Autonomy and Education

Stud Philos Educ (2015) 34:63–87
DOI 10.1007/s11217-014-9426-3
Autonomy, Perfectionism and the Justification

of Education
Johannes Drerup
Published online: 27 April 2014

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract This paper is concerned with the practical importance of different forms of
paternalism for educational theory and practice. Contrary to the traditional treatment of
paternalism as a sometimes necessary and rather messy aspect of educational practices, I
demonstrate that paternalism is to be regarded as an ‘‘indigenous concept’’ (Herbart) of
educational theory and as the ‘indigenous model of justification’ that underlies the structure
of educational practices. Based on an analysis of the intricate nexus between autonomy-
oriented forms of paternalism and educational forms of autonomy-based perfectionism I
furthermore argue that a perfectionistically structured conception of autonomy provides a
more adequate evaluative framework for justifying autonomy as an educational aim than
alternative educational regimes of autonomy can deliver. Finally, I discuss some major
theoretical problems of bridging the gap between general ethical principles and their
application in practical fields.
Keywords Autonomy Perfectionism Paternalism Education Moral

pragmatics
Introduction
Autonomy is a political, legal, moral and educational key concept and core value of
modern democratic societies. While questions about autonomy have ‘‘always been at the
center of philosophy and of philosophy of education’’ (Smeyers 2012, p. 177), in debates
about the relation between education and autonomy, the content and the specific evaluative
J. Drerup (&)
Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, WWU Münster, Georgskommende 33, C 218, 48143 Münster,
Germany
e-mail: johannes.drerup@uni-muenster.de
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64 J. Drerup
foundation of the concept of autonomy are essentially contested. Even among critics of
particular conceptions of autonomy as societal ideals or legitimate aims of education,1
however, it remains largely undisputed that the overall societal tendency in Western
democracies points to the direction of a general acceptance and widespread enforcement of
autonomy-related practices and values in institutional power structures and modern
regimes of recognition (Honneth 2004, 2014). Critics and defenders of the educational and
societal role of autonomy tend to share the assumption that autonomy became both a core
value and simultaneously a core problem of individuals living under the conditions of
(post-)modernity. Notwithstanding the conflicting evaluations of autonomy as a social
‘‘fact of life’’ (Raz 1986) or a ‘‘practical illusion’’ (Meyer-Drawe 1998) brought forward in
different disciplines, philosophers of education, who attempt to theoretically reconstruct
basic elements of educational practices as evaluative social practices (Biesta 2010) usually
rely on two minimal assumptions: In modern liberal democracies educational practices and
pedagogical institutions cannot be adequately reconstructed without reference to—at least
partially—asymmetrical institutional structures and without reference to modern regimes
of autonomy (Anderson 20132; Fateh-Moghadam and Gutmann 2013), autonomy-facili-
tating forms of recognition (Anderson and Honneth 2009) and autonomy supporting social
forms (Raz 1986). Thus, even though the exact relation und adequate formulation of both
elements with regard to particular institutionalized orders of interaction remain essentially
contested, the asymmetrical structure of pedagogical constellations as a not contingent
anthropological fact of life (Reichenbach 2011, p. 20) and the socially established orien-
tation towards conceptions of autonomy can be regarded as widely shared constituents of
educational practices in free societies. Since both mark the general problem horizon every
domain-specific philosophical theory of education has to deal with, they consequently form
two constitutive minima of most branches of contemporary educational theory.3 Together
they form background conditions that generate what can be termed structural problems of
educational theory.4 These can be subdivided into three interrelated sets of questions: (1)
1
Influential criticisms of autonomy stem from diverse disciplines such as philosophy of education
(Meyer-Drawe 1998; Ricken 1999; Rieger-Ladich 2002; Hand 2006; Swaine 2012), political philosophy
(Nussbaum 2011; Conly 2013), sociology (Bröckling 2007) and psychology (Ehrenberg 2011).
2
Anderson specifies the term regime as follows: ‘‘(…)a ‘regime’ comprises (1) a specification of both
what gets you the deontic status and what it gets you, (2) a scheme of how to implement or institu-
tionalize the attribution (and contestation) of statuses, and (3) an understanding of what justifies both the
specification and the institutionalization of the deontic status. What will typically be especially central to
characterizing a given regime will be the views and policies regarding how much of the relevant
capacities individuals must have to gain certain entitlements in particular social practices. To speak of a
regime is to speak of this entire, more-or-less consistent network of normative interrelations and modes of
implementing them’’ (Anderson 2013, p. 5).
3
There is also an historical connection between the rise of autonomy-oriented forms of education and the
beginning of theoretical forms of reflection on educational practices. The need to theorize education as a
social practice and the rise of autonomy as an educational ideal became endemic in a time in which
traditional social orders and corresponding forms of intergenerational reproduction began to be regarded as
contingent.
4
I use the terms ‘philosophy of education’ and ‘educational theory’ interchangeably. Even though phi-
losophers of education in the German tradition of educational theory (‘Allgemeine Pädagogiḱ) usually
justify the existence of their discipline and the significance of their theoretical work with reference to the
‘object’ of their study (e.g. an analysis of the basic structure, the ‘formal-object’ or fundamental problems of
education relevant for all the other educational disciplines), neither the methods used nor the questions asked
differ substantially from ‘philosophical’ methods and questions. Thus, apart from the difference between
what an educational theorist claims to do and actually does and apart from the fact that educational
theoreticians differ substantially in the way they construct the tasks of the discipline (there seem to be as
many conceptions of the tasks and the raisons d’être of educational theory or ‘Allgemeine Pädagogik’ as
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Autonomy, Perfectionism and the Justification of Education 65
How should education be conceptualized? (2) How is education possible? (3) How can
education be justified?
In the following pages I will primarily be concerned with specific versions of the third
question which some philosophers regard as the most important question in pedagogical
ethics (Oelkers 1992). The analytically distinct and frequently neglected philosophical
questions referring to the object of a theory of education (Bellmann 2014) and the pos-
sibility of education (Vanderstraeten and Biesta 2006; Langewand 2008) will only be
addressed where they overlap with questions of the first type.5
Debates about the justification of education usually either focus on the problem of
justifying educational interventions that interfere with the global or local autonomy of
developing agents or, more generally, on the value of education as such (e.g. as opposed to
training) or of certain educational aims (e.g. autonomy or ‘‘Bildung’’) (e.g. Cuypers 2012).
Both forms of justification are intertwined, because justifications of the first type are
always based on claims about the subjective or objective value of a particular good and
thus on justifications of the second type. Conversely justifications of the second type can
be, but do not necessarily have to be, tied to forms of justification of the first type. In the
first section, I will reconstruct a common misconception concerning theoretical problems
associated with the practical function of the term paternalism for problems of the justifi-
cation of education of the first type. I will argue that the common identification of
paternalism with particular educational practices is misconceiving the theoretical and
practical importance of paternalism for issues related to the justification of education.6
Contrary to the traditional treatment of paternalism as a sometimes necessary and rather
messy aspect of educational practices, I will demonstrate that paternalism should not only
be regarded as an ‘‘indigenous concept’’ (Herbart) of educational theory, but as the
‘indigenous model of justification’ that underlies the formal structure of educational
practices (1). Liberals are commonly not generally opposed to paternalism towards non-
autonomous agents but to perfectionist justifications of education that are based on con-
troversial ideals (e.g. autonomy). Because conceptions of autonomy present the most
prominent and widely discussed candidates for justifying education in liberal democracies,
in the second section the relation between both types of justification introduced above is
discussed specifically with regard to the intricate nexus between educational paternalism
and educational forms of autonomy-based perfectionism. Thus, in the following I will
assume that autonomy is a valid educational aim. Given the range of conflicting under-
standings and regimes of autonomy, this basic assumption nevertheless does not entail that
the specific conceptual and normative boundaries of an adequate and justifiable conception
of autonomy are not in need of further theoretical clarification. Hence, instead of focusing
Footnote 4 continued
there are theoreticians of education), whatever they do in the end can be subsumed under the label:
philosophy of education.
5
Although it is reasonable to analyze the three issues separately, I nevertheless defend the more general
position that the descriptive and normative aspects of all three structural problems can be reconstructed more
adequately on the basis of a more complex and theoretically differentiated view on competing conceptions
of autonomy and their differing functions and roles within different social spheres intertwined with the
educational domain (e.g. the political domain, the market).
6
As a preliminary remark it should be noted that in the following I am primarily concerned with the
theoretical status and practical significance of general rationales (e.g. different versions of paternalism and
perfectionism) and thus with theoretical fundamentals and not with the justification of particular arrange-
ments or acts in specific domains (e.g. the justification of state coercion by compulsory schooling for
instance or the justification of paternalism in the relationship between parents and their children: cf. Mullin
2013).
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66 J. Drerup
on other important problems, such as the controversial role of the concept of autonomy (or
different conceptions of autonomy) in the debate between liberal perfectionism (Raz 1986;
Wall 2006) and political liberalism (Rawls 2003; Quong 2011; Nussbaum 2011) or related
problems of the promotion or enforcement of autonomy-minded liberalism and the
potential devaluation or ruling out of other ways of life (Colburn 2008), education for
autonomy in pluralistic societies (Warnick 2012), entrance paths and exit options for
members of traditional minorities (Ben-Porath 2010) and the relation between autonomy
and tolerance (Macleod 2010), the scope of my argumentation is limited to the task of
mapping out the axiological infrastructure of a perfectionist conception of autonomy that is
appropriate for the task of delineating justified and unjustified forms of paternalistically
motivated arrangements in the domain of education. I will show that in educational con-
stellations established theoretical divisions between neutralist notions of ‘autonomy’ and
‘the good’ cannot be maintained and that substantive perfectionist elements play a con-
stitutive role within three evaluative dimensions of an educational conception of autonomy.
Along this line I try to make plausible, how an explication of specific perfectionist pre-
mises implicit in educational practices of attributing, facilitating and restricting autonomy
can contribute to a better understanding of the normative reasons why particular educa-
tional interventions and power structures are to be classified as (il-)legitimate. In this way I
attempt to show that a perfectionistically embedded conception of autonomy provides a
more adequate evaluative framework for justifying autonomy as an educational aim than
alternative competing educational regimes of autonomy can deliver (e.g. neutralist liberal,
libertarian or neoliberal regimes of autonomy) (2).7 Finally, in the third section, I will set
aside general theoretical questions of justification and address often neglected problems of
the application of general ethical principles and rationales to concrete practical contexts. I
argue that with some help of moral pragmatics, philosophers of education could develop
new methodologically disciplined approaches to old and new problems of educational
theory (3).
Education and Its ‘Indigenous Model of Justification’
It belongs to the oddities of the business of philosophers that a central problem in phi-
losophy consists in determining what a philosophical problem actually is. Luckily, this is
not the case with regard to the question of whether the justification of education is a core
problem for philosophers of education. In what follows, I will show that the question,
whether there is something like a problem of justification of education at all (sometimes
evoked in attempts to demarcate and construct disciplinary boundaries: Smeyers and
Depaepe 2012, p. 323) and the coordinated question, how such a normative justification
itself could be established (taking into account the theoretical climate dominated by the
empirically orientated educational sciences) are misplaced from the outset, if they ignore
the structure of justification that underlies the concept of education itself.
If one takes into account that paternalism is often associated with totalitarianism and
even racism (e.g. Mecheril 2003) it is somewhat of an understatement to state that the ‘‘p-
word’’ (Ogus and Van Boom 2010) ‘‘is having a bad press recently’’ (Winch and Gingell
7
It should be noted, however, that I am not attempting to develop a whole new theory of autonomy here.
Instead this paper should be understood as a contribution to the discussion of the autonomy-theoretical basis
of education, as it is cultivated in classical (e.g. Benner 1987) and newer approaches (e.g. Giesinger 2005) in
the German tradition of Allgemeine Pädagogik and in the tradition of philosophy of education (e.g. Brig-
house 2006).
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1999, p. 169). Even though there is almost no area of daily life in which paternalistically
motivated systemic arrangements are absent—especially not in education as the paradigm
case of paternalism (Kultgen 1992; Quante 2009)—one ‘‘rarely comes across a defense of
paternalistic activity even in areas where it could be thought the concept has a proper and
non-contentious use’’ (Winch and Gingell 1999, p. 169). Given the centrality of ‘pater-
nalism’ as foundational doctrine for an adequate understanding and justification of peda-
gogical practices it is rather astonishing that it has been misconstrued by most philosophers
of education. First of all, paternalism certainly has nothing to do with racism or totali-
tarianism. The mere idea is not only implausible but rather cynical. It either suggests that
Stalin and others acted with a benevolent intent when they sent millions into the Gulag or
that the atrocities committed actually had a positive effect on the victims. Much of the
conceptual confusion surrounding the age old debate about a plausible conception of
paternalism is caused by including untenable normative predefinitions into the conceptu-
alization of paternalism (for instance by (dis-)qualifying benevolent interventions in
domains of agency/judgment of other people as ‘‘insult’’ (e.g. Shiffrin 2000) or by iden-
tifying the paternalist rationale one-to-one with particular practices (e.g. coercion etc.) and
arrangements (e.g. Ben-Porath 2003; Schapiro 1999), thus ignoring methodological dif-
ferences between paternalist rationales, interventions and real outcomes]. As all of the
conceptual elements of the concept of paternalism are essentially contested (e.g. consent,
constraint, autonomy, well-being) Garren is correct in stating:
Paradoxically, while there is little or no agreement among contemporary authors as
to paternalism’s intension or extension, and therefore little to no agreement as to
what, precisely stands in need of moral justification, there is widespread agreement
that paternalism however defined … does give rise to a question of moral justifi-
cation (Garren 2006, p. 341).
Leaving the complexities of the debates on the general concept of paternalism and its
different domain-specific (legal, moral, conceptual, libertarian/structured etc.) and
unspecific forms (hard/soft; weak/strong; active/passive; intent or effect, pure/impure
etc.) aside (see for a detailed discussion: Dworkin 2010; Grill 2011), for the purpose of my
argumentation it suffices to clarify basic elements of a reasonable domain-specific
conception of pedagogical paternalism and the role that paternalism plays for an adequate
theoretical reconstruction of the concept of education and for the justification of education:
‘Pedagogical paternalism’ characterizes a flexible, asymmetrical constellation within
a social regime situated in a particular historical/social context, in which pedagogical
agents (or organisations) X
(1) constrain a recipient’s Y autonomy of judgment/of action and/or liberty in an
ethically relevant and temporally restricted way
(2) by a configuration of framework conditions for interaction (systemic arrangements/
choice architectures/incentive structures etc.) or by practices, rules etc. (or their
omission) with or without knowledge, but without the consent of the beneficiary Y
(3) with the primary aim of contributing to the good of Y (e.g. subjective or objective
well-being, autonomy, needs, interests, values).8
8
This characterization of pedagogical paternalism does not claim to capture all relevant forms of peda-
gogical paternalism in all relevant contexts and therefore solely has a heuristic function.
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68 J. Drerup
Taking this characterization of paternalism as an argumentative starting point it will be

