Autonomy After Auschwitz

Book excerpt: Could our modern commitment to freedom be related to or even cause a variety of extreme modern evils, most notably (but not exclusively) Auschwitz? Ever since Kant and Hegel, the notion of autonomythe idea that we are beholden to no law except one imposed upon ourselvesis considered the truest philosophical expression of free human agency. In this context, philosopher Martin Shuster examines the notion of autonomy and its relationship to modern evil. Taking its cue from the work of Theodor Adorno, this book shows that the notion of autonomy, as emblematically conceived in this German philosophical tradition, is not only self-defeating and unstable, but also dangerous and connected to extreme evils like genocide because it ultimately dissolves our capacities for reason, especially practical reason, and thereby our very standing as agents. Examining Adorno s understanding of modern evil in the context of his debate with Kant on autonomous agency, Shuster shows how Adorno developed a conception of autonomous agency that manages to avoid any connection to extreme evil. Throughout, Adorno is put into dialogue not only with many traditional European philosophical interlocutors (including Kant, Hegel, Horkheimer, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty), but innovatively, also with a variety of Anglo-American thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Bernard Williams, John McDowell, and Robert Pippin. Shuster aims to integrate and situate Adorno s work, then, within both traditions discussions of freedom and autonomy, demonstrate the deep ethical stakes that are involved in these debates, and offer new insights and lessons from Adorno s writings."