The Political Disposition of Self as a Kind of Understanding

Abstract

Since the seventeenth century, political theorists have been divided by two competing ontological commitments. On one side, political legitimacy is understood to issue from the separateness and independent agency of individuals. Under this construal, individuals constitute the most fundamental level of social and political analysis. The self is conceived as a rational being capable of fashioning itself and shaping its existence through autonomous acts of reflection. Societies and cultures are aggregates of individuals competitively or cooperatively pursuing their self-determined ends. The politics of individuality, as it has found expression in varieties of liberalism and libertarianism, is concerned largely with assuring the freedom in which individuals can exercise choice over their beliefs, values, and actions, and do so unencumbered by obligations not of their own choosing. To this end, adherents typically advocate for individual rights, limits on the authority of government, and the equality of all persons before the law.