Freedom and Unavoidable Judgments: A Commentary on "Nondomination and the Limits of Relational Autonomy" by Danielle M. Wenner

In "Nondomination and the Limits of Relational Autonomy," Danielle Wenner (2020) aims to achieve the political goals of relational theorists through a more effective means. This is a worthy aspiration. She believes the neorepublican conception of freedom as nondomination "can best promote the aims embodied in the political project of feminist theorists" (41), including reducing conditions of oppression, and do it in a way that avoids the conceptual problems inherent in relational autonomy. While I appreciate the pragmatism and clarity of her argument, in this commentary I raise a challenge to the freedom as nondomination approach, specifically Wenner's claim that it can avoid making substantive value judgments. I illustrate my objection with an example: the issue of public school integration and related debates about school choice. Ultimately, I suggest true content-neutrality on visions of the good (communal) life may be impossible.

As Wenner notes, feminist critiques of the liberal ideal of autonomy have significantly advanced our thinking about selfhood and agency: the atomistic individual and the self-made man have given way to the socially situated self. From birth until death, we human beings are in relationship with others and are molded in important ways by the communities we inhabit. Acknowledging these facts and reworking an unrealistic masculinist ideal constitute real progress. However, according to Wenner, relational autonomy theorists run into trouble discerning the difference between relationships that lead to productive and healthy socialization and those that are deforming and even oppressive. We really have no way of knowing what kind of self we would be absent those influences. Neither can we access other people's internal states to verify their "authentic" selves.

I agree that the search to verify someone's "true" or "authentic" self, to distill its essence or carve it out as an intact entity that can be distinguished from various social influences, is probably an untenable project. Is a woman's desire to have children her own desire? Has it been imposed since birth as a social script? Has it been imposed, rejected, revised, and then adopted a true preference? Is making peace with social expectations an authentic choice? It seems impossible to answer these questions definitively, just as it is to judge whether another person's preferences and decisions are "really theirs."

Although I happen to disagree that relationships can be neatly categorized into a binary of enhancing versus diminishing one's autonomy, I appreciate Wenner's interest in setting aside the metaphysically difficult task of ascertaining a "true self" in favor of achieving practical goals. More compelling to me than her search for conceptual neatness is her pragmatism.

Wenner is laying the groundwork to make it possible to do the following: (1) "provide justification for economic redistribution [so that] those in typically subservient roles [have enough] resources to negotiate for their interests"; (2) identify "freedom-limiting aspects of structural oppression, without being committed to a view of the self as predetermined and static," so that those aspects can be changed; and (3) "recommend institutional measures to minimize domination without undermining the agency of the oppressed or risking pernicious paternalism" (42). In sum, she seems to be saying our best bet is to focus on improving external conditions in order to prevent or lessen domination. She is promoting "an externalist account that speaks not to persons' agency but to their freedom" (37). To do this, she makes an important definitional distinction between autonomy as personal agency and freedom as the conditions for autonomous choice.

To put the externalist account of freedom another way: if it is too hard to distinguish between oppressive and productive relationships, and too difficult to judge people's preferences and what really formed them, perhaps it will be easier to recognize external reductions in individuals' options and material resources. These external limitations have the benefit of being easier to see, easier to correct, and easier to prevent in the first place. Also, Wenner believes focusing our energy on external conditions and institutions has the benefit of leaving individuals free to make whatever choices they want...