c Autonomy competences and narrative competences 182

Atkins builds on Meyers’ work on autonomy competences, life projects, and integration, by explicitly theorising the relationship to narrative. Atkins articulates the relation between (relational) autonomy competences and narrative structures - the exercise of autonomy competences deploys narrative competences. Meyers also connects narrative and autonomy competences - on Meyers’ approach,

497 _{Mackenzie and Walker, “Neurotechnologies, Personal Identity, and the Ethics of}

Authenticity,” 388. For such an account, see Mackenzie, “Relational Autonomy, Normative Authority and Perfectionism.”

autonomous agency requires the same strategies that are employed in narrative understanding. As Atkins writes: ‘Self-knowledge is achieved, says Meyers, through communication with others where we test our explanations and receive feedback about them. In this way we self-consciously invoke the articulation and reality constraints on narrative self-understandings’.498

Atkins extends on this understanding and argues that Meyers’ understanding of autonomy competences presupposes the view of human embodiment and narrative identity that Atkins develops, and which I have presented in the previous chapters.

Atkins argues that: ‘A narrative model of identity requires an account of autonomy that integrates the first-, second and third-personal aspects of selfhood. This requires a theory in which the social and bodily dimensions of agency are explicitly theorized’.499 _{And that ‘[a]utonomy competencies unify the self by} integrating beliefs, desires, dispositions, goals, and so on, to minimize inner conflict and to articulate a comprehensive agential perspective’.500 _{On Atkins’} approach a relational theory aims to unify the first-, second- and third-

perspectives of selfhood.501

Autonomy competencies presuppose narrative competencies, and so they effect narrative coherence by coordinating first-, second-, and third-personal aspects of agents’ lives. In this way autonomy integrates the self, making possible a coherent agential perspective and a unified sense of who one is and, thereby, making possible the life one really believes to be worth living.502

So, the autonomous self is a narrative self, and personal autonomy turns on the deployment of narrative competences. Atkins, like Mackenzie, in recognition of primary embodied intersubjectivity, argues that relationality should be conceived constitutively, and not merely causally, and for the importance of inclusion of normative competences in considerations of autonomy.

This approach articulates the relationship between narrative (identity) and autonomy – given the relational account of autonomy, autonomous agency is developed and exercised through narrative understandings with others. Factors that undermine autonomy can interfere with narrative integration. Further, the relational autonomy approach, by taking the developmental, embodied and social setting into account as primary, distinguishes between identity and autonomy - autonomous agency cannot simply be the realisation of one’s authentic desires or control over one’s desires and actions (will). Understanding autonomy is not done simply in terms of self-creation/freedom, nor in terms of a model of self-control or

498 _{Atkins, Narrative Identity and Moral Identity - A Practical Perspective, 132.} 499 _{Atkins, Narrative Identity and Moral Identity - A Practical Perspective, 123.} 500 _{Atkins, Narrative Identity and Moral Identity - A Practical Perspective, 129.} 501 _{Atkins, Narrative Identity and Moral Identity - A Practical Perspective, 136-7, 141.} 502 _{Atkins, Narrative Identity and Moral Identity - A Practical Perspective, 141.}

strong identification, but is the exercise of competences within a context to

achieve integration, and so autonomy comes apart from identity. Our identity and its constitution, rests in the development of skills in negotiation with others.

This understanding builds on the “full-blooded” account of selfhood that I have been developing throughout this thesis. 503 _{In the second chapter I} demonstrated the complex nature of selfhood involved in practical identity, as embodied and social. In the third and fourth chapters it was to show how

narrative structures agency. With this approach to relational autonomy in terms of autonomy competences, we can see the role of autonomy and normative

competences in integrating the multi-perspectival nature of embodied agency. Moreover, through understanding autonomy as a set of self-reflective skills that are exercised in development with others, this approach emphasises the innovative and creative nature of narrative synthesis. This draws on the account of agency developed through the chapters, building on Korsgaard, Ricoeur, Schechtman, Atkins, Baylis, Nelson and Mackenzie. The “full-blooded” account of agency as dynamic embodied perspectival selfhood I have developed, given its stress of the relational and developmental nature of selfhood, does not presuppose any self or unified entity that stands against or behind this activity of self-constitution. Rather, it sketches out a developmental account of selfhood in its practical stance and the effects of this stance on our self-understanding and human flourishing.

With this understanding in hand, we can address postmodern critiques claiming that autonomy and agency are illusions, as well as provide a further response to criticisms that narrative is conventional. Like the criticisms of

libertarian approaches presented in the second section of this chapter (5.2.a), the postmodern “critique of the subject”, which groups a number of theorists,

criticises metaphysical assumptions implicit in this ideal of autonomy. These include assumptions that agents are self-transparent, psychically unified, and capable of achieving self-mastery. This includes psychoanalytic critiques of the agent as conflicted (and not as psychically unified), as well as Foucauldian critiques that agents are constituted by power relations (and that there is no metaphysical self). These critiques of the subject coalesce around the argument that autonomy, and so autonomous agency, is an illusion. Mackenzie and Stoljar identify this unifying theme underlying the postmodern critique of the subject.504

503 _{Mackenzie and Stoljar note that substantive approaches, weak and strong, presuppose a}

richer account of agency than do procedural accounts, because they treat ‘autonomy as

intrinsically relational and introduce necessary conditions of autonomy that derive from the social relations within which agents are embedded’. Mackenzie and Stoljar, “Autonomy Refigured,” 20. This observation is consistent with my claim that the approach I develop is a theoretically rich account of agency and selfhood.

