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Humility, Arrogance and the Limitations of Kantian Autonomy: A Response to Rostbøll

In “Autonomy, Respect, and Arrogance in the Danish Cartoon Controversy,” Christian Rostbøll takes up the twelve cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, to answer a fundamental question in liberal democratic theory: How to respect religious diversity without violating the right to free expression? In Rostbøll’s view, the answer is for majorities living with vulnerable minorities to show humility and to avoid excessively harmful speech. Rostbøll bases this argument on a Kantian conception of autonomy that foregrounds people’s ability to choose their own ends as well as the obligation to treat others (and oneself) as ends and not means. Both aspects imply a humility that prevents one or more constituencies from believing that they have “a moral standing that other human beings do not have” (p. 633). Such humility, Rostbøll concludes, dissolves the contradiction between free expression and respect for religious diversity. Contrary to the Jyllands-Posten editors, self-censorship can be a moral duty, one that applies in cases where the absence of special care makes it likely that some groups will “be treated worse than others” (p. 641). Given the violence and conflict that followed Jyllands-Posten’s publication of the twelve cartoons, it is hard for any liberal or democratic pluralist to disagree with this argument. In the following, I nonetheless question whether a Kantian conception of autonomy can generate the conditions needed for a desirable combination of care and sensitivity. If our reaction to the twelve cartoons is prompted by the need to respect and enhance pluralism, then why expect all citizens to define their political self-understanding with reference