves by getting semantic authority over themselves”

(op.cit.: 167): The feminist project has moved into the domain of “discourse ethics” (op.cit.:

168). Von der Fehr argues against this reduction of the subject’s “experience” to “a linguistic happening” (op.cit.: 174): “There is something about experience that cannot be articulated and something with our thinking that cannot be reduced to cognition” – there is “non-discursive experience” (op.cit.: 174, 175). Rorty’s perspective makes it impossible to position human beings in “particular” surroundings, in “time” and “history”, and to account for “something as material and concrete as the body” (op.cit.: 173). This, again, makes it impossible, according to von der Fehr, to conceptualize women’s situation and oppression adequately (op.cit.: 175).

To embrace the disembedded, disembodied subject, to subscribe to a dichotomous thinking that detaches reason and ethics from concrete situations and the experiences of the body, is

“to give in to the seduction that defines the whole complex of masculinist discourses at the heart of the Western philosophical tradition” (op.cit.: 176).

There are, in the material I have surveyed, numerous articulations of similar concerns.

Feminists need to challenge the picture given in “economic theory and moral/political philosophy” of the individual as “an isolated island” (Ve 1999a: 142). Liberalism misconceives the individual: “The individual is made abstract, is disconnected from his contexts. […] The bourgeois individual has forgotten that human beings are part of the interpersonal world” (Martinsen 1997: 23); “rights liberalism” lacks an adequate notion of

“the self “ as “fundamentally socially constituted” (Slagstad 1994: 53, 57).⁴⁵⁹ Thus, what is criticized is a notion of the subject which ignores the intersubjective constitution of selves⁴⁶⁰ – their embeddedness in symmetrical relations of recognition, but also, in Elstad’s terms, their

459 Slagstad makes a distinction between “the social-ontological motive” and “the normative motive” in communitarian critiques of liberalism (Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor): The social-ontological motive concerns the “atomistic approach to the self or the subject”, the normative motive concerns the notion of “rightness”, a standard of moral validity, disconnected from “common values in a substantial sense” (of “procedural principles” as independent from any particular notion of “the good life”) (1994: 54).

Slagstad subscribes, it seems, to the communitarian social-ontological but not the normative critique: “One can accept that the self is fundamentally sociologically constituted, without thereby saying goodbye to the ability to critical reflect on the sociological context to which one is anyhow attached” (op.cit.: 57). Slagstad refers in this connection to what he considers to be promising feminist intermediate positions in the liberalism-communitarianism debate; Seyla Benhabib and Marilyn Friedman.

460 See for example Gaarder (1990), Hagemann (1994, 1997), Andenæs (1995, 1992), Andersen (1997), Røthing (2000), Jacobsen and Gressgård (2002).

embeddedness in asymmetrical relations between care-takers and dependents⁴⁶¹ – and their concrete embodiment.⁴⁶² This may be read as empirical criticism; the descriptions given of human beings are considered to be misleading.⁴⁶³ Sometimes, however, it is also framed as a critique from a phenomenological, anthropological or ontological point of view: The thinking of modernity leaves out the constitution of subjects and sexual difference on this more fundamental level, it is argued.⁴⁶⁴

If we return to Lundgren’s critique of the modern subject, we see that it also contains critique against the proposed autonomy of the modern subject. Modern autonomy is both impossible and morally suspect. Once more, we are dealing with a very common critique. The argument that autonomy in the modern sense is unachievable, is connected to the critics’ notion of what is possible and impossible, given the embedded and embodied character of human beings. The idea is that our embeddedness and embodiment limit our freedom to think and act independently. As summarized by the historian Ingunn Moser:

[…] the modern liberal subject: the independent, autonomous, centered, identical, verbal, authoritative subject […] has already been deconstructed and exposed: human beings are not masters of their own households – or of their bodies – in this way. He is not in control of shaping either himself or his history (1998: 49).

Individual autonomy is an ideal that cannot be upheld, because it is impossible to achieve.

Hence, the normative individualism defended by the moderns is flawed: They claim that something ought to be that cannot be. Moreover, to keep insisting on modern autonomy,

“freedom of choice” and detachment as an ideal, when the ideal is in fact unachievable, is, several argue, also irresponsible from a moral point of view: To do so would contribute to

“strengthening, rather than weakening oppression and injustice” (Jacobsen and Gressgård 2002: 212).”Individual and group are inevitably interconnected” (op.cit.: 214). “Simply ignoring” the social ontology⁴⁶⁵ of groups will not make “the effects” of “group differences”

disappear “in everyday life and interaction” (ibid.). It will simply make it more difficult, or

461 See for example Martinsen (1990, 1997, 1999), Skjønsberg (1996a, 1996b), Schmidt (1998, 1999). The idea that relations between human beings are inevitably asymmetrical is, however, not necessarily linked to explicit care-ethical considerations, see Asdal (1998), Borchgrevink (1999), Jacobsen and Gressgård (2002).

462 See for example Bjelland (1993), Prieur (1994), Widding Isaksen (1996), Flemmen (1999), Prieur and Moseng (2000), Bolsø (2000), Birkeland (2000), Bleie (2003).