of particular interest to examine how it relates to uncontroversial constitutive elements of
educational practices and to doctrines that are (apparently) critical of paternalism. While
advocates of anti-pedagogy (a doctrine that regards any kind of education illegitimate)
claim that any genuine form of pedagogical paternalism must fail from the start due to the
psychoanalytic assumption of the necessary inability of the agent to form a benevolent
intent with regard to the recipient, libertarian advocates of anti-authoritarian pedagogy
certainly are—contrary to rhetoric that is seemingly critical of paternalistically motivated
interventions, or omissions—neither non-paternalists, nor anti-paternalists. Anti-paternal-
ists do not regard every type of intervention into the liberty of an agent unjustified, but only
such interventions that are justified with recourse to the well-being of the agent. Non-
paternalists justify interventions with recourse to some other good than the well-being of
the agent.
Taking into account that, firstly, pedagogical practices primarily present asymmetrical
constellations to count as pedagogical, that, secondly, the beneficiary of pedagogical
interventions is not fully able to consent and not fully autonomous and that, thirdly, a
benevolent motivation to secure the subjective or objective well-being or autonomy of the
addressee is a necessary conceptual element of any reasonable conception of paternalism
and of interventions (or omissions of interventions) marked as pedagogical, one has to
accept that a general dismissal of paternalism in pedagogical settings must be mistaken.
It may be uncontroversial that some paternalist rationales have a role to play in the
justification of educational practices. Nonetheless, one may object, that this does not imply
that paternalism is the sole rationale relevant for the justification of education. Obviously
one may think of other rationales that, for instance, do not primarily aim at self-regarding
conduct or harms, but at other-regarding conduct. Because every social phenomenon can
be metaphorically described in various alternative ways, the mode of justification adopted
to legitimize a particular practice may vary accordingly (problem of multiple rationales).
So why not conceptualize education as a practice that primarily aims to integrate indi-
viduals into a social whole and is thus justified on the basis of non-paternalist rationales? I
do not want to deny that a variety of alternative competing rationales to justify education
exist. This, however, by no means implies that the rationales one may reasonably take
recourse to for justifications of education could be completely arbitrary, entirely inde-
pendent of the actual structure of educational practices and the way these practices are
conceptualized metaphorically in theory and practice.
Thus, let’s first take a look at some promising counter examples. One major reason for
not thinking about education as a practice that primarily aims to integrate agents into
society for society’s sake is the existence of a deep seated commitment to individualism in
modern societies. It is the individual and its autonomy and well-being that can be regarded
as the primary project of education in modern democracies, not the flourishing of a
community or nation imagined as an organic whole (Reichenbach 2010).9 Therefore, a
paternalistic form of justification seems to be a non-arbitrary condition for particular types
of justification to be regarded as legitimate at all. The reason why justifications that do not
primarily aim at the good of the recipient (like the justification of a marketing strategy or
justifications that completely identify the interest of the individual with the interest of the
community) are commonly regarded as pro tanto unjustified or as not educational, is that
9
This does not imply that paternalistically motivated policies could not be based on concern for the well-
being of particular communities. Paternalism towards groups presents intricate questions for most traditional
conceptions of paternalism that I have to skip in this paper.
123
they are not benevolently motivated in regard to the individual—and thus do not qualify as
instances of paternalism. The anonymous disciplinary regimes and discourses of power
reconstructed by Foucaultians and other theoreticians of power, by contrast, certainly
present interesting theoretical descriptions of all sorts of practices—as long as they omit
this basic structure of justification, the practices described are not educational practices.
What about education for tolerance or moral education more generally? Many forms of
educational paternalism are forms of indirect paternalism towards individual members of
groups, in which the ‘‘class of those interfered with is not coextensive with the class of
those who benefit from the interference’’ (Wall 2013, p. 95). Thus, in the case of com-
pulsory schooling, the state forces parents to send their children to school, not to secure the
interests of the parents, but the interests of the children. The same holds in the case of
education for tolerance. It is, to be sure, notoriously difficult to draw a clear cut line
between self- and other-regarding conduct. Nevertheless, education for tolerance can either
be justified primarily with regard to the well-being of the agents that are to be tolerated
(indirect paternalism), or with regard to the interests of the tolerating agent herself (direct
paternalism). This can be based on the premise that an adequate justification of an edu-
cation for tolerance has to be intertwined with educating for autonomy, assuming that both
the virtue of tolerance and the development of autonomy-competencies are necessary for a
flourishing life in modern societies. Someone incapable of tolerating other people and their
beliefs by distancing herself from established value judgments and prejudices will have a
hard time cooperating and prospering in pluralist societies. Conversely, from an educa-
tional point of view commitments ‘‘that are rooted in profound ignorance, indoctrination or
servility tend not to command as much respect as more informed and reflectively formed
commitments’’ (Macleod 2010, p. 15). Thus, based on some respect-based conceptions of
toleration the benefit of being tolerated also at least partly hinges on the development of
autonomy-competencies and consequently on autonomy-oriented forms of educational
paternalism. Moral education, at a first glance, seems to be the paradigmatic case of a non-
paternalist form of justification of educational practices—but only at a first glance.
Empirically, it is obvious that to lead a morally virtuous life is not always coextensive with
a flourishing life, because self-interest and morality can conflict. Nevertheless, we do not
have to introduce some dubious notion of moral harm to see that any form of moral
education has to be based on the premise that this should be the case and should become
part of the evaluative self-understanding of developing agents. The ‘happy sadist’, who
lives a life of plenty while ignoring even minimal demands of morality, is a character we
repudiate exactly because his own well-being (as he understands it) is in no way connected
with the moral quality of his actions. Taking into account that philosophers from Kant to
(even!) Nietzsche (obviously based on a rather special conception of morality: Seel 1999)
did not abandon this premise, also modern forms of moral education certainly cannot do
without a paternalist justification. These examples show that, while one may justify edu-
cation by taking recourse to all sorts of different rationales, there is only one set of
specifically educational modes of justification that present a constitutive element of the
implicit justificatory grammar of educational practices themselves.
Correspondingly, one can hardly think of any metaphor used to conceptualize educa-
tional constellations that does not suggest the presupposition of paternalist rationales.
Older (e.g. Scheuerl 1959) and newer (e.g. Bilstein 2008) catalogues of typical meta-
phorical concepts of education (e.g. creation, guidance, governing, care and many others:
cf. for an extensive list: Drerup 2013) clearly reveal that almost all of them perfectly fit into
the paternalistic frame. Metaphors are not only constitutive for the way we conceptualize
educational practices but according to the findings of modern theories of metaphor (Lakoff
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and Johnson 1999, 2003) also structure the way we think and act and thereby ‘‘direct’’ and
‘‘lead’’ (Blumenberg 1997, p. 105 fn. 6) our perspectives and actions. Accordingly, also the
paternalist substructure of metaphorical concepts of education suggests that the formal
structure of justification underlying any reasonable attempt to justify educational practices
and systemic arrangements relies on paternalist rationales and is therefore itself pater-
nalistically structured.10 Since there is no non-metaphorical way to conceptualize educa-
tion, this also holds for theoretical attempts to reconstruct basic elements that are shared in
different conceptions of education (e.g. Oelkers 2001).
Thus, finally, philosophers of education that attempt to theoretically reconstruct basic
elements of education, without presupposing paternalism as its constitutive form of jus-
tification, also fail to give an adequate account of the theoretical object of the concept of
education. For the simple reason that ‘‘without an articulation of the telos of educational
practices, these practices simply do not exist—or at least they do not exist as educational
practices’’ (Biesta 2010, p. 501), we could not make sense of educational practices as
educational practices without reference to their basic structure of justification. Whatever
one’s particular normative commitments and whatever the theoretical object that is marked
by different conceptions of education is identified with (care etc.), the theoretical con-
ceptualization and reconstruction of the object of education will be incomplete without
reference to the way, the practice or institution is metaphorically conceptualized and
justified by the agents involved. In short, since paternalism presents one necessary back-
ground condition of educational practices (e.g. practices of power, care, bargaining) and
one of the fundamental ‘‘educational questions about education’’ (Biesta 2011, p. 190) the
established theoretical practice of making paternalism a metaphorical waste basket for all
kinds of practices—one rejects anyway—should be abandoned. Instead paternalism should
be regarded as an indigenous concept of educational theory and as the ‘indigenous model
of justification’ of educational practices.
Paternalism, Perfectionism and the Axiological Infrastructure of Educating

