Personal Autonomy and Individual Moral Growth Essay examples -- Ethics

Personal Autonomy and Individual Moral Growth The term 'autonomy', from the Greek roots 'autos' and 'nomos' [self + law] refers to the right or capacity of individuals to govern themselves. Agents may be said to be autonomous if their actions are truly their own, if they may be said to possess moral liberty. The necessity of this moral liberty is made clear in the work of many philosophers, in that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, in whose Social Contract are discussed what Rousseau sees as the centrally important relationships between what he terms the general will, liberty, equality and fraternity. From this work also comes that most famous of all revolutionary rallying-cries, Rousseau's memorable and epigrammatic, "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains". The term is also a cornerstone of Kant's ethical theory, in which the possession of autonomy of the will is a necessary condition of moral agency. For Kant, autonomy functions as the ability to know what morality requires of us, rather than as the freedom to pursue our ends. The possession of autonomy permits an agent to act on objective and universally valid rules of conduct certified by reason alone. In Kantian terminology, this idea is quite separate from 'heteronomy', the term Kant uses to refer to the condition of acting on desires which are not legislated by reason. In Chapter 2 of his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics