Autonomy
NP 10-17-2025
I’ve not studied much Kant and I’ve only recently become aware of his importance to not only Enlightenment thinkers, but all subsequent philosophers; for someone operating in the 18th century, he’s asking questions about the reasoning of God to humane treatment of animals and the ills of colonialism. Apparently he was also a homebody, having never left his Prussian home, and was known for his rigid routine. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily a good thing, but it’s something I have in common with him and I’ll take any similarity to such a great thinker that I can get.
Appropriately, I’ve been thinking a lot about agency lately. I’ve been writing about it in some form or other for most of my life because I’ve always either taken mine for granted or not fully understood its implications or some combination of both. I’ve always been a people pleaser, avoiding conflict, telling little fibs to seem cooler or smarter around certain people, covering my own shame or inadequacies with white lies and judgments of others. It’s not something of which I’m proud, but it doesn’t seem that I’ve gotten any better at simply accepting myself for what I am in any moment, as if it was or would ever be enough. What ‘enough’ comprises is as nebulous and vacuous as the actual fears that manifest as social awkwardness, thus all the rumination on the subject.
“Autonomy is thus the ground of the dignity of the human and of every rational nature.
- Immanuel Kant
But I’m learning that autonomy, per Kant, is best exercised as achieving the highest good as a person; bettering the mind, which betters the body, which is the highest moral achievement. The only morality is that we treat each other in a way that lifts all of us higher. This is challenging to at least a few of my formerly (and currently) held beliefs and has me questioning so many of the systems upon which my daily life relies. It also happens to be the exact thing I needed to hear. As a product of the burgeoning laissez-faire economic system, it’s interesting to hear him ponder the exploitation of people deemed ‘lesser’ by certain elements of his society, while also praising the fact that man was indeed free to do whatever he so chooses.
I can respect the ability and willingness to grapple with that duality, despite my own past notions of certainty and hypocrisy. The man is quoted as saying that “reason can never prove the existence of God,” then claims that “a single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all books I ever read besides.” I’ve never had the audacity to offer my thoughts if there was even a chance that they could be refuted, let alone refute them myself at different stages of my life. I reckon that’s what makes someone like Kant so profound: the ability to hold two ideas at the same time and admit when those beliefs need challenging or even changing. And how can that change happen without the ability and knowledge that we, as individuals, are autonomous under our own inherent free will?
As long as I can extrapolate that duality into my everyday, try to live as I write and write as I live, keep it open and honest, I believe everything will be alright. There’s more than one way to get there, I know that, Kant knew that, because he knew that we all had to walk our own, autonomous path. With that knowledge, and faith in myself and my own strength and purpose, I can truly appreciate my own time and life as mine, that no one can value it for me. That’s free will, and free will will set you free.