for Autonomy
After a short introduction into key components of the theoretical program of liberal per-
fectionism (A) and a clarification of basic theoretical and methodological issues a domain-
specific educational conception of autonomy has to address (B), in this section I will
discuss central problems concerning the relation between two of the most important types
of autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism (soft and weak paternalism) (C) and different
conceptions of autonomy. I will argue that the common critique that substantive value
commitments are smuggled into neutralist notions of autonomy is misguided in the sense,
that it suggests that such commitments could or should ultimately be avoided in attempts to
justify and criticize educational practices of ascribing, facilitating and restricting
10
Thus, pedagogical agents who believe to be anti-paternalists necessarily misunderstand themselves or are
not pedagogical agents. This common theoretical and conceptual misunderstanding probably is not only due
to paternalisḿs ‘‘bad press’’ in scientific and popular debates alike, but also due to the identification of
paternalist rationales with particular educational practices that are either equally unpopular or are regarded
as increasingly objectionable (e.g. authority, discipline, coercion). The fact that the very concept of a
pedagogical anti-paternalism can be regarded as a contradictio in adiecto certainly is one reason for the
increasing suspicion that educational interventions attract in recent times (cf. Giesinger 2005). Nevertheless,
it does not make much sense for philosophers of education to solely refer to the general ‘dangers of
paternalisḿ or to equate paternalism with illegitimate paternalism—as if the relevant justificatory problems
pedagogical paternalism poses could be disposed of this way and as if paternalism were something that
could (or should) per se be avoided in educational practice.
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autonomy. Albeit no straightforward inferential line from perfectionist doctrines to the

