[lit-ideas] Re: Ethnic Pride, Black Truck Style

  • From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 08:23:03 -0400

ohn McCreery wrote:

"I am having trouble getting my head around "autonomous activities."
Could we have some examples?"

Autonomous activities would be those activities which are, to the
greatest degree possible, open and accessible to any person.  They
are, in Kant's terms, public.  Public here does not mean in front of a
group or on a city corner or in a newspaper but rather pertains to the
nature of the discourse.  An activity is public when it could be
shared in by any person and therefore not restricted by some outside
authority.  The classic example is, of course, ethical deliberation.
I may be sitting alone in my office thinking about the various
implications of stem cell research, but because those deliberations
could be shared with any person, they are public.  In short, what
makes an activity autonomous is its being accessible, in principle, to
any person and so not constrained by any authority other than the
force internal to the activity itself.

It seems to me the range of autonomous activities is severely limited
and so I am not sure what to make of talk of an autonomous individual.


Sincerely,

Phil Enns
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