Item Detail
-
30620
-
1
-
0
-
English
-
Frontier Kantianism : Autonomy and Authority in Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joseph Smith
-
Journal of Religious Ethics
-
May 2018
-
46
-
2
-
Hoboken, NJ
-
Blackwell Publishing
-
332-59
-
Ralph Waldo Emerson is often seen as the early American prophet of autonomy. This essay suggests a perhaps surprising fellow traveler in this prophetic call: Joseph Smith. Smith opposed religious creeds for the same reason that Emerson denounced them, namely that creeds represent a threat to the autonomy of a person's beliefs. Smith and Emerson also forward similar defenses of individual autonomy in action. Furthermore, they encounter a shared problem: how can autonomy be possible in a society where other individuals hold some kind of authority? I propose that each thinker resolves this tension through an insight with a Kantian echo. A suitably qualified version of authority can sometimes count as an expression of, rather than hindrance to, autonomy. I describe the overlap in Emerson and Smith as a “frontier” version of Kantianism. They favor determining one's own beliefs and actions in a way that looks forward to an open future of possibility.