implementation of particular paternalistically motivated institutional designs exists,11 I
will show that critical evaluations of the normative quality of the influence of educational
environments on autonomy have to be based on perfectionist premises. The same holds for
criticisms and justifications of different regimes of autonomy that regulate practical self-
relations of developing agents and of social conditions that facilitate or impede autono-
mous agency. Along this line, I will demonstrate that contrary to the traditional dualistic
picture of how autonomy and the good are coordinated in educational constellations,
perfectionist premises are at work in every dimension of a reasonable domain-specific
conception of autonomy. I will illustrate how a more fine grained differentiation between
different evaluative aspects and conditions of a perfectionist conception of autonomy
allows for a more adequate reconstruction of value conflicts that are at stake in attempts to
define and justify legitimate limitations of autonomy-oriented forms of pedagogical
paternalism, than other regimes of autonomy (D).
(A) Contemporary debates about different conceptions of autonomy and the value of
autonomy are often dominated by ‘‘rest-platonic divisions of the normative world’’
(Henning 2010, p. 698) based on a variety of dualisms: formal autonomy versus the good,
teleological thinking versus post/anti-teleological thinking, procedural versus substantive
conceptions of autonomy and positive versus negative liberty. These analytically ques-
tionable dichotomies serve as metaphorical markers to demarcate and defend the anti-
perfectionist legacy advocated by many contemporary philosophers of education. This
general skepticism concerning perfectionist theories of the good is rather surprising, when
one takes into account that most of the classics (e.g. Rousseau: Marks 2005, Humboldt:
Giesinger 2012, Dewey: Saito 2005) defended perfectionist positions. Even though it is
hard to imagine how education (and thus pedagogical paternalism) could be justified
without recourse to perfectionist arguments, the term perfectionism seems to share the
same problem as the other ‘p-word’—paternalism. As paternalism has nothing to do with
totalitarianism, perfectionism has nothing to do with ‘perfection’. The term perfectionism
refers to theoretical accounts of a good human life, of human well-being and to moral
theories and approaches to politics (Wall 2012, p. 1). Different versions of perfectionist
theories tend to operate among others with the following elements:
(1) A conception of the objectively good life, whose normative validity is not (solely)
based on subjective judgments of the agents (‘‘objectivity thesis’’).12
(2) The assumption that an objectively good life consists in the development and
realization of certain intrinsically worthwhile traits, capabilities, practices (‘‘excel-
lence thesis’’).
(3) Apart from these axiological elements perfectionist theories usually operate with
minimal conditions that define thresholds for the realization of an objectively good
life (‘‘negative and positive perfectionism’’).
11
Thus, Grill makes an important point when he states that ‘‘paternalism is independent of conflicting
theories of the good. Paternalism is interfering with a person for her good, regardless of what that good
consists in exactly. However, which theory of the good one adopts affects how much room there is for
paternalism’’ (Grill 2011, p 12).
12
The term´ objectivelý in this context can either refer to the position that a trait is good, independent of the
mental state of the agent, or to the position that certain values are worth promoting and intrinsically valuable
independent of the preferences of the agent (Schramme 2009). It can also refer to the weaker position, that
certain values are intersubjectively valuable and thus not independent of the social contexts in which they
are supposed to be realized (Henning 2009, p. 178; see also Krüger 2012).
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72 J. Drerup
(4) The capabilities, practices or goods that are regarded as elements of a good life shall
be facilitated and promoted by institutions and individuals (‘‘maximization princi-
ple’’) (Schramme 2009, p. 47).
Conceptions of autonomy, paternalism and perfectionism are no timeless metaphysical
categories, but theoretical constructions that are developed and shaped in reaction to real
socio-historical developments. Liberal perfectionism (or: autonomy-based perfectionism)
can be interpreted as a counter reaction to the societal dominance of neutralist liberal,
libertarian or neoliberal conceptions of negative liberty and autonomy. Especially the latter
operate with a reductionist view on the ethical foundations of social life as a mere
coordination of individual self-interests and with formalized conceptions of minimal
autonomy and negative liberty whose primary aim consists in securing a sphere of action
free of intrusions, while neither paying too much attention to the way this sphere of action
is actually structured by social institutions nor attributing too much importance to the
question how different individuals can actually realize and use their autonomy in particular
choice environments. Analogously, neutralist conceptions of autonomy claim to operate
independently of any substantive value commitments built into the notion of autonomy and
thus claim to stay agnostic with regard to the content of different subjective evaluations of
the good life. Due to this sharp distinction between content neutral autonomy and
substantive criteria for evaluating the objective quality of the content and the consequences
of autonomous choice, which hinges on the commitment to subjectivist notions of the good
life, neutralist autonomy is compatible with any ethical standard to design choice
structures, as long as it is not biased in favor of a particular conception of the good (apart
from neutralist autonomy itself). Liberal perfectionists, in contrast, attempt to develop the
autonomy-theoretical perspectives and substantive ethical criteria necessary to criticize and
justify societal framework conditions that enable or systematically undermine the
autonomous realization of diverse flourishing lives (in Mill’s words: different ‘‘experi-
ments in living’’), without relying on the premise that every way of life is equally sound
and equally conducive to the good of the agent. Liberal perfectionists regard autonomy as
one of the most important (though not necessarily trumping) evaluative elements of the
good life. Even though for liberal perfectionists an autonomous life is more valuable than a
non-autonomous life, this does not imply that it may be legitimate for people to be coerced
to adhere to a particular form of life they do not share (Schefczyk 2010, p. 743). Thus,
despite perfectionist theories being skeptical concerning the possibility and legitimacy of
certain forms of state neutrality (Wall 2010) they can nevertheless be compatible with
some forms of value pluralism (Wall 2006) and also with restrictions of different forms of
promoting or facilitating sound ideals of human flourishing (e.g. manipulation). In short,
liberal perfectionist doctrines are value based conceptions of the good life that ‘‘allow for a
wide range of acceptable life patterns, projects and beliefs, all of which are compatible
with human flourishing’’ (Yuracko 2003, p. 5), but do not regard every form of life and
every option, preference, good or state of affairs as equally conducive to the development
of autonomy and a good life and thus equally worth promoting.
(B) One cannot adequately define autonomy without reference to its alleged conceptual,
logical or empirical opponents, and vice versa. This especially holds for the concept of
paternalism as one of the central reflexive concepts of autonomy (Quante 2009). Debates
about paternalism are thus ‘‘crucially about different ideals of the person’’ (Dworkin 2013,
p. 5) and most notably about competing conceptions of autonomy. Because ‘‘charges of
paternalism—hinge on underlying disputes about what degree and scope of autonomy-
competence is required for being able to be authorized to decide matters for oneself’’
123
(Anderson 2013, p. 7), anyone who ‘‘objects to some (or all) paternalistic interferences
because they infringe personal autonomy should be pressed to formulate the conception of
autonomy on which he relies’’ (Husak 2003, p. 403). Therefore, the central tasks of a
limitation of the scope of legitimate instances of pedagogical paternalism and of a clari-
fication of the normative foundation of domain-specific paternalistic obligations (cf.
Schickhardt 2012) can solely be accomplished on the basis of an adequate theoretical
perspective on the role of competing conceptions of autonomy in educational constella-
tions. Taking into account the complexity of the problems at stake and the plurality of roles
that different conceptions of autonomy play in different social spheres, that are each
governed by specific logics of agency, institutionalized structures of recognition and jus-
tificatory grammars, it seems illusory to capture all social phenomena, experiences and
conflicts relevant for autonomy and its restriction by referring to one unified core concept
(Herzog 2013, p. 146). Instead of developing a single general theory of autonomy appli-
cable to every particular domain-specific problem, it is reasonable to develop a pluralist
and contextualized approach to theorizing autonomy, that shifts the theoretical perspective
on the concrete social conditions of autonomous agency and practices of attributing
autonomy13 within a particular problem area. A domain-specific articulation of ‘‘com-
peting conceptualizations of autonomy’’ (Anderson 2013, p. 2) then may allow for a more
adequate understanding of what actually is at stake in the diverse political debates in which
ideals of autonomy are taken into service. A domain-specific conception of autonomy
suitable for application in pedagogical constellations will have to reflect theoretically on
basic structural and evaluative features of the pedagogical field.14 It will, among others,
have to be based on a normative reconstruction (Honneth 2014) of distinctive descriptive
and evaluative differences between the practice of ascribing and respecting autonomy in
symmetrical constellations ((where the assumption of personal autonomy as a factual
condition of action usually is the default option (Quante 2012)) and structurally asym-
metrical constellations (where autonomy is usually not ascribed without local, contextual
qualifications, regarding the task, the potential consequences, the relation of the value of
autonomous choice to other values and a proviso regarding the moral responsibilities of the
beneficiary).
(C) Autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism can be subdivided into two major types:
Soft paternalism (opposed to hard paternalism) and weak paternalism (opposed to strong
paternalism).15 According to the soft paternalist strategy (e.g. Feinberg 1986) only such
interventions should be regarded legitimate that interfere with non-autonomous actions.
Hard paternalists, in contrast, also regard interferences with substantially voluntary con-
duct legitimate. One problem with this distinction is, among many others, that from the
normative perspective of competing regimes of autonomy, the same intervention can be
qualified as hard or as soft paternalistic. The higher the threshold is set for the relevant
autonomy-competence in a specific context, the wider the potential scope of soft paternalist
13
See for the important distinction between ontological and neo-pragmatist approaches to autonomy:
Anderson (2008).
14
Especially because the educational domain is closely connected with different other domains (e.g.
economy), a domain-specific conception of educational autonomy has to take considerations into account
‘‘regarding the complex implications of regimes of autonomy for other domains, where regimes are centered
on other values, such as freedom or efficiency. For it might turn ought that some regimes of autonomy are
much more compatible with the most compelling candidate regimes in other domains, and this would give us
reason to prefer it’’ (Anderson 2013, p. 13; cf. this problem already the approach of: Benner 1987).
15
Due to reasons of space I do not discuss different rationales that are based on hypothetical consent, future
consent or consent under ideal epistemic conditions.
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74 J. Drerup
