Autonomy

Der Gedanke, der sich in der modernen Idee der Autonomie verdichtet, ist ein doppelter: Die Figur der Autonomie enthält zugleich eine neue Auffassung von Normativität und eine eigene Konzeption von Freiheit. Dem Gedanken der Autonomie zufolge ist ein Gesetz, das wahrhaft normativ ist, eines, als dessen Urheber wir uns selbst betrachten können; und eine Freiheit, die im vollen Sinne wirklich ist, drückt sich in Gestalt eben solcher selbstgegebener Gesetze aus. Die Idee der Autonomie artikuliert so die Einsicht, dass man Freiheit und Gesetz nicht durch ihre Entgegensetzung bestimmen kann, sondern durcheinander erläutern muss. Wirkliche Freiheit ist nicht Freiheit von Gesetzen, sondern Freiheit in Gesetzen; verbindliche Normen sind nicht das, was Freiheit äußerlich beschränkt, sondern das, was Freiheit innerlich verwirklicht. Die Idee der Autonomie, die für die moderne praktische Philosophie seit Rousseau und Kant grundlegend ist, zielt so darauf, Freiheit und Verbindlichkeit in einem Zuge zu artikulieren: durch die Form selbstgegebener Gesetze. Mit Beiträgen von Robert Brandom, Judith Butler, Thomas Khurana, Christoph Menke, Terry Pinkard und Sebastian Rödl.

Capability theorists disagree on how to determine, for normative purposes, which capabilities are to be treated as basic, with Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen taking opposite views. This paper will scrutinize this list debate. It has two aims. First, it argues that some distinction between basic and non-basic capabilities is an inherent commitment of capability theories, but that there are many more options for responding to the capability-selection problem than a procedure of democratic deliberation (Sen) or a philosophical criterion of neo-Aristotelian flourishing (Nussbaum). A whole range of possible procedures and philosophical criteria could be combined with the capability metric. Second, it responds to a forceful challenge raised by Ian Crater, who argues that capability theorists should not endorse the selection of specific capabilities as basic (either democratically or philosophically) at all. In his view this will always have paternalistic implications; instead he proposes that the maximization of 'capability as such' should be the goal. In response I distinguish wellbeing-based and autonomy-based capability theories, and argue that while Carter's challenge is valid against the former, it fails against the latter.

Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as interpreted by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in General Comment No. 1, offers a vision for law's response to capacity impairments which differs in crucial ways from that contained in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The Committee rejects the functional test for capacity and requires that a 'will and preferences' paradigm must replace the 'best interests' paradigm and that all substitute decision-making regimes must be abolished. This article draws on the position adopted in General Comment No. 1 in evaluating the best interests standard in the Mental Capacity Act. It sets out the normative case for a stronger legislative endorsement of will and preferences and the inclusion of greater support mechanisms but rejects the contention that all substitute decision-making can, or should, be abolished. It also argues that the best interests standard in the Mental Capacity Act retains some revolutionary potential and that, pending legislative reform, this can be further developed through the courts.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

Two Systems, Two Countries is an unabashedly heterodox addition to a growing body of critical work on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) suppression of local identity and political freedoms in Hong Kong. What Carrico’s contribution uniquely provides is a penetrating analysis of the various schools of thought that make up the diverse landscape of Hong Kong nationalism.

Street-level bureaucrats implementing public policies have a certain degree of autonomy – or discretion – in their work. Following Lipsky, discretion has received wide attention in the policy implementation literature. However, scholars have not developed theoretical frameworks regarding the effects of discretion, which were then tested these using large samples. This study therefore develops a theoretical framework regarding two main effects of discretion: client meaningfulness and willingness to implement. The relationships are tested using a survey among 1,300 healthcare professionals implementing a new policy. The results underscore the importance of discretion. Implications of the findings and a future research agenda is shown.

