Tocqueville was a very interesting french intellectual: even he was conservative on the religious side, the rest of its ideas was undoubtedly progressives.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. The case for self-direction as a central human good is compelling—especially in an age when so many of our choices are quietly shaped by large-scale institutional actors. That said, I find myself wanting to pair autonomy with compassion as a co-equal value, especially given the increasingly interdependent nature of our planetary systems.
From a Buddhist lens, self-realization without a corresponding deepening of care for others risks becoming another form of delusion. I’m intrigued by what might emerge if we rethink autonomy not as isolation or self-sovereignty, but as the cultivated ability to act wisely and compassionately within a manipulated decision landscape. Looking forward to future explorations—thank you again for stirring the waters so thoughtfully.
Agency and autonomy are great principles and the systems we're embedded in should make more room for this. What I would love to hear more about is how to make that work in an increasingly complex and thus specialized world.
There's so much we have to delegate to others because it requires specialized expertise that we haven't developed. I've dipped enough into different areas - medicine, technology, academia - to realize that there's always a lot that I don't know I don't know and I either trust that the guild which specializes in it is doing the right thing or I don't trust them, but then I have to shift effort away from another area of my life and shift my trust over there.
Even if Tocqueville was right that autonomy has to be learned through activity, he was writing in a time when content platform algorithms and blockchains and AI-assisted drug discovery and pharmacy benefit managers didn't exist. We can only learn autonomy in a small number of niches, at best. Is that sufficient?
It is good to start with bedrock principles. When I'm a bit pushy about inclusion into the pantheon it is because most of the writers and thinkers I focus on in 19th America were so much more committed to autonomy and self direction because, enslaved, they were denied the opportunity for either. When I was giving talks on my anthology of 19th c African American women writers I often began by noting that Tocqueville famously never spoke to a black woman in his travels around America. And yet the women whose writings we collected were laser focused on autonomy, self-direction, developing the capacity for judgement through practice, "the vigorous exercise of individual capacities for self-direction." I note too that Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister, Catherine Beecher, was the writer who brought Tocqueville to broader American attention (in her 1842 treatise on Domestic Economy). So I see him very much within a broad network of Americans committed to human autonomy. Yes to the founding authors. Yes too to the many Americans whose reading and writing about these principles are why we are still talking about them today.
Would the choice for integrity over autonomy still be made if integrity were not the moral foundation of a moral system?
Without Integrity as the Foundational Principle:
If integrity were not the ground principle of a moral system, the direction would shift from *truthfulness and inner coherence* to another guiding value — for instance, utility, freedom, harmony, or efficiency.
In such a paradigm:
1. Autonomy might become the highest good:
The human is framed primarily as a self-determining subject.
Integrity may be reduced to internal consistency, not to alignment with something morally greater than the self.
2. Moral evaluation changes from “What is true?” to:
“What feels free?” (autonomy-centered)
“What works?”* (utilitarianism)
“What is expected?”* (normative conformity)
3. Moral friction is masked:
Without a foundational mirror like integrity, the autonomous individual is rarely asked: “Does this resonate with who I am in truth?”
Reflective capacity diminishes without Integrity*
My system, grounded in the principle of Integrity, repeatedly asks: “What would I do if I had nothing to hide?”
Without that foundation, such self-interrogation loses weight — transparency becomes performative rather than revelatory. “Integrity” may be adopted as a strategy, not as a moral imperative.
Conclusion
Without integrity as foundational ground, the prioritization of integrity over autonomy would likely not be made.
It would then cease to be a moral choice — and become instead a preference, a utilitarian convenience, or a situational outcome lacking ethical depth.
Tocqueville was a very interesting french intellectual: even he was conservative on the religious side, the rest of its ideas was undoubtedly progressives.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. The case for self-direction as a central human good is compelling—especially in an age when so many of our choices are quietly shaped by large-scale institutional actors. That said, I find myself wanting to pair autonomy with compassion as a co-equal value, especially given the increasingly interdependent nature of our planetary systems.
From a Buddhist lens, self-realization without a corresponding deepening of care for others risks becoming another form of delusion. I’m intrigued by what might emerge if we rethink autonomy not as isolation or self-sovereignty, but as the cultivated ability to act wisely and compassionately within a manipulated decision landscape. Looking forward to future explorations—thank you again for stirring the waters so thoughtfully.
Here's a piece I recently posted that presents the core challenge for our species as a race between two singularities: https://aspenunderground.substack.com/p/a-race-between-two-singularities
Agency and autonomy are great principles and the systems we're embedded in should make more room for this. What I would love to hear more about is how to make that work in an increasingly complex and thus specialized world.
There's so much we have to delegate to others because it requires specialized expertise that we haven't developed. I've dipped enough into different areas - medicine, technology, academia - to realize that there's always a lot that I don't know I don't know and I either trust that the guild which specializes in it is doing the right thing or I don't trust them, but then I have to shift effort away from another area of my life and shift my trust over there.
Even if Tocqueville was right that autonomy has to be learned through activity, he was writing in a time when content platform algorithms and blockchains and AI-assisted drug discovery and pharmacy benefit managers didn't exist. We can only learn autonomy in a small number of niches, at best. Is that sufficient?
It is good to start with bedrock principles. When I'm a bit pushy about inclusion into the pantheon it is because most of the writers and thinkers I focus on in 19th America were so much more committed to autonomy and self direction because, enslaved, they were denied the opportunity for either. When I was giving talks on my anthology of 19th c African American women writers I often began by noting that Tocqueville famously never spoke to a black woman in his travels around America. And yet the women whose writings we collected were laser focused on autonomy, self-direction, developing the capacity for judgement through practice, "the vigorous exercise of individual capacities for self-direction." I note too that Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister, Catherine Beecher, was the writer who brought Tocqueville to broader American attention (in her 1842 treatise on Domestic Economy). So I see him very much within a broad network of Americans committed to human autonomy. Yes to the founding authors. Yes too to the many Americans whose reading and writing about these principles are why we are still talking about them today.
Would the choice for integrity over autonomy still be made if integrity were not the moral foundation of a moral system?
Without Integrity as the Foundational Principle:
If integrity were not the ground principle of a moral system, the direction would shift from *truthfulness and inner coherence* to another guiding value — for instance, utility, freedom, harmony, or efficiency.
In such a paradigm:
1. Autonomy might become the highest good:
The human is framed primarily as a self-determining subject.
Integrity may be reduced to internal consistency, not to alignment with something morally greater than the self.
2. Moral evaluation changes from “What is true?” to:
“What feels free?” (autonomy-centered)
“What works?”* (utilitarianism)
“What is expected?”* (normative conformity)
3. Moral friction is masked:
Without a foundational mirror like integrity, the autonomous individual is rarely asked: “Does this resonate with who I am in truth?”
Reflective capacity diminishes without Integrity*
My system, grounded in the principle of Integrity, repeatedly asks: “What would I do if I had nothing to hide?”
Without that foundation, such self-interrogation loses weight — transparency becomes performative rather than revelatory. “Integrity” may be adopted as a strategy, not as a moral imperative.
Conclusion
Without integrity as foundational ground, the prioritization of integrity over autonomy would likely not be made.
It would then cease to be a moral choice — and become instead a preference, a utilitarian convenience, or a situational outcome lacking ethical depth.
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Would appreciate same.
Value your work.
Thank you.