The theme is that the notion of autonomy is a kind of conceit or illusion of the Enlightenment conception of the subject. Thus it is charged that defenders of autonomy still cling to the Cartesian idea that consciousness can be transparently self-aware or to the Kantian view of persons as rational self-legislators, despite the fact that such views have been so decisively challenged since Nietzsche, Freud, and their heirs. Moreover, the persistence of such views is not just a harmless anachronistic hangover of the Enlightenment. It is complicit with structures of domination and subordination, in particular with the suppression of others— women, colonial subjects, blacks, minority groups—who are deemed incapable of achieving rational self-mastery.505

These critiques, like the relational critique of autonomy, are important because they also draw attention to the complex social nature, or intersubjectivity, of selfhood. However, I argue, following the theorists I have drawn on throughout this thesis, that demonstrating that there is no “metaphysical self” does not mean that there is no self to deal with.506 _{Moreover on the “full-blooded” account of} selfhood in terms of autonomous agency that I develop, I have articulated how narrative can account for the continuity and permanence of self, and the role of autonomy competences in unifying agency, in terms of the innovative capacities of self-constitution.

Narrative self-understanding contains a critical facility essential for autonomous agency, which further addresses the objection that because the narrative model places stress on unity and the social context, it has a strong tendency towards conventionality. By contrast, Ricoeur, Meyers, Nelson, Atkins and others, highlight the innovative aspects of autonomy. For example, Ricoeur emphasises the creative aspects of the self in the process of narrative synthesis, Meyers’ the interplay of socialisation and critical skills of autonomous agency, and Nelson, the emancipatory effects of counter narratives.507 _{Further, this approach} allows us to explain how autonomy competences may be hindered or enabled.

The approach I have developed recognises that identity and the project of selfhood is an integrative project and that the unity of agency is not given, contra metaphysical reductive approaches. Moreover, because it recognises the

importance of integration to autonomous agency, it can account for the fragility of autonomous agency as well as the personal significance of self-disintegration,

505 _{Mackenzie and Stoljar, “Autonomy Refigured,” 11.}

506 _{In this way my position is distinct from Dennett’s claim that the self is merely a ’center of}

narrative gravity’, see Dennett, “The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity.” My account is more similar to Velleman’s account of the multi-perspectival nature of selfhood and his understanding of agential agency in virtue of which a person is autonomous. For further discussion, including of the differences between Dennett and Velleman see J. David Velleman, “The Self as Narrator,” in Self to Self (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Goldie also disagrees with accounts that understand the self as a narrative fiction, see Goldie, “One’s Remembered Past: Narrative Thinking, Emotion, and the External Perspective.”

contra postmodern approaches. As such, throughout this thesis, I have developed an argument concerning the relation of the key concepts relevant to selfhood – identity, agency and autonomy – which address deficiencies in mainstream accounts, as well as meeting postmodern objections concerning narrative as conventional and autonomy as an illusion. The problem with metaphysical accounts of identity is that they assume the integrated or given self. The problem with postmodern accounts is that they downplay the practical force/experience of self-fragmentation. Recognition of the constraints of the relational context of identity formation - as social and embodied, also meets responses by postmodern critiques that we are free to take on whatever identity we like.508

Conclusion:

My aim in this section has been to draw attention to three significant points raised by relational approaches which will in turn be helpful in illuminating my questions concerning self-change as raised in the first-personal accounts of neural recipients. These are: a recognition of the intersubjective shaping of our identities - an agent’s capacities for autonomy should be understood relationally; an

understanding of autonomy as a suite of skills or competences which are developmentally acquired and constitutive of autonomy; that autonomy

competences can be impaired or enabled in this social context; and, that autonomy further requires normative critical reflection. This approach connects autonomy and narrative, whilst also distinguishing between identity and autonomy in an account of autonomous agency.

In this section I have argued for the broad shape a relational approach to autonomy should take in terms of autonomy competences that are

developmentally acquired and so can be impaired or fostered. Drawing on the approach to autonomy in terms of the exercise of autonomy competence has the consequence that authentic selfhood emerges through the exercise of selfhood. As such, when understanding the impacts of changes in our lives, the emphasis is placed on the importance of self-integration. In recognition of embodied primary intersubjectivity I have argued for a constitutive understanding of relationality, which requires recognition that there should be some substantial conditions for autonomous actions. I argued for a weak substantial approach that recognizes the importance of paying attention to self-referring attitudes such as self-trust and self-respect. This approach sets out a rich account of selfhood which includes understanding agency, identity and autonomy as relational – as distinct yet inter- relational, where none of the concepts is foundational.

508 _{For an example of this approach see: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the} Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990).

This approach to autonomy competency has the further virtue that it addresses a twin concern - to explain how oppressive socialisation can impair autonomy, as well as, to explain how people subject to oppressive socialisation may be

autonomous to some extent and exhibit autonomy in some areas of their lives (whilst perhaps not in others). The approach does not view socialisation as something to be transcended for authenticity, but works to theorise the

interrelation of socialisation and subjectivity. Whilst these theories are aimed at explaining feminist concerns about socialisation, they are nonetheless useful for thinking through the effects of neural implants. The question is not whether we are in world without any external interference; the important thing for my autonomy is whether DBS (or socialisation) impedes my capacity for critical self- reflection. What matters is whether I can take a critical stance and not whether changes are caused by the DBS (or the result of socialisation). Thus, the question of DBS is not different in kind from the question of socialisation; implants are not a threat to identity per se.

The approach includes consideration of the broader social context in which medical treatment occurs and the status of people with conditions, which they seek treatment for with neural implants. In a context where understandings of disability and illness are prevalent, this is an important point. I will take up this discussion in the following section in which I apply the embodied relational approach to narrative agency and autonomy to the first-personal accounts of implant recipients and neuroethics discussions concerning the impacts of neural implants on identity and autonomy.