Autonomy, literally meaning self-rule, is an essential ethical principle, especially within the field of medicine. An individual with autonomy can make decisions on the basis of reflection and deliberation [1]. In general philosophy, autonomy is thought of as “the ability to be one's own person, to live life according to rationale and purpose that are taken as one's own and not the consequence ...

This paper contends that to fully understand interactions between agents, one must understand the dependence and autonomy relations that hold between the interacting agents. Individual variations, interpersonal dependencies, and environmental factors are determinants of autonomy that will be discussed in this paper. The paper concludes with a discussion of situations when autonomy is harmful.

It is widely held that decisions whether or when to attend health facilities for childbirth are not only influenced by risk awareness and household wealth, but also by factors such as autonomy or a woman's ability to act upon her own preferences. How autonomy should be constructed and measured - namely, as an individual or cluster-level variable - has been less examined. We drew on household su...

The author predicts that the interaction between individualand team-level autonomy influences team performance and that their combined effects are contingent on the level of task interdependence. Multiple regression analysis of data from 89 teams in a manufacturing setting confirm these expectations, demonstrating that team performance depends on the combination of individual and team autonomy....

OBJECTIVE To explore obesity policy options recommended by stakeholders and identify their impact on individual autotomy. METHODS Qualitative and quantitative methods were used. A content analysis of submissions to the Australian Government's Inquiry into Obesity was conducted. Each recommendation was categorised by its impact on autonomy, according to existing frameworks. Chi-square test for...

over the past 25 years, autonomy has been a popular focus for discussion and increasingly influential in foreign language educa- tion. most research is concentrated on learner autonomy, while teacher autonomy has been seriously neglected. recently, however, researchers and experts have realized that to enhance learner autonomy, we must enhance teacher autonomy (e.g., benson 2000; little 1995; l...

The standard notion of autonomy in medical ethics does not require that autonomous choices not be irrational. The paper gives three examples of seemingly irrational patient choices and discusses how a rational autonomy analysis differs from the standard view. It then considers whether a switch to the rational autonomy view would lead to overriding more patient decisions but concludes that this ...