In his dictum within the case of Hewer v Bryant , Lord Denning stated that the law surrounding children’s rights “can, and should, keep pace with the time ”. Denning criticised the late Victorian era case of Re Agar-Ellis  where it was held that a parent’s absolute authority over their children continued unabated until the age of majority. These comments resurfaced in the prominent case of Gillick  where the House of Lords established that a child’s capacity to make important medical decisions depended not on a legally set age but rather their individual level of maturity and understanding. This essay argues that post Hewer, Gillick and the implementation of the Human Rights Act , the UK has seen an increasingly contentious relationship between the concepts of parental responsibility and child autonomy at law. It is contended that the concepts are not inter-dependent but rather exist theoretically and practically opposed as competing and contextually qualified interests. This will be contended on the basis that the rights inherent within parental responsibility naturally conflict with a full conception of autonomy and represent instead a publicly endorsed paternalism toward children. Further, it is argued that both concepts are often used as judicial rhetoric in combination with the ‘welfare principle’ in order to impose judicial, value based, policy judgements; a precarious practice. It will be shown this is most apparent in the logically incoherent concept of ‘Gillick competency’  in relation to refusal of treatment.

The Free Energy Principle and Active Inference Framework (FEP-AI) begins with the understanding that persisting systems must regulate environmental exchanges and prevent entropic accumulation. In FEP-AI, minds and brains are predictive controllers for autonomous systems, where action-driven perception is realized as probabilistic inference. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) begins with considering the preconditions for a system to intrinsically exist, as well as axioms regarding the nature of consciousness. IIT has produced controversy because of its surprising entailments: quasi-panpsychism; subjectivity without referents or dynamics; and the possibility of fully-intelligent-yet-unconscious brain simulations. Here, I describe how these controversies might be resolved by integrating IIT with FEP-AI, where integrated information only entails consciousness for systems with perspectival reference frames capable of generating models with spatial, temporal, and causal coherence for self and world. Without that connection with external reality, systems could have arbitrarily high amounts of integrated information, but nonetheless would not entail subjective experience. I further describe how an integration of these frameworks may contribute to their evolution as unified systems theories and models of emergent causation. Then, inspired by both Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) and the Harmonic Brain Modes framework, I describe how streams of consciousness may emerge as an evolving generation of sensorimotor predictions, with the precise composition of experiences depending on the integration abilities of synchronous complexes as self-organizing harmonic modes (SOHMs). These integrating dynamics may be particularly likely to occur via richly connected subnetworks affording body-centric sources of phenomenal binding and executive control. Along these connectivity backbones, SOHMs are proposed to implement turbo coding via loopy message-passing over predictive (autoencoding) networks, so generating maximum a posteriori estimates as coherent vectors governing neural evolution, with alpha frequencies generating basic awareness, and cross-frequency phase-coupling within theta frequencies for access consciousness and volitional control. These dynamic cores of integrated information also function as global workspaces, centered on posterior cortices, but capable of being entrained with frontal cortices and interoceptive hierarchies, so affording agentic causation. Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) represents a synthetic approach to understanding minds that reveals compatibility between leading theories of consciousness, so enabling inferential synergy.

Os avanços tecnocientíficos das últimas décadas contribuíram para o aumento do número de pacientes com doenças terminais no mundo. Em decorrência da milenar conexão entre a fase de terminalidade de vida e os processos espiritualistas, esse fato assumiu aspectos peculiares no Brasil, país em que o número de segmentos religiosos/espiritualistas multiplicou-se nas últimas décadas. Este trabalho procura mostrar que a diversificação das necessidades de pacientes brasileiros com referência ao bemestar espiritual na fase final da vida pode gerar dilemas bioéticos novos para o profissional da saúde que não conheça os fundamentos das principais correntes espiritualistas do país. Defendendo que tal conhecimento é ferramenta útil para o profissional da saúde que quer observar os princípios da beneficência e do respeito à autonomia do paciente, o texto disponibiliza algumas orientações básicas das principais linhas espiritualistas brasileiras sobre os processos da morte e do morrer.

Des mouvements sociaux partout sur la planète se révoltent contre la démocratie libérale et le capitalisme tout en expérimentant des manières d'être, de penser et de faire basées sur l'autonomie, le respect de la diversité et l'aide mutuelle. Dans cet article, les pratiques politiques, culturelles et économiques du Centre social autogéré de Pointe-Saint-Charles déployées durant la lutte pour l'appropriation collective du Bâtiment 7 sont examinées à l'aune du concept d'autonomie collective. En rendant visible ces pratiques subversives, l'analyse permet de saisir la portée révolutionnaire de cette initiative libertaire située en marge de l'économie sociale au Québec.