rationales becomes that can be interpreted as hard paternalism in the guise of autonomy.16
The lower the threshold is set, the higher the probability is that also decisions under
suboptimal conditions with fatal consequences count as autonomous. Thus, the probability
increases that autonomy is also ascribed in such contexts where such ascriptions are not
only questionable, but illegitimate from the perspective of an alternative regime of
autonomy. In the case of systemic arrangements that affect whole groups and claim to
facilitate autonomous choices, evaluations of different choice context designs and choice
content designs (Kalle Grill) can hardly be solely based on subjectivist notions of the good,
because institutional planners usually have to determine what choices are not worthwhile
enough to be facilitated (e.g. too risky) and which options should be selected as valuable
(without being able to wait for the consent of the affected parties). Thus, arrangements
aiming at the facilitation of the autonomy of agents will usually be based on broader
evaluative foundations than merely formal autonomy and therefore easily slip into hard
paternalism. Especially in pedagogical constellations, where the addressees are usually
only locally autonomous and highly dependent on paternalist arrangements, it is implau-
sible to proceed from the deontological premise of a categorical divide between respecting
autonomy and enabling addressees to realize a flourishing life. In such contexts clear cut
divisions between soft and hard paternalist caveats that structure pedagogical ways of
restricting and ascribing autonomy can hardly be upheld, because many forms of educa-
tional paternalism are forms of interactive paternalism (Schramme 2012). These forms of
paternalism do not intervene in a stable will, but aim at influencing the processes of
forming certain volitions and their content and thus tend to be based on perfectionist
considerations about what counts as a good decision. Problems of setting clear cut
boundaries are also relevant when it comes to the second type of autonomy-oriented forms
of paternalism. Popular distinctions between strong and weak paternalism (Gerald
Dworkin17), between paternalism about means versus paternalism about ends (Sarah
Conly18) and volitional versus critical paternalism (Ronald Dworkin19) all are based on
different forms of means/ends reasoning. While the weak paternalist, for instance, only
interferes with choices that regard the means to accomplish some given subjective ends,
untouched by the paternalist, the strong paternalist also interferes with the ends. The idea
behind the means/ends scheme basically consists in allocating the justificatory burden
along the lines of interferences that target the means to reach any arbitrary goal (rather
unproblematic) and interferences that directly target the addressee’s ends (rather prob-
lematic). Dworkin, consequently assumes that the means/ends difference is equivalent to
16
The widespread tendency to advocate conceptions and ideals of autonomy that operate with overly
demanding requirements overlooks that the stronger the requirements for autonomous agency, the less
probable is that developing and not yet fully autonomous agents conform to the corresponding autonomy-
ethical standards. Therefore, contrary to the view that paternalism and autonomy are incompatible polar
opposites, the ever growing justificatory weight put on conceptions of autonomy in educational theories
potentially allows for the legitimation of more autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism in educational
settings, not less. In the endeavor of reconstructing normative requirements for autonomous agency/agents
an educational theory of autonomy thus has to mediate between too weak conceptions of autonomy that are
compatible with impositions of autonomy even in the most questionable contexts and too demanding, often
over-intellectualized conceptions of rational autonomy, that are either empirically impossible to live up to
for finite and socially dependent beings or do not allow the determination of plausible limitations on
pedagogical paternalism (often bearing on ‘‘characteristics which are more likely to be found in twentieth-
century intellectuals than in other groups or cultures’’ (Dworkin 1988, p. 17).
17
Dworkin (2010).
18
Conly (2013).
19
R. Dworkin (1989).
123
the difference between facts and values. He suggests that the weak paternalist does not rely
on evaluative commitments that could not converge with the addressee’s values, because
he intervenes only to correct ‘‘mistakes about the facts but not mistakes about values’’.20
This assumption is questionable, because choices of appropriate means usually depend on
additional contributory value judgments not entailed by the choice of ends. According to
Luhmann (1973, p. 44f.) the means/ends differentiation is based on the coupling of a causal
scheme (Kausalschema) and an evaluative scheme (Wertschema) that is used to categorize
complex processes and to arrange these according to the necessities of actions and mea-
sures. In the case of a multiplicity of possible and equally appropriate means to an end,
however, the evaluative judgment that comes along with the determination of ends does
not suffice to make a decision about the adequate means.21 The wish to reduce the justi-
ficatory burden of means oriented paternalism by transforming the choice about means into
a value neutral enterprise, thus, definitely fails. Therefore weak, volitional and means-
focussed forms of paternalism are much more problematic when it comes to the restriction
of autonomy than usually assumed.
There are basically three lessons to be learned from the problems of conceptualizing
autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism. Firstly, albeit distinctions between soft and hard
and weak and strong forms of paternalism are certainly analytically helpful, their evalu-
ative presuppositions are much more controversial and much broader than usually
assumed. The difficulties of drawing clear cut boundaries between these distinctions
additionally shows that attempts to keep justificatory questions about autonomy-oriented
forms of paternalism entirely free from perfectionist value judgments fail. Secondly, due to
the problem that soft paternalism can easily slip into hard paternalism, the more demanding
the notion of autonomy one presupposes, for the sake of justifying autonomy-oriented
forms of paternalism in educational constellations it is reasonable to operate with a sat-
isficing perfectionist conception of autonomy that is globally modest and locally specific.
Thirdly, the more intrusive a particular arrangement the harder it should be to justify.
Instead of conceptualizing autonomy and paternalism as an all or nothing issue, it is more
appropriate to evaluate arrangements relative to different degrees of intrusiveness in dif-
ferent dimensions of autonomy. Thus, because autonomy and its intrusion come in degrees,
also the legitimacy of autonomy-oriented paternalism should be understood in a gradient
manner.
(D) As no complex social practice (like education) is related just to one single, separable
value and every general value (like autonomy) manifests itself in different particular norms
and values, the theoretical myth of a purely autonomy-oriented educational practice in
which ‘autonomy’ should be promoted or respected irrespective of a plurality of internally
related other values is reductionist and wrong. The evaluative monism based on which
theoreticians reconstruct the role of ‘the’ value of autonomy within educational practices
omits that the general principle or the value of ‘autonomy’ does not refer to a single
monolithic evaluative building block but represents a ‘‘normatively dependent concept’’22
that has to be fleshed out by a set of divergent, potentially conflicting evaluative dimen-
sions, normative expectations and commitments relevant in different kinds of social
spheres. Standard ways of conceptualizing the relation between autonomy and the good
(e.g. the ‘‘balancing view’’) ignore this crucial problem of multiple references to the good
built into (competing) conceptions of autonomy. The result of the process of balancing or
20
Dworkin (2010, p. 4).
21
Luhmann (1973, pp. 44–45).
22
Forst (2012) uses this notion with reference to the concept of toleration.
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76 J. Drerup
weighing autonomy and the good therefore also depends on the choice of a conception of
autonomy and the internal structure of its evaluative elements. A more fine grained edu-
cational conception of autonomy that takes these insights into account simultaneously
operates with agent-external (negative liberty), agent-internal (positive liberty) and cor-
relative social conditions of autonomy (socio-relational autonomy). These three sets of
conditions form interrelated evaluative dimensions of a perfectionist conception of
autonomy and can be separated only for analytical purposes.
Firstly, any expansion or limitation of scopes of action (negative liberty) (e.g. in terms
of a structured (Ben-Porath 2010) or libertarian paternalism (Thaler and Sunstein 2008)]
simultaneously structures potential scopes for reflective evaluative self-relationships
(positive liberty).23 If we attribute a certain importance to choices in a particular domain of
judgment or sphere of action and qualify a particular intervention as questionable, we have
to rely on prior evaluations of the context of choice (e.g. the value of the options at stake).
Thus, the more questionable the value of the options and opportunities that constitute the
context of choice in a local domain appears, the more questionable ascriptions of autonomy
become. Especially in educational constellations the fact that a person who is not fully able
to give autonomous consent ‘‘finds her choices acceptable does not mean that an acceptable
range of choices was hers’’ (Oshana 1998, p. 94). Thus, also because (not only) not
globally autonomous agents often do not base their decisions on stable preference struc-
tures that are independent of the educational environment (the problem of adaptive pref-
erences), perfectionist premises inevitably underpin any reasonable educational attempt to
facilitate autonomous and thus (minimally) reasonable choices by providing worthwhile
options (and not just any diverse option or as many options as possible) for the beneficiary
and by benevolently structuring the context of choice (e.g. incentive and opportunity
structures). The evaluative structure of negative liberty is intertwined with perfectionistic
premises because the latter are inherent in the way any benevolent designer of institutional
settings makes choices about the evaluative quality of choice environments. Even though
the possibility to make wrong decisions is constitutive of and necessary for the develop-
ment of autonomy (‘‘the learning argument’’: Giesinger 2005), this is only true within—
perfectionistically justifyable—limits (e.g. depending on the quality, the consequence of
the choice, the risk). In educational settings autonomy and its value are not separable from
other values (e.g. safety). In asymmetrical constellations practices of facilitating,
restricting and ascribing autonomy rely on a perfectionistically structured axiological
framework in which autonomy-constituting properties and their value are internally related
to other values. Without such a perfectionistically structured horizon of the good, we could
neither make sense of the question: ‘‘Why should we care about autonomy?’’ nor could we
give adequate normative reasons why we should prefer particular educational environ-
ments or power structures over others. To discriminate between option structures in which
pedagogical agents have a paternalistic obligation to interfere with the choices of agents
and contexts in which we should omit such interferences, we have to rely on perfectionistic
qualifications regarding the importance and value of specific ways of realizing autonomous
agency in particular areas. The same holds for discriminations between legitimate and
illegitimate ascriptions of autonomy in a particular educational environment. Most
importantly, without setting perfectionistically justifiable thresholds with regard to the
23
Correspondingly, MacCallum (1967) has shown, that all disputes about the concept of freedom refer to
the basic scheme ‘‘x is (is not) free from y to do (not do, become, not become) z’’. Furthermore, it can be
