ABSTRACT
This volume addresses the exercise of personal autonomy in contemporary situations of normative pluralism. In the Western liberal tradition, from a strictly legal and theoretical perspective the social individual has the right to exercise the autonomy of his or her will. In a context of legal plurality, however, personal autonomy becomes more complicated. Can and should personal autonomy be recognized as a legal foundation for protecting a person’s freedom to renounce what others view as his or her fundamental ‘human rights’? This collection develops an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to address these questions and presents empirical studies examining the gap between the principle of personal autonomy and its implementation. In a context of cultural diversity, this gap manifests itself in two particular ways. First, not every culture gives the same pre-eminence to personal autonomy when examining the legal effects of an individual’s acts. Second, in a society characterized by ‘weak pluralism’, the legal assessment of personal autonomy often favours the views of the dominant majority. In highlighting these diverse perspectives and problematizing the so-called ‘guardian function’ of human rights, i.e., purporting to protect weaker parties by limiting their personal autonomy in the name of gender equality, fair trial, etc., this book offers a nuanced approach to the principle of autonomy and addresses the questions of whether it can effectively be deployed in situations of internormativity and what conditions must be met in order to ensure that it is not rendered devoid of all meaning. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |18 pages
Introduction
part I|93 pages
Autonomy in the face of cultural diversity
chapter 4|15 pages
Three approaches to the protection of religious freedom
part II|107 pages
Autonomy in context: empirical illustrations
chapter 7|12 pages
Cultural diversity in the workplace
chapter 8|13 pages
Adopting a face veil, concluding an Islamic marriage
chapter 9|16 pages
Unregistered Muslim marriages in the UK
chapter 10|13 pages
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Personal autonomy, forced marriage, and the inherent jurisdiction in English law
chapter 11|9 pages
Balancing migration policy and personal autonomy in private international law
chapter 13|14 pages
Shaping notions of personal autonomy in plural societies
part II|72 pages
Autonomy in context: empirical illustrations