The starting point for Claire Rasmussen's analysis is that whatever their differences, Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault offer a similar view of autonomy as a paradox. On the one hand, to be autonomous is to govern oneself in a way that conforms to limits, or “laws,” and demonstrates control over the self in a way that brings one into alignment with dominant norms. On the other hand, to be autonomous is to be self-critical in a way that can unveil power relationships and release one's capacity for creativity—to govern oneself differently, despite dominant norms. So while autonomy does not liberate us from the effects of power, self-governance can either bring us in line with the law or enable us to understand and then resist power by recognizing our contingency and imagining ourselves differently (pp. 16–17).
Rasmussen delves into this paradox by considering autonomy as an activity rather than an end, a dynamic practice of obeying “law” and of exercising “creativity” rather than a static goal toward which one strives, or a capacity of human beings that can be encouraged or stifled. Autonomy is not the end of political life but a means to it, through which we “may cultivate different ways of relating to ourselves and others” (p. 170). And via these practices and relationships, subjectification results (p. 4). Thus, at the same time, subjects are constituted—are effects of power—and subjects act, actively creating their subjectivity either in line with, or in resistance to, power. The sense of autonomy as an effect of law is evoked most sharply in the author's discussion of drug testing laws. She describes the result of drug testing in both the workplace and obstetrical practices as a demand for and production of certain behaviors from citizens; it is the behaviors or actions, and not the individual's sense of self, that constitute “autonomy.”
Rasmussen presents four case studies that illustrate the effects of thinking about autonomy as simultaneously limiting and creating practice in a political regime that both venerates and requires autonomy as the goal of the subject of power. Her first two case chapters illustrate autonomy's law function by unpacking efforts to regulate bodies by encouraging youth physical fitness, reining in teen sexuality, and punishing drug addiction. Children are potential subjects, addicts failed ones; both need to be governed through the law of autonomy so that they can make good, or better, choices. Both cases illustrate that “autonomy and productivity” are on the “good” side of the citizenship ledger while “addiction and pleasure-seeking” are decidedly not (p. 63).
The final two cases explore the creative potential of autonomy as resistant self-governance. The chapter on rethinking the definition and status of “animals” pushes readers to evaluate how the historically shifting understanding of human–animal relations entails a contingent understanding of what it means to be human (pp. 98–99). Since “animals” are defined by what they lack in relation to “humans,” rethinking that power relationship might allow us to see other potential forms of autonomous subjectivity. In the final case chapter, on extreme sports and fitness, Rasmussen argues for the creative potential of mastering the will to autonomy. Extreme exercise addicts are “addicted to autonomy,” subverting the point of autonomy while simultaneously reveling in their sense of control (pp. 159–60).
While all four cases are provocative and helpfully illustrative of autonomy as practice, the most tightly and persuasively argued chapter is the one on drug addicts. Autonomy involves controlling the body; introducing foreign substances into one's body is a form of alienation—a profound loss of control (p. 64). The discussion of the denial to subjects of control over their own bodies and how it denies their selfhood fills in the outlines of the argument suggested in Rasmussen's treatment of teen sexuality. Since political standing is granted when one makes good choices, if someone has already violated his or her own personal autonomy, then he or she is considered “already violable” (p. 70) and thus has no legitimate claim to political autonomy, that is, political standing.
In this chapter Rasmussen begins to unpack her understanding of the relationship between personal and political autonomy. The book would have benefited from a bit more such elaboration. In the physical education and teen sex chapter, for instance, she writes that “girls are not considered to be future citizens [so] they do not need to learn how to govern themselves and thus patriarchal control over their bodies and their choices is no problem for democracy” (p. 50). In what sense are girls today not to be considered future citizens? Perhaps linking the “already violable” nature of the addict to the tortured history of marital rape and cultural rape myths—in which a female is considered already violable through her act of initial consent—could flesh out for the reader the nature of girls' future sexual citizenship status and autonomous practices.
Rasmussen's most provocative chapter is the one that rethinks the status of animals vis-à-vis humans. Her argument here is rife with rich radical political potential, albeit not always fully realized. In this chapter, she makes Foucault whole. Rather than governmentality or an ethic of care, we get autonomy as both law and creative resistance. Legally and politically, “animal” and “human” have been defined in relationship to each other, with one significant purpose of this boundary being to mark who is autonomous—or whose actions can be figured as autonomous practice—and who is excluded from autonomy: animals out, adult humans in (pp. 100–101). In this regard, we might say that our treatment of animals in political theory mirrors our anthropocentric treatment of them in political practice: To use “animal” as a boundary line for “autonomy” tells us something about ourselves (p. 103).
The author surveys arguments for extending rights to animals, noting that doing so would profoundly challenge our understanding of subjectivity, since granting legal rights is a political process that acknowledges autonomy and creates subjectivity. She is rightly critical of this approach, arguing that giving rights to animals requires depoliticizing them by shoe-horning them into existing categories—we must make animals human, which ignores their very animal nature. But rather than following this line of analysis to argue for respecting animals by acknowledging what Donna Haraway calls their “significant otherness,” Rasmussen slips back into thinking about what animals can do for humans when she proposes that rather than abandoning rights discourse, we should give it new life by changing the meaning of “human” (p. 125). The point of animals in her argument is thus to help us think about how to call into question the background conditions required for rights claiming by, and autonomy for, humans (pp. 126–27).
In this wide-ranging and ambitious work, there is one hiccup in the otherwise smooth flow of Rasmussen's argument. Throughout her discussion, “autonomy,” “freedom,” and “agency” are used interchangeably. Because autonomy is not clearly differentiated from the other constitutive terms of her argument, it sometimes seems as though autonomy is everything all at once, which can make it difficult to keep track of the way it operates and the level of analysis at which we are looking. Autonomy as a matter of the political subject's ontology is the author's primary concern, but autonomy is broader than political being, and sometimes she appears to be examining that broader context, too. For example, she writes that “[a]utonomy is not only a given characteristic of subjects; it also must be actively cultivated by outside expertise and must be continually practiced by individuals” (p. 58). But the construction of autonomy as “a given characteristic of subjects” seems like a tautology, since subjects are, on her account, those who demonstrate autonomy, while those who fail to do so do not get to become subjects of the law (or mature agents). This implies that not all people possess the capacity for autonomy. So what is the nontautological theory of autonomy that can help us pull this apart? Are “bad” or “immature” subjects nonautonomous, on her view, or are they practicing a different form of autonomy?
Despite these quibbles, however, for its careful teasing out of autonomy and subjectification in new and provocative cases, and for simultaneously critiquing and rehabilitating autonomy, The Autonomous Animal will spark heated and productive discussions among scholars of liberal, postfoundationalist, and feminist theories.