Social movements throughout the world are rebelling against liberal democracy and capitalism, while at the same time experimenting ways of being, thinking and doing based on autonomy, respect of diversity and mutual aid. In this article, political, cultural and economic practices enacted by the Autonomous Social Center of Point St. Charles during the struggle to reclaim Building 7 are examined in light of the concept of collective autonomy. As these subversive practices are rendered visible, the revolutionary potential of this anti-authoritarian initiative situated on the margins of the social economy in Quebec emerges.

Los zapatistas devienen de comunidades indígenas despojadas de tierras y de la libertad para gobernarse según la cultura de los pueblos originarios; producto de su organización y lucha lograron formar comunidades organizadas en gobiernos autónomos. Cuentan con una caja de herramientas provista de conceptos teóricos y trabajo colectivo que se usan como armas para analizar las entrañas del capitalismo, impulsar la resistencia política y construir la autonomía de los pueblos rebeldes. Ahora sus palabras resuenan con el propósito de reivindicar la autonomía que erigieron al fragor de su gesta social y de advertir sobre la inminencia de la crisis capitalista y los múltiples peligros que representa la Hidra para los pueblos y las organizaciones que se aprestan a luchar.

La ausencia de apoyo a la autonomía creado por el docente de Educación Física (EF) puede desencadenar en el alumnado conductas desinteresadas e indisciplinadas. Así, bajo el sustento de la teoría de la autodeterminación el objetivo del estudio fue testar un modelo que relacionaba el apoyo a la autonomía del profesorado de EF con la percepción de satisfacción y frustración de dicha necesidad, así como con la conducta de oposición desafiante del alumnado en las clases de EF. En el estudio participaron 196 alumnos (M edad = 13.32; DT = 1.38), 95 varones y 101 mujeres, pertenecientes al primer ciclo de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, quiénes cumplimentaron los factores de autonomía de los siguientes cuestionarios: Cuestionario de Apoyo a las Necesidades Psicológicas Básicas (CANPB), la Escala de Medición de las Necesidades Psicológicas Básicas (BPNES) y la Escala de Frustración de las Necesidades Psicológicas (EFNP). Además se midió la oposición desafiante con una escala adaptada a la EF. El análisis de los resultados evidenció la importancia del apoyo a la autonomía para satisfacer y evitar la frustra-ción de ésta. De igual modo, la frustración de la autonomía se configura como una variable influyente sobre la opo-sición desafiante. Estos hallazgos suscitan la necesidad de crear un clima orientado al apoyo a la autonomía en EF, alejado de un estilo más controlador, evitando de este modo la frustración de la autonomía en el aula y previniendo de esta manera las conductas desafiantes del alumnado. Palabras clave: teoría de la autodeterminación; apoyo a la autonomía; estilo controlador; educación física; indisciplina. The lack of autonomy support created by the Physical Education (PE) teacher can trigger disinterested and undisciplined behaviors in students. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, this study tested an integrated model that related autonomy supportive teaching with autonomy satisfaction and autonomy frustration, as well as oppositio-nal defiance of PE students. 196 students (age = 13.32, SD = 1.38), 95 men and 101 women, from the first cycle of secondary school, answered the following questionnaires: Questionnaire to assess support of basic psychological needs (Spanish acronym CANPB), Basic Psychological Need Scale (BPNS) and Psychological Need Thwarting Scale (PNTS). For these questionnaires, only the items of autonomy factor were measured. Besides Oppositional Defiance was measured using a scale adapted to the PE. The results showed the importance of autonomy supportive teaching to satisfy autonomy and avoid this need frustration. Similarly, autonomy frustration is established as an influential variable on oppositional defiance. These findings raise the need to create an autonomy support climate in PE, away from a control teaching, to avoid autonomy frustration in the classroom and to prevent defiance behaviors of students. Abstract Recibido el 31 de Mayo de 2015; Aceptado el 5 de Noviembre de 2015

[EN] This paper briefly introduces the concepts of the public space by H. Arendt and J. Habermas, compares them and presents an analysis of the problems concerning the transformation of the public space. In this work, I try to demonstrate that a confrontation between the civic body and the state that appears in the context of the transformation of the public space is not completely grounded. The public sphere, which connects these two areas, is not autonomous. For the main points, I choose the theories of the two authors – Hannah Arendt and Jurgen Habermas. In the work, I discuss the similarities and differences of these theories as well as their conceptual interactions.

