自主性:幻觉还是现实?在转向嘉宾John Christman之前，John和Ken认为自治是一种自治，个人按照自己的规则生活，过着自由的生活。克里斯特曼同意约翰和肯的观点，认为自治最好被理解为自治，但他谨慎地将自治与自由区分开来——自由指的是行动，而自治指的是促使某人行动的内部条件。克里斯特曼也不同意自治意味着制定你自己的规则，如果这是真的，那就不清楚为什么自治是一种价值，自治是否可能。相反，克里斯特曼认为自主更像是自我管理而不是自我创造——而自我管理是一种有效地追求欲望而不是盲目追随欲望的能力。

约翰同意克里斯特曼的定义，并决定用一个例子来充实它。假设一个人决定成为素食主义者。这种自主的决定并没有因为别人提出了素食主义的想法并告诉他采用了这种做法而变得不那么自主。克里斯特曼喜欢这个例子，它说明了他的观点，自治是一种对一个人的价值观进行思考并认可它们的状态。让素食者自主的不是创造素食主义的理念，而是反思素食主义的理念并决定成为素食主义者。Ken反对这个定义，他说这个定义听起来更像是深思熟虑而不是自主。克里斯特曼承认他的定义在哲学上是有问题的——如果自主是在检验一个人的欲望，那么我们可能会陷入欲望的无限倒退。The first desire is not to eat meat, and the second desire is not to harm animals, and the third desire is to do as little harm in ones life as possible, and so forth ad infinitum.

Ken challenges Christman again, asking Christman about an autonomous Satan. Should a purely evil person’s autonomy be respected? Christman identifies two approaches to this problem. The first, Kantian approach is to say that the capacity to impose upon ourselves moral principles is the seat of all moral responsibility and obligation. So if someone is satanic, or they embrace evil principles it is unclear what sort of respect we owe them. The second approach, which Christman calls the observer point of view demands that when we interact with other people we owe them some respect, respect their autonomy. If someone who knows the difference between good and bad chooses to do bad we may punish them but in the end we still owe them some respect, we still grant them some autonomy.

In the final segment of the episode, John, Ken and Christman consider the relationship between autonomy and democracy. John thinks we need autonomous thinkers to make democratic decisions. But then after that we reach consensus we want everyone to follow these rules, regardless of their desires. Ken is still uninspired by this definition of autonomy. What John and Christman call autonomy sounds more like reflection and the simple act of weighing costs and benefits before making a decision. Christman concludes that the autonomous component of the democratic process is being able to weigh these costs and benefits in the first place. The autonomous self is produced by this ability to give reasons for our actions and interact with other people.

• Roving Philosophical Report(seek to 4:40): Polly Stryker considers one person’s autonomous decision to leave a career in physics and become a philosopher.

• Sixty-Second Philosopher(seek to 50:01): Ian Shoales addresses complaints that his so-called sixty-second philosophies are almost always longer than sixty-seconds.