regarded as an empirically valid insight of behavioral economics that a non-neutral way of structuring
choice architectures that does not affect the choices of the beneficiary is impossible.
123
quality and structure of present and future options and choices to be enabled in a particular
context, it becomes impossible to limit autonomy-enhancing forms of paternalism that aim
at a maximization of open options (because there are always potential alternative options to
be opened up, that consequently may serve as a foundation to justify almost every inter-
vention). Therefore, by not regarding every option as conducive to the development of
autonomy and not every option as worth promoting, advocates of liberal perfectionism just
make explicit what the dominant liberal position that aims at providing access to ‘‘alter-
native options and life forms’’ has to presuppose anyway. Thus, contrary to neutralist
conceptions of negative liberty, in educational constellations the agent
can be autonomous only if he believes that he has valuable options to choose from.
That is consistent with many of his options being bad ones. But while autonomy is
consistent with the presence of bad options, they contribute nothing to its value.
Indeed autonomously choosing the bad makes one’s live worse than a comparable
non-autonomous life is. Since our concern for autonomy is a concern for people to
have a good life it furnishes us with reason to secure that autonomy which could be
valuable. Providing, preserving or protecting bad options does not enable one to
enjoy valuable autonomy (Raz 1986, p. 412).
Even though not every selection of options based on perfectionist standards affects self-
constitutive choices of agents or should be declared as an imposition of a whole conception
of the good (cf. for a more fine grained view: Chan 2000), it remains a Rousseauian truism
that not every option, every alternative life-project and every possible choice is equally
conducive to practical self-relations that facilitate valuable autonomy.
Secondly, also a coherent domain-specific account of positive liberty, understood as the
gradual ‘agent-internal’ formation of higher order habits of critical self-reflection based on
a practical, biographically embedded self-conception is not void of perfectionist standards.
From a neutralist standpoint criticisms of practices of attributing autonomy can solely be
based on the quality of the process that leads to a particular self-relation. If the process
satisfies the standards set within the neutralist regime, there are no evaluative resources left
to criticize these self-relations. Such a perspective lacks the necessary evaluative foun-
dation to be sustained in the educational domain. This is especially obvious with regard to
autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism that operate with different conceptions of
‘‘authenticity’’ and hence demand that not any self, but the ‘‘real authentic’’ or ‘‘higher
self’’ (cf. the criticisms of Reichenbach 2002; Berlin 1979) of the beneficiary should be
pedagogically activated.
Since there is no neutral, or nonsocializing, social context within which individuals
can make their choices, claims that social contexts distort authentic choices while
others protect or encourage authentic choices rest initially on a substantive con-
ception of authentic choices. Since no one, of course, knows what individuals’
authentic choices would be, or if such choices could ever exist, the concept of
authenticity is simply a proxy for the kinds of choices the theorist thinks people
should make (Yuracko 2003, p. 84f).
Since the ‘‘authenticity’’ of a choice can hardly be reconstructed without an evaluation of
the educational environment in which the addressee chooses, the notion of an authentic
choice that expresses the agent’s ‘‘real preferences’’ often presents a cover up for
perfectionist judgements. Since internalist conditions (e.g. subjectivist notions of
authenticity) do not suffice to provide for the preconditions of meaningful choices
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78 J. Drerup
between different ways of life24 and since it is implausible to assume that every self-
relation adequately preserves and secures autonomy, pedagogical agents have to rely on the
perfectionist premise that particular ways of practically relating to oneself are objectively
more worthwhile than others. Along this line, critical self-reflection is usually regarded as
more worthwhile than uncritical forms of endorsement and often figures as an autonomy-
constituting obligation towards oneself—independent of the actual or ‘‘real’’ preferences of
the agent. Systematic self-deception is regarded incompatible with autonomy and a good
life because a well-informed self-relationship orientated at rationality and truth is supposed
to be of intrinsic value. Self-respect, self-trust, self-esteem or more generally a positive
evaluative self-relationship (e.g. to oneself, one’s body) are interpreted as facilitating
enabling conditions of ‘‘full autonomy’’ (Anderson and Honneth 2009).25 Forms of ‘self-
economization’ (e.g. selling one’s organs: Sandel 2012 or self-relations governed by a
drive for ‘self-optimization’) or submissions under authorities in traditional social
hierarchies (Oshana 1998) are criticized as incompatible with ideals like dignity and
equality that are incorporated in perfectionist conceptions of autonomy.
Whatever one may make of these arguments, the rationale behind them is the sub-
stantive perfectionist conviction that educationally worthwhile autonomous self-relation-
ships seem to require stronger conditions than a formal-procedural or internalist-
subjectivist conception of autonomy can deliver (see also the criticism of Oshana 1998).
Contrary to neutralist conceptions of autonomy, critical evaluations of the legitimacy of
regimes of autonomy that structure the self-relation of agents and correlative definitions of
the adequate scope of paternalistic obligations, not just depend on the authenticity of
particular choices or the process that lead to a particular practical self-relation, but on
perfectionist judgments about the content of the self-relation to be facilitated.
Thirdly, the initiation into social practices of critical self-reflection relies on social-
discursive standards that cannot solely be based on the subjective preferences of not fully
autonomous beneficiaries. Discursive impositions of particular normative forms of self-
interpretation based on socially shared norms and values are an essential element in
educational—and thus paternalistically structured—relations of recognition. Criticizing
overly individualistic approaches that conceptualize autonomous agency solely as a form
of solitary self-reflection, socio-relational accounts of autonomy emphasize the ‘‘socially
embedded, interpersonally constructed and historically situated nature of the self and the
role of these factors in the constitution of agency’’ (Mackenzie 2008, p. 519). They rely,
among others, on the theoretical intuition, that in ‘‘order to get on individually, we have to
get along with one another, which really does entail going along to some extent with
behavioral schemes that aren’t our invention or property. Each of us realizes his own
rational autonomy in concert with the other, by drawing jointly on socially shared
resources for self-understanding’’ (Velleman 2009, p. 87). Theoretical accounts of socio-
relational autonomy assume that the process of self-reflection is already shaped by social
factors and that thus ‘‘social conditions of some sort must be named as conceptually
necessary requirements of autonomy rather than, say, contributory factors’’ (Christman
2011, p. 166). According to socio-relational accounts, it is no guarantee for the autonomy
of an agent that she acts ‘‘in accordance with her settled character or reflectively endorses
24
E.g. due to the problem of adaptive preferences or to problems described in ‘‘happy slave scenarios’’: e.g.
the cases described by Oshana (1998).
25
Problems of differentiating between constitutive and facilitating requirements of autonomy (Christman
2011) that are relevant for the evaluation of these examples, describe permanent and unsolved difficulties in
the theoretical debate about autonomy.
123
the value commitments that define her practical identity’’, because her practical identity
may ‘‘be shaped by false norms and beliefs and distorted values arising from unjust social
practices or political institutions’’ (Mackenzie 2008, p. 513). As autonomous self-relations
can be impaired by oppressive and abusive social relationships and political environments,
they conversely can only be sustained within particular forms of adequate and intact (non-
pathological) social relations and institutions. Furthermore, relational theoreticians assume
that socio-historically embedded selves need social institutions that provide an adequate
recognitive basis for the realization of autonomy and ‘‘a wide variety of capacities for care,
intimacy, social interaction, and the like’’ (Christman 2011, p. 177) to develop and pre-
serve autonomy in social relations.
Relational (e.g. recognitional accounts of autonomy) accounts of autonomy present
difficult theoretical problems especially if they regard particular social dependencies as
constitutive elements of a conception of autonomy (problems of identification and
demarcation of legitimate/illegitimate forms of dependence and interventions). Some
accounts rely on the implausible assumption, that a person that lacks intersubjective
respect and recognition (or self-respect, self-trust, self-esteem)—in the sense of a positive
socially mediated self-relation—would automatically lose her ability to make local
autonomous choices entirely (see the criticism of: Ach and Pollmann 2012, p. 7). Instead of
dissolving the (developing) autonomous agent in social relations one should adopt a more
plausible account of the relation between autonomy constitution and autonomy facilitation
and regard longer term structures of agency as the constitutive habitual basis of the process
and the goal of educating for autonomy (understood as autonomous conduct of life as an
perfectionistic ideal and a global concept of personal autonomy) and not particular
autonomous choices. Thus, even though without sufficient self-respect and self-esteem
provided by social relations an agent will not be able to develop, secure and uphold his
long term autonomy, she nevertheless will be able to make particular autonomous judg-
ments and decisions without being recognized and respected in every particular instance.
However, one may evaluate the theoretical status of different socio-relational accounts
of autonomy, they in one way or another all rely on the perfectionist premise that certain
social conditions are objectively more worthwhile and more conducive to autonomy-
preserving evaluative self-relations than others (independent of the actual subjective
preferences of the agents). This becomes especially obvious when feminists and likewise
educational theorists criticize agents’ choices on the ground that they are due to illegiti-
mate forms of interactive paternalism or socialisation. To quote Yuracko again:
If feminists want to challenge the validity of women’s choices because they are the
product of socialization characterized by threatened or actual rights violations, they
must challenge the validity of all the choices women make under such socializing
conditions. (…) such a blanket criticism is difficult to justify on any grounds. To pick
and choose some decisions to criticize and others to praise when all arise of the same
troubled method of socialization is to make perfectionist judgments about good and
bad life choices rather than neutral procedural claims about the appropriate back-
ground conditions for choice (Yuracko 2003, p. 83).
Thus, contrary to defenders of neutralist conceptions of autonomy, critiques of illegitimate
forms of socialization have to rely on substantive perfectionist judgments. Similarly the
legitimate scope of paternalist obligations to establish social environments and regimes of
recognition that enable socially embedded forms of autonomous agency will depend on
perfectionist notions of what counts as a valuable form of social interaction or social
atmosphere (cf. Wall 2013). Consequently, for advocates of socio-relational autonomy ‘‘a
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commitment to promoting autonomy entails a perfectionist commitment to fostering and

