Autonomy

Autonomy is the capacity or right to govern oneself and make decisions according to one's own reasons. It can describe persons, groups, or political communities.

Personal autonomy: A person's ability to shape their life and make decisions according to their own values and reasons. It is autonomy understood at the level of an individual life.
Rational agency: The capacity to act for reasons and to assess those reasons through deliberation. Reason-guided action is central to many accounts of autonomous choice.
Informed consent: Voluntary agreement to an intervention after receiving and understanding relevant information. It puts decision-making authority into practice in medicine and research.
Determinism: The view that events, including human actions, are fixed by prior conditions and laws of nature. It challenges whether agents can genuinely govern their choices.
Self-determination: The principle that people or peoples should be able to choose their political status and pursue their development. It extends self-rule from individual choices to collective political claims.
Free will: The capacity to choose or act in ways that bear on moral responsibility. Autonomy depends on how much control agents have over their choices.
Advance directive: A legal document stating a person's healthcare preferences for a time when they cannot communicate them. It preserves a person's choices when later illness may remove decision-making capacity.
Heteronomy: The condition of being governed by laws, desires, or authorities imposed from outside oneself. It names the opposite of self-legislation in moral philosophy.
Human dignity: The inherent worth attributed to every human being, often grounding claims to respect and equal rights. Respect for autonomy is often justified by the dignity of persons.
Reflective equilibrium: A method of ethical reasoning that adjusts general principles and particular judgments toward coherence. It models how agents can critically examine and revise the principles guiding their decisions.

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