[LT] Straipsnyje aptariama viešoji erdvė ir jos sampratos bei transformacijos problemos. Pagrindiniais atramos taškais pasirinktos dviejų autorių – Hannah’os Arendt ir Jürgeno Habermaso – teorijos. Darbe aptariami šių teorijų panašumai ir skirtumai, jų konceptualios sąveikos. Straipsnyje mėginama įrodyti, kad viešosios erdvės transformacijos kontekste atsirandantis valstybės priešpriešinimas pilietinei bendruomenei nėra visiškai pagrįstas, o šias dvi sritis jungianti viešoji sfera nėra autonomiška.

This report is furnished to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research as the final deliverable for AFOSR Grant FA9550-­‐12-­‐1-­‐0097, “The Role of Benevolence in Trust of Autonomous Systems.” This report provides a summary of the research and related activities performed with the support of this grant and key results, including pre-­‐print copies of the peer-­‐reviewed publications and related material. Without reliable and robust methods for assessing the trustworthiness of intelligent, autonomous systems, the issue of trust has become one of the most significant obstacles to broad use of autonomy technology by DoD and other agencies. However, the impact of the research described in this report supports creation of computational methods that create a bridge to future engineering of trustworthy autonomous systems. The core objectives of this research were (1) to operationalize the quality of “benevolence” and understand how it contributes to well-­‐calibrated trust of, and reliance upon, autonomous systems, and (2) to investigate portrayal of trust-­‐related attributes in the human-­‐machine interface. Significant headway was achieved on key topics, including some notable results. Key accomplishments discussed in this report include: (1) the formulation of benevolence as a complex “belief structure” with antecedent beliefs having important semantic, temporal, causal and other interrelationships; (2) the mapping of a portion of this belief structure to measurable internal states of autonomous systems, thereby potentially creating new opportunities for assessment of trustworthiness of such systems; (3) the obtaining of empirical evidence in support of the proposition that previous psychological concepts of interpersonal human trust are applicable to trust in autonomous systems, including the role of personality and situation in modulating the role and importance of certain beliefs; (4) the creation of a theory of a “Human Social Interface” which, when expressed in systems engineering terms, provides guidance for machine portrayal of trust-­‐related qualities in human-­‐machine social interaction; (5) the design and implementation of a software prototype based on the Human Social Interface theory that provides a basis for future experimentation and evaluation. This project resulted in eight peer-­‐reviewed publications and sixteen presentations in scientific venues, meetings with distinguished visitors, and other in support of technology transition opportunities within DoD and to industry. Many new research questions were generated and there remains considerable work to do to fully understand the role of benevolence with respect to intelligent autonomous systems. Overall, the theoretical foundation for trustworthiness of autonomous systems is immature and remains an important area of focus for multiple disciplines.

The emergence of new forms of reproductive technology raise an increasingly complex array of
social and ethical issues. Nevertheless, this paper focuses on commonplace reproductive
technologies used during labor and birth such as ultrasound, fetal monitoring, episiotomy,
epidurals, labor induction, amniotomy, and cesarean section. This paper maintains that social
pressures increase women’s perceived need to such reproductive technologies and thus
undermine women’s capacity to choose an elective cesarean or avoid an emergency cesarean.
Routine, normalized use of technology interferes with the possibility of choosing use of
technology where best suited through misdirecting laboring women to use technological
resources whenever possible. This normalized use of technology decreases risk tolerance and
increases dependence on technology for reassurance, which bears significant implications for
self-trust and self-confidence. My account encourages women’s cultivation of autonomy as a
capacity interconnected with our own attitudes and those of other persons; and as a function of
cultivating trust and confidence in one’s body.