promoting the interpersonal and social conditions necessary for its development and
exercise’’ (Mackenzie 2008, p. 514).
The reconstruction of three central elements of the axiological infrastructure of a
domain-specific conception of autonomy shows that the negative, the positive and the
socio-relational dimensions of autonomy have to rely on substantive perfectionist judg-
ments to deliver an adequate evaluative foundation for criticisms of the autonomy-facili-
tating quality of choice contexts, of practical self-relations and of conditions of
socialization. Neutralist regimes of autonomy that ignore these structural interconnections
between autonomy and substantive perfectionist judgments fail to limit autonomy-oriented
forms of paternalism. They are compatible with all kinds of arrangements and practices
that, at least from the perspective of a perfectionist conception of autonomy, do not
adequately secure and facilitate core values of autonomy-minded liberalism. Albeit
autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism may be justified with reference to a variety of
different regimes of autonomy, not every regime of autonomy is equally appropriate for the
application in every domain. The most plausible approach to the justification of autonomy-
oriented forms of paternalism in the educational domain will not rely on a neutralist regime
of autonomy or on a conception of autonomy as one element of a perfectionist theory of the
good, but on a theoretical conception of autonomy that is perfectionistically structured all
along the line.
The Theory and Practice of Educating for Autonomy: Moral Pragmatics
There are Uplanders, Lowlanders and inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom (Daniels 1996,
p. 334). Even though my academic home (Münster, Germany) topographically rather fits
into the second category, in the debate (or: ‘‘the intellectual war zone’’) among defenders
of general ethical theories or ‘‘top–down approaches’’ (Uplanders), ‘‘principlists’’ (Middle
Kingdom) and casuists, contextualists or ‘‘bottom–up’’ approaches (Lowlanders) in applied
ethics, I am on the principlist team. While Uplanders believe that it is necessary for applied
ethicists to draw on ethical theories (e.g. consequentialism, deontology) to ‘‘resolve dis-
putes about priorities among principles as well as about their limits and scope’’ (ibid.,
p. 335), casuists and contextualists are skeptical concerning the possibility of evaluating
complex cases by recourse to abstract principles or general theories and instead recom-
mend a careful analysis of the concrete contexts and situations in which moral decisions
have to be made (Salloch et al. 2012). Principlists in turn (most prominently the four
principles-approach by Beauchamp and Childress 2009 also called the ‘‘Georgetown
Mantra’’) are skeptical of top–down and bottom–up approaches and work out a justificatory
methodology in which mid-level principles as reconstructions of ethical beliefs grounded
in what they call ‘‘common morality’’ function as general ethical guidelines for the for-
mulation of specific rules of action. Most philosophers of education engaged in ‘‘doing
ethics’’ (Daniels 1996, p. 339) might be located somewhere between the theoretical
Highlands and theoretical No-man’s-land of Daniels’ topographical map. Nevertheless, all
of them are confronted with systematic problems of moral pragmatics that any practical
ethical approach that claims to be relevant for the evaluation of real world issues has to
face.
Firstly, many philosophers of education still construct general principles that are sup-
posed to be fundamental for an adequate understanding of the pedagogical field (e.g.:
‘‘respect’’: Giesinger 2011; Stojanov 2011; Mullin 2013) without reflecting on methodo-
logical questions of the ‘application’ of these principles to real cases at all. The application
123
of principles is regarded as a simple process of subsumption in which every pedagogical

