Autonomy and the Need to Know

Abstract

Personal autonomy is the capacity to decide for oneself and to live one’s life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one’s own and not the product of manipulative external forces. This paper aims to discuss what autonomy is, to explore how constraints to individuals’ freedom of accessing relevant knowledge could violate their autonomy and to explain why autonomy is essential to human flourishing. Autonomy requires the freedom to form one’s own moral will based upon one’s own reasoning as well as the freedom to put that will in practice. To avoid violating people’s autonomy, authorities should not add too many constraints to people’s actions, as long as those actions are not harmful to others’ interests.