463 Most of the examples presented so far focus on the process of intersubjective construction of selves. Other contributors focus on the macrostructural embeddedness of subjects (for example Holter 1996, Ellingsæter 1999).

464 See 5.4.14 for a separate treatment.

465 To use Slagstad’s (1994) term.

even impossible, to conceptualize and criticize, if necessary, these effects, or address them in practice.⁴⁶⁶

However, modern autonomy is considered immoral not only because it is ideological.⁴⁶⁷ Were modern autonomy, independence, detachment and freedom of choice in fact achievable, striving to achieve them would still be indefensible, from a moral point of view. This critique of autonomy, and again we talk of a widespread conviction, seems to have several sources:⁴⁶⁸ To idealize modern individualism and freedom of choice is, it is argued, to idealize the homo economicus of an oppressive capitalist life form (5.4.11, 5.4.15),⁴⁶⁹ a positivist epistemology (5.4.5),⁴⁷⁰ an impossible and indefensible universalism⁴⁷¹ and an unjustified private-public distinction⁴⁷² (5.5.7, 5.5.10), to embrace instrumental rationality, egoism and narcissism (5.4.12),⁴⁷³ as well as to dismiss norms of solidarity and collectivity (5.4.8),⁴⁷⁴ and of political and social equality (5.4.9),⁴⁷⁵ even if autonomy and freedom-talk might work successfully as part of strategic moves in certain contexts, and when elaborated in a certain ways (5.4.6).⁴⁷⁶ I come back to these criticisms, and deal with them separately.

There are, however, also contributors who question and oppose from different angles the prevalent moral critique of individual autonomy, there exists a counter-discourse. Here I want to point out three concerns emphasized in this counter-discourse. There are, for one thing, contributors who deny that the subject is in fact described by the thinkers of modernity in the way critics claim. The critics consider the modern notion of the subject to be over-abstract:

human beings are described as disembedded and disembodied, in accordance with the hegemonic dichotomous schemes of Western culture, putting everything associated with the

466 See also Sinding Aasen (1991), Gulli (1992, 1994), Brækhus (1995), Eeg-Henriksen (1998), Borchgrevink (2002), Brandth and Kvande (2003), Skjeie and Teigen (2003).

467 Because, for example, it renders it possible and acceptable to talk about “women’s preferences” for “gender typical choices” in terms of “real preferences”, and thus as outside the scope of legitimate political action, when in fact the realness of these preferences are an “illusion” because of the “social reality” of groups and

“patriarchal social structures” (Teigen 2004: 88, 90).

468 Apart from the arguments already referred to: That the modern autonomous subject is fundamentally different from the feminist agent for change (5.4.1), that the ideal of autonomy is embedded in an inherently patriarchal tradition of thinking (5.4.2), and that it is based on abstractions that are too abstract or abstract in the wrong way (5.4.3, 5.4.4).

469 Cf. Gaarder (1990), Widerberg (1993), Gullvåg Holter (1997).

470 Cf. Lie (1990), von der Fehr (1991), Rudberg (1996a, 1996b), Lie (2002).

471 Cf. Annfelt (1999), Erichsen (2002), Gressgård (2003).

472 Cf. Hopland Engebretsen (1999), Moi (2000/2001), Lilleaas (2004).

473 Cf. Skjønsberg (1996a), Martinsen (1997), Ve (1999).

474 Cf. Nilsen (1992), Mathiesen (2000), Wærness (2001).

475 Cf. Gulli (1992), Leira (1996), Kvande (1998).

476 Cf. Melby (1997), Skjeie and Siim (2000), Teigen (2003).

masculine above anything associated with the feminine. Some contributors note, however, that there are figures working from within the modern imaginary who elaborate what human beings are in ways that avoid some or all of these pitfalls, such as Jürgen Habermas⁴⁷⁷ and Seyla Benhabib,⁴⁷⁸ or even John Rawls.⁴⁷⁹

Second, there are contributors who deny that the modern notion of human beings is indefensible: They rely on modern thought in their reflections on the subject, seemingly undisturbed by what critics claim are unfortunate normative implications of such reliance.

Some explicate why they are so undisturbed, whether they, minimally, simply establish as a matter of fact, that the modern idea of the constitution of self is compatible with what critics claim it is not compatible with, or whether they, more ambitiously, develop in more precise terms why this idea does not have the unfortunate normative implications that critics claim it has.⁴⁸⁰ The reason could be either that they do not consider the implications often regarded as unfortunate as less unfortunate than assumed, or not unfortunate at all,⁴⁸¹ or that they think the implications are different from what critics claim, and defensible – be it because they regard

Some explicate why they are so undisturbed, whether they, minimally, simply establish as a matter of fact, that the modern idea of the constitution of self is compatible with what critics claim it is not compatible with, or whether they, more ambitiously, develop in more precise terms why this idea does not have the unfortunate normative implications that critics claim it has.⁴⁸⁰ The reason could be either that they do not consider the implications often regarded as unfortunate as less unfortunate than assumed, or not unfortunate at all,⁴⁸¹ or that they think the implications are different from what critics claim, and defensible – be it because they regard

In document Feminism, Epistemology & Morality (sider 186-195)