This paper discusses the discursive significance of the body in Dalton Trumbo’s classic anti-war novel, Johnny Got His Gun. With its political rants, depictions of working-class life, symbolic imagery, and vivid descriptions of the dismembered torso of its protagonist, Johnny invokes many questions concerning the role that historical forces play in influencing the way we conceptualize the body, as well as how one might use the image of the body to subvert oppressive hierarchies of power.
    The novel, which is said to have been based on the true story of a World War I amputee, tells the story of Joe Bonham, a working-class soldier who survives an explosion that costs him his arms, legs and face; as well as his ability to see, speak, hear, eat and breath for himself. As Joe struggles to regain a sense of agency and autonomy in the world, he begins identifying himself as part of a long tradition of “little guys” who are exploited and silenced by those in power. Through a series of stream of consciousness rants, hallucinations and flashbacks, the human body emerges as our primary vehicle for being-in-the-world, as well as the figurative weight that grounds us in it. Following this logic, human freedom and autonomy appear to be curtailed by our own corporeal limitations, coupled with our involvement in a world of oppressive hierarchal systems and reified social relations.
    Building on the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Mikhail Bakhtin, Georg Lukacs and others, this paper will reveal a dialectic at work within Johnny between what can best be described as the phenomenal, reified, and grotesque bodies. While the phenomenal (or lived) body of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy emphasizes relative autonomy and embodied subjectivity, the reified body represents humankind in a completely objectified state. My analysis will illustrate how Johnny Got His Gun creates a tension between these two conceptions of corporeity, while employing grotesque realism—a subversive literary mode utilizing the degraded image of the body—to inspire change in the real world. In doing so, I hope to emphasize how Joe Bonham’s final wish—to use his war ravaged flesh as a subversive tool, thus becoming “the new messiah of the battlefields”— is fulfilled as the text enters the social sphere.

This essay is both a review of the excellent book “Nudge and the Law. A European Perspective”, edited by Alberto Alemanno and Anne-Lise Sibony, and an assessment of the major themes and challenges that the behavioural analysis of law will and should face in the immediate future.

The book makes important and novel contributions in a range of topics, both on a theoretical and a substantial level. Regarding theoretical issues, four themes stand out: First, it highlights the differences between the EU and the US nudging environments. Second, it questions the reliance on expertise in rulemaking. Third, it unveils behavioural trade-offs that have too long gone unnoticed in behavioural law and economics. And fourth, it discusses the requirement of the transparency of nudges and the related concept of autonomy. Furthermore, the different authors discuss the impact of behavioural regulation on a number of substantial fields of law: health and lifestyle regulation, privacy law, and the disclosure paradigm in private law.

This paper aims to take some of the book’s insights one step further in order to point at crucial challenges – and opportunities – for the future of the behavioural analysis of law. In the last years, the movement has gained tremendously in breadth and depth. It is now time to make it scientifically even more rigorous, e.g. by openly embracing empirical uncertainty and by moving beyond the neo-classical/behavioural dichotomy. Simultaneously, the field ought to discursively readjust its normative compass. Finally and perhaps most strikingly, however, the power of big data holds the promise of taking behavioural interventions to an entirely new level. If these challenges can be overcome, this paper argues, the intersection between law and behavioural sciences will remain one of the most fruitful approaches to legal analysis in Europe and beyond.

This is the PDF-Powerpoint of the paper I exposed on 2 December 2020 during the Webinar HISTORY OF LEGAL SCIENCE: TRANSFORMATION OF IDEAS AND IMAGES, II International Scientific-Methodological Seminar, organised by the Department of History of State and Law of the Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL). The title of the Webinar was: MYTHOLOGEMS OF LAW: IRRATIONAL IN LAW. The title of my paper was: Liberalism, Autonomy, Diversity, and Education: Irrational Reasons. The whole webinar can be watched on YouTube. For further information see on the web-site http://msal.ru/en/news/a-new-impulse-in-legal-science-transformation-of-ideas-and-images/

Following the death of 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen who committed suicide after forced “conversion therapy,” President Barack Obama called for a nationwide ban on psychotherapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. The administration argued that because conversion therapy causes substantial psychological harm to minors, it is neither medically nor ethically appropriate. We fully agree with the President and believe that this is a step in the right direction. Of course, in addition to being unsafe as well as ethically unsound, current conversion therapy approaches aren’t actually effective at doing what they claim to do – changing sexual orientation. But we also worry that this may be a short-term legislative solution to what is really a conceptual problem. The question we ought to be asking is “what will happen if and when scientists do end up developing safe and effective technologies that can alter sexual orientation?”