This book draws connections and explores important questions at the intersection of the debates about relational autonomy and relational equality. Although these two research areas share several common assumptions and concerns, their connections have not been systematically explored. The essays in this volume address theoretical questions at the intersection of relational theories of autonomy and equality and also consider how these theoretical considerations play out in real-world contexts. Several chapters explore possible conceptual links between relational autonomy and equality by considering the role of values—such as agency, non-domination, and self-respect—to which both relational autonomy theorists and relational egalitarians are committed. Others reflect on how debates about autonomy and equality can clarify our thinking about oppression based on race and gender, and how such oppression affects interpersonal relationships. Autonomy and Equality: Relational Approaches is the first book to specifically address the relationship between these two research areas. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in social and political philosophy, moral philosophy, and feminist philosophy.

Almost all women and men claim that gender equality within their relationships is the ideal. In practice, however, equality is not predominant within many couples and families. This book develops current debates about individualisation within families – particularly how partners understand and resolve tensions between the need for togetherness and personal autonomy, and how partners view and work with increasing gender equality. Individualism and Families is based on a large Swedish study from two of the foremost European experts on the sociology of the family. The study looks particularly at partnering, parenting, intimacy, commitments, attitudes to finances and gender divisions of labour.

This book examines different approaches by which states characterised by federal or decentralized arrangements reconcile equality and autonomy. In case studies from four continents, leading experts analyse the challenges of ensuring institutional, social and economic equality whilst respecting the competences of regions and the rights of groups.

This collection of original essays explores the social and relational dimensions of individual autonomy. Rejecting the feminist charge that autonomy is inherently masculinist, the contributors draw on feminist critiques of autonomy to challenge and enrich contemporary philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility. The essays analyze the complex ways in which oppression can impair an agent's capacity for autonomy, and investigate connections, neglected by standard accounts, between autonomy and other aspects of the agent, including self-conception, self-worth, memory, and the imagination.

In recent years, common ownership has enjoyed unprecedented favour among policy-makers and citizens in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Conservation land trusts, affordable-housing co-operatives, community gardens, and neighborhood-managed parks are spreading throughout major cities. Normatively, these common-ownership regimes are seen as yielding a variety of benefits, such as a communitarian ethos in the efficient use of scarce resources, or greater freedom to interact and create in new ways. The design of common-ownership regimes, however, requires difficult trade-offs. Most importantly, successful achievement of the goals of common-ownership regimes requires the limitation of individual co-owners' ability to freely use the common resource, as well as to exit the common-ownership arrangement. This article makes two contributions. First, at the normative level, it argues that common ownership has the potential to help foster greater “equality of autonomy”. By Ň“equality of autonomy”, I mean more equitable access to the material and relational means that allow individuals to be autonomous. Second, at the level of design, this article argues that the difficult trade-offs of common-ownership regimes should be dealt with by grounding the commitment to equality of autonomy in the context of specific resources. In some cases, this resource-specific design helps to minimize or avoid difficult trade-offs. In hard cases, where trade-offs cannot be avoided, this article offers arguments for privileging greater equality of autonomy over full negative freedom.

Preface A true state of nature cannot be recognized by a philosophy that accommodates divine authority. Identifying a deity as the proprietor of natural law and sovereign to a person's unique property of self is to give value to an entity that is synonymous with the universe. Divinity does not exist within reality; rather, the supernatural seeks to contain reality as it evolves- like the arbitrary arrangement of letters that comprise a word attempt to contain an abstract meaning with definition. This work will investigate the ability for the static containment of universals by exploring the meanings of symbols such as language. I find it irresponsible to assign a place for faith amongst the natural laws as an original component of existing; with a skeptical approach, the original state of nature cannot be considered while theological discourse is accommodated. The assumption that principles are bestowed by God as natural is to posture the true state of nature from the onset; basing a state of nature upon an assumption of the supernatural is to found philosophies that cannot be substantiated nor sustained. Traditional philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes have proposed philosophical arguments that leave room for such supernatural authority, and I contend that the presumption of divine nature invalidates any conclusions made upon those artificial premises; only an authentic state of nature- one that only acknowledges core elements of reality- may be validated and valued. I have also incorporated more contemporary philosophers such as Rawls and Nozick in this work because they have introduced innovative thought experiments from which any perspective may be imagined: Robert Nozick's "Experience Machine" and John Rawls' "The Veil of Ignorance" are tools for considering philosophy based on a true and authentic state of nature, and it will bear out that philosophy is a skeptical science at its core. Negotiations of social contracts are a major consideration in this writing; the way that entities relate and are related to one-another in the universal context is a continuous theme that resurfaces in all facets of existence- both living and nonliving. I find it irresponsible to assume consent in any contract and equate the practice to rape and slavery; for instance, at the root of faith is the assumption that a governing deity accepts the charge to govern, and assumptions of power given or received through coercion or confiscation are not social contracts made on the basis of equality. Equality is the primary motivation for this work. The original and true state of nature affords each existent being a unique capacity that is acknowledged as an autonomous function: the soul, the self, or the mind. Humanity is an interactive species, and its moral premises respond to the relationships social contracts are forged from. There are basic principles to how beings relate naturally, and so morality is a consideration for the autonomous being as it exists amongst others, and those relationships are substantiated by the natural laws which make no accommodations for attractive or moral results; as a science, the skeptical philosophy of a true state of nature must remain as neutral as mathematical functions in order to responsibly construct an ethic that is worthwhile. I have made every effort to avert coercion and acquiescence that might discredit or corrupt the philosophy I present; only from a vantage of neutrality can the balance of nature and nurture be reconciled.

An exposé of flaws in American policies regarding the self-reliance of families argues that policymakers have compromised the well-being of everyday individuals by limiting the definition of acceptable family units and placing unrealistic responsibilities on contemporary families, presenting a model for "caretaking relationships" that provides extra support for children and the elderly. Reprint.

This volume addresses the exercise of personal autonomy in contemporary situations of normative pluralism. In the Western liberal tradition, from a strictly legal and theoretical perspective the social individual has the right to exercise the autonomy of his or her will. In a context of legal plurality, however, personal autonomy becomes more complicated. Can and should personal autonomy be recognized as a legal foundation for protecting a person’s freedom to renounce what others view as his or her fundamental ‘human rights’? This collection develops an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to address these questions and presents empirical studies examining the gap between the principle of personal autonomy and its implementation. In a context of cultural diversity, this gap manifests itself in two particular ways. First, not every culture gives the same pre-eminence to personal autonomy when examining the legal effects of an individual’s acts. Second, in a society characterized by ‘weak pluralism’, the legal assessment of personal autonomy often favours the views of the dominant majority. In highlighting these diverse perspectives and problematizing the so-called ‘guardian function’ of human rights, i.e., purporting to protect weaker parties by limiting their personal autonomy in the name of gender equality, fair trial, etc., this book offers a nuanced approach to the principle of autonomy and addresses the questions of whether it can effectively be deployed in situations of internormativity and what conditions must be met in order to ensure that it is not rendered devoid of all meaning.

Rina Singh's book compares seventeen Western European countries in the area of women's involvement in the public sphere (participation and policies affecting it) and private sphere (roles and policies affecting it). The interaction between the two spheres is analysed to determine where countries lie in the process towards gender autonomy - ultimately the ability of each sex to make free lifestyle choices to participate in both or either the public and private spheres in a way that neither penalises nor rewards the choices in material and/or social terms. Four models of gender autonomy are proposed.