constellation one may think of or even the whole educational system is supposed to
somehow ‘match’ with the relevant normative guideline, as though the latter contained all
the relevant conditions and rules of its own application (see the criticism of: Schmidt
2012). Due to this oversimplified view on the application of ethical principles as an
exercise in deduction some pedagogical ethicists assume that even whole reform agendas
of the educational system could be simply deduced from a particular principle (e.g. respect,
respect for autonomy, equality of opportunities). What, however, ‘follows’ from or is
‘demanded by’ a general principle for the justification, implementation and enforcement of
a particular policy or how a general principle is supposed to ‘match’ with certain char-
acteristics of a concrete situation is even in minimally complex cases usually not clear. By
ignoring the problem of the inferential indeterminacy of general norms and principles
philosophers of education thus were able to construct their theoretical systems without ever
coming in contact with ethical problems in the real world. If one wants to leave behind
such an application-theoretical naı̈ve picture of the relation between general ethical theory
and the systematic evaluation of particular cases, it will be necessary to make use of
justificatory methodologies (e.g. principlism) that systematically reflect on problems of the
specification and interpretation of general principles.
Secondly, another notorious problem in the ‘‘highlands’’ of philosophy of education, results
from philosophers’ tendencies to illustrate the application and plausibility of their general
principles and theoretical (re-)constructions primarily with reference to highly idealized sce-
narios. Thereby they blank out the complexity of real world problems and the necessity to take
into account empirical data in the context of changing societal constellations. If, for instance, a
systematical reconstruction of the empirical, conceptual and evaluative foundations of an
educational conception of autonomy is to be more than just a ‘‘theorization of experience’’
(Winkler 2006) as it is cultivated in traditional ‘armchair’ approaches in philosophy of edu-
cation,26 it has to be open to theory-driven empirical research in a variety of disciplines, whether
they are the empirically oriented educational, cultural27 and social sciences,28 behavioral
economics29 or developmental30 and moral psychology.31 Thus, the old dichotomy between
empirical research and ethical theory should be given up in pedagogical ethics ‘‘to create a more
solid connection’’ between our ideals and the conditions of their implementation (Ben-Porath
2010, p. 15). ‘‘Allowing research on the ways in which individuals choose to inform normative
26
This diagnosis is not very surprising, because philosophical reflection was and always will be to a certain
extent a theoretical systematization and methodized explication of thought situated in everyday experiences.
27
Empirical research e.g. on different understandings of the person, autonomy and responsibility within
different cultural settings: Lotter (2012).
28
Empirical research e.g. on the limits and possibilities of participation and self-determination in educa-
tional settings: Kurth-Buchholz (2011); Budde (2010); research on the ways the upbringing within funda-
mentalist religious groups affects the recipients ability to opt for the exit option: McAvoy (2012); research
on the ways parents from different socio-economic backgrounds choose schools in the debate about school
choice and educational justice: Ben-Porath (2010).
29
Empirical research e.g. on the way real—and not idealized—people choose: Trout (2005), research on
‘bounded rationality’ Kahneman (2012) and Thaler and Sunstein (2008) and on the way different rationales
for interferences with autonomy are used and evaluated by agents: Blumenthal (2013); research on the way
people choose under conditions of poverty: Banerjee and Duflo (2012).
30
E.g. approaches to the development of autonomy drawing on research on developmental psychology:
Honneth (1996); Giesinger (2005); Ach and Pollmann (2012).
31
E.g. research on the way interferences in autonomy are evaluated by beneficiaries: Kataria et al. (2012);
research on the ways circumcisions are evaluated by the recipients in the recent debate in Germany: Fateh-
Moghadam (2010).
123
82 J. Drerup
theories about freedom could generate a powerful connection between theories of freedom and
social policies that can express and enhance that freedom (ibid.). Similarly the formula of the
intrinsic value of autonomy becomes a mere romantic ‘‘protest-formula’’ (Luhmann 1973,
p. 16), if evaluations of the value of autonomy (along the lines of intrinsic/extrinsic, instru-
mental/representative) are solely based on decontextualized a priori reasoning, intuition elitism
of philosophers equipped with a privileged perspective on reality and unquestioned (often
elitist) empirical assumptions regarding the actual competencies of ‘ordinary agents’. If one
ignores research on the way people actually choose (or choose not to choose), on their choice/
autonomy-related preferences (e.g. for or against autonomy) and their competencies to deal
with particular issues within particular local domains of choice (Conly 2013, p. 11), philoso-
phers—based on unquestioned empirical assumptions—tend to impose ideals of autonomy
(combined with related obligations, like a Kantian duty to be well-informed: Wilson 2005) on
agents who may not share the evaluative commitments inherent to these ideals (Reichenbach
2011) and leaves them alone with the consequences. A replacement of the old temporalized
hierarchy: (autonomy-)ethical and social theory first—empirical research afterwards by inte-
grated approaches as empirically informed ethics (De Vries and Gordijn 2009) and theory-
oriented educational research (Bellmann 2011) nevertheless is not meant to substitute foun-
dational theoretical research in the first place. Instead, integrated approaches of this sort could
function as a theory-driven corrective for false empirical assumptions and inadequate norma-
tive dogmas cultivated in philosophical theories of education (e.g. dogmas (re-)produced by the
means of conceptual analysis) and thereby clear the way for productive mutual irritations
between philosophy of education and other disciplines.
Thirdly, the empirical facts relevant for the evaluation of concrete cases are not simply
given as something to be matched with general principles. The theory-driven selection of
empirical data as morally relevant and the utilization of this data depend on the content and
interpretation of the different theories, principles and concepts one presupposes (Salloch
et al. 2012). As facts become morally relevant facts the ethical theories and methodologies
of ethicists need empirical information to a different degree (e.g. consequentialists and
perfectionists tend to need more empirical data than deontologists) (ibid., p. 261). The
evaluation of particular facts regarded as morally relevant depends on the use of often
contested and value-laden metaphorical concepts and frames in descriptions of particular
cases (Lakoff 2006; Schroth 2009).
Finally, even if the pedagogical ethicist had all morally relevant empirical data at his
disposal to evaluate a particular case and could construct plausible arguments for the moral
legitimacy of a particular policy, this does not imply that the policy in question will be
feasible, enforceable or will reach a permanent democratic consensus. Thus, very often the
question of legitimation is actually secondary to the usually neglected pragmatic question
of the enforceability of the favored ethical doctrine.
If philosophers of education want to make significant contributions to the conceptual-
ization and solution of real world educational problems (e.g. the recent debate about
circumcision in Germany, debates about legal paternalism, inclusion, educational justice,
poverty) they must leave behind the application-theoretical naivety cultivated in traditional
approaches to pedagogical ethics.
Conclusion
One of the central tasks of educational theory consists not only in the identification and (re-)
conceptualization of major educational problems, but also in a reconstruction of the basic
123
elements that constitute education as a social practice. In this paper I tried to show that the
widespread pejorative use of the term paternalism by philosophers of education is mis-
leading, because paternalist rationales are inherent to the formal structure of justification of
education itself. Thus, paternalism should be regarded as an indigenous concept of educa-
tional theory. Additionally, I argued that opposed to (allegedly) neutralist regimes of
autonomy and contrary to traditional theoretical views on the problem of coordinating formal
autonomy and the good, a domain-specific conception of autonomy that is appropriate for the
task of justifying autonomy-oriented forms of pedagogical paternalism has to be based on
perfectionist premises.
Contemporary debates about paternalism, perfectionism and different regimes of
autonomy in disciplines like political philosophy, philosophy of education, philosophy of
law, applied ethics or behavioral economics deal with central ethical, political, juridical,
cultural, religious and educational conflicts that concern the self-understanding of liberal
societies. An integrated theoretical program informed by empirical research and moral
pragmatics should not interpret the relation between paternalism, perfectionism and
autonomy as one of mutual exclusion and clear cut boundaries, but as a relation of
ambivalent interdependence situated within complex socio-political constellations, multi-
ple asymmetries (e.g. state, school, family) and various (potentially conflicting) justifica-
tory claims. Although the question of the justification of paternalism is relevant at
intersections of a variety of disciplines and fields [e.g. between ‘‘applied philosophy and
autonomy theory’’ (Taylor 2005, p. 3) and political philosophy and philosophy of edu-
cation (Honneth 2012)], as its ‘indigenous model of justification’ paternalism most notably
belongs to the classical problems of philosophy of education at least since Rousseau.
Therefore, the debate about paternalism in other disciplines (e.g. political philosophy,
medical ethics) could profit from the theoretical expertise philosophers of education have
accumulated in dealing with these questions during the last 250 years. Thus, instead of
continuing to lament over the allegedly precarious status of the discipline, philosophers of
education interested in placing ‘‘the general theory of education at the center of philoso-
phy’’ (Kitcher 2009, p. 18) just need to systematically address the fundamental philo-
sophical questions again that nolens volens arise from the structure of justification of
education itself.
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Stud Philos Educ (2015) 34:63–87

Autonomy, Perfectionism and the Justification

Published online: 27 April 2014

Keywords Autonomy Perfectionism Paternalism Education Moral

Education and Its ‘Indigenous Model of Justification’

Taking this characterization of paternalism as an argumentative starting point it will be

Paternalism, Perfectionism and the Axiological Infrastructure of Educating

autonomy. Albeit no straightforward inferential line from perfectionist doctrines to the

commitment to promoting autonomy entails a perfectionist commitment to fostering and

The Theory and Practice of Educating for Autonomy: Moral Pragmatics

of principles is regarded as a simple process of subsumption in which every pedagogical

Giesinger, J. (2012). Bildung im liberalen Staat. Von Humboldt zu Rawls. http://www.

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