Personal autonomy as an aim of education

pp. 83-109

in: James D. Marshall, Michel Foucault, Berlin, Springer, 1996

Abstract

Education has been justified traditionally, though not exclusively, by the notion of freeing people from the authority of others — be it state, or church or other forms of authority. Freedom has been highly valued since, at least, early references to it in the writings of Athenians in the 5th century B.C. More recently, it is often claimed, to be free is to be personally autonomous. Such persons are said to be in charge of their own lives, because they can determine for themselves, especially with the help of reason, the nature and content of their beliefs, attitudes and emotions, and the purposes and nature of their actions. In being a person of this kind one is freed from the dogma and/or authority of others — one is independent. But one can also be freed from the passions, or at least in control of the passions in some sort of Platonic form of control over those things human which are "lower" than reason. To be in control of oneself is to be independent of others and, thereby, autonomous. Hence the freeing of people through education has often been interpreted as positing personal autonomy (often rational autonomy) as an aim of education.