Autonomy and Self-Identity - Marina A.L. Oshana (2005)
Writing A Philosophy Paper: See How The Sausage Is Made
Your $5/mth gives you access to the How The Sausage is Made series, following my paper writing from the beginning research stage, which includes the notes I take throughout my reading, through the draft-writing, and on to completion of the final paper.
In the previous ‘How The Sausage Is Made' post I had a whole lot of questions for Mendz & Kissane about their claim that determining an individual’s agency is a prerequisite to determining autonomy. I did some digging around, and happened upon this paper “Autonomy and Self-Identity” by Oshana, who is an influential name on the topic of autonomy. It deals with the relationship that a person has with their self-identity, and how that plays into their autonomy. This paper is more theoretical than some of the ones I have looked at so far, and makes no reference to MAiD.
Like Oshana claims in this paper, it seems to me that an individual has to know something about themselves and their goals, who they are and what they want to accomplish with their life. That is, without some existing sense of self-identity, I can’t check in with myself to confirm or deny that some action I take is in line with who I am and what I want to do with my life. Maybe M & K are right, and the status of ‘having agency’ is prior to ‘having autonomy,’ but it seems to me that an individual’s basic sense of self-identity is necessary for determining agency.
One of the major questions that Oshana concerns herself with is whether or not a person (Oshana refers to persons and not agents) has to endorse, like, or otherwise assent to all parts of their self-identity in order to be autonomous, or whether they could reasonably dislike or disavow parts of their self-identity and still remain autonomous.
What's important to remember here, with respect to my own motivations, is that I am thinking through this Oshana paper in relationship with the M & K paper from my last post.
On to the paper!
