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Autonomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. S. Downie  and
Elizabeth Telfer
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Extract

It is often said that human beings have the ability to plan and choose what to do, can think for themselves and have the freedom and the right to form their own opinions on moral questions. Such claims are sometimes expressed by saying that the human agent is autonomous. In this paper we shall try to disentangle various theses about the autonomy of the agent which the common claims do not always distinguish.

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Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 46 , Issue 178 , October 1971 , pp. 293 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1971

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References

1 For a different view, see Price, H. H., Belief, Series I, Lecture 10 (London, Allen & Unwin, 1969)Google Scholar.

2 For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Downie, R. S. and Telfer, Elizabeth, Respect for Persons, pp. 126–127Google Scholar.

3 Hare, R. M., Freedom and Reason, pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

4 For this distinction see Raphael, D. D., ‘Human Rights’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 1965Google Scholar.