Autonomy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see Autonomy (disambiguation).
Autonomy (Greek: Auto-Nomos - nomos meaning "law": one who gives oneself his own law) means freedom from external authority. Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political, and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts it refers to the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, uncoerced decision. In moral and political philosophy, autonomy is often used as the basis for determining moral responsibility for one's actions. One of best known philosophical theories of autonomy was developed by Kant. In medicine, respect for the autonomy of patients is considered obligatory for doctors and other health-care professionals.
[edit] Autonomy and freedom
Autonomy includes in its very concept the idea of practical or material independence. One can say, as a stoic, that it is possible to be autonomous without actual freedom, but it is not because the human thinking and desiring is never absolutely without purpose and the one who wishes hopes to realize. Autonomy as a principle, rooted in human nature as generally we have in the enlightenment and mostly in the liberalism, is not a concept that rests in the realm of the wishful thinking. It aims actual realization and was an instrument to criticize authoritarianism of pre-capitalist societies. It is an up to date problem how to organize human collectives with actual individual autonomy, especially if we consider the huge problem of free choice, free expression and free acting in the real realm of production, distribution and consume, that is, in economy. Most of the main contemporary authors that write about freedom and autonomy disguise this question and only consider autonomy in the realm of dialogue, politics or reason.
[edit] Various uses
- Autonomy is the basic concept of Cornelius Castoriadis' philosophy.
- In computing, an autonomous peripheral is one that can be used with the computer turned off
- Within self-determination theory in psychology, autonomy refers to 'autonomy support versus control', "hypothesizing that autonomy-supportive social contexts tend to facilitate self-determined motivation, healthy development, and optimal functioning."
- In mathematical analysis, an autonomous ordinary differential equation is one that is time-independent.
- In linguistics, an autonomous language is one which is independent of other languages, for example has a standard, grammar books, dictionaries, literature etc.
- In robotics "autonomy means independence of control. This characterization implies that autonomy is a property of the relation between two agents, in the case of robotics, of the relations between the designer and the autonomous robot. Self-sufficiency, situatedness, learning or development, and evolution increase an agent’s degree of autonomy.", according to Rolf Pfeifer.
