Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Majid Dehqan ¹
• Mohammad Saeedimehr ²

¹ PhD candidate, of philosophy, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran

² Professor of Philosophy, Tarbiat Modarres University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Autonomy is a rational virtue that assumes that an individual is independent of the other, with the ability to choose and decide in areas such as ethics, politics, and knowledge. The autonomous person with this definition resists religious authority. For this reason, autonomy always prevents the acceptance of religious teachings without independent evidence. The relationship between religious belief and rationality has made a hard choice for modern religious people. Modern humans have to relinquish rationality and believe in religious authority, or limit their religious beliefs to a small proposition for which it has evidence. Philosophers such as Zagzebski, Coady, and Robert & Wood are attempting to reinterpret the concept of autonomy that does not conflict with the acceptance of epistemological authority, including religious authority. In this article, after reviewing the definition of autonomy and its history, the relation between this concept and concepts such as independence and authority is discussed. Then, by providing a consistent interpretation of this concept, it analyzes the relationship between this new concept and religious authority.

Highlights

Introduction

Autonomy is the focus of various fields of knowledge, especially psychology, ethics, and epistemology. Meanwhile, the relationship between self-religion and religious epistemology is newer than other issues. Historically, Autonomy against the church has been considered one of the achievements of the Enlightenment. This has always created a conflict between this intellectual virtue and religious belief, which has been reflected in both popular culture and scientific texts. Also, major religious beliefs rely on the acceptance of testimony and do not necessarily have independent evidence, and autonomy, according to its common interpretation, is associated with independence from the other and self-reliance in building rational beliefs. For this reason, autonomy and belief in religion are also incompatible. In this picture, the dilemma between religious belief and rationality presents a difficult choice for the religious modern person. A modern person is forced to abandon rationality and religiously believe, or to limit his religious beliefs to the few propositions for which he has evidence. In this conflict, a group of epistemologists was looking for a third way in which not only religious belief does not conflict with autonomy, but it may be reinforced in some hypotheses. In the present article, after a historical review of the place of autonomy in philosophy and epistemology and analysis of this concept, its relationship with other concepts such as independence and authority is analyzed and then a plan is presented in which the Compatibility of autonomy with religious authority can be defended. Although the views of philosophers such as Coady, Roberts & Wood, and Fricker are presented in this paper, because of the deeper and broader analysis that Zagzebski has presented, her perspective and analysis have occupied a larger volume of the article.

Conclusion

In opposition to philosophers after the Enlightenment, the analysis of Zagzebski and Robert and Wood of this concept eliminates the inherent incompatibility of these two concepts. In Zagrebski's analysis, autonomy is the basic norm for self-reflection. Other does not interfere in the concept of autonomy in this analysis. Therefore, Zagzebski's autonomy can be compatible with any epistemological authority, including religious authority, if it is in accordance with the criteria of conscientious self-reflection, and may even strengthen it in some assumption. In Robert and Wood's analysis of autonomy, this concept was interpreted not as a contradiction with others, but as a means of regulating relations with others, so if a believer regulates his relations with religion properly, he can accept religious authority while maintaining autonomy.

Keywords

• Autonomy
• religious authority
• Zagzebski
• religion and rationality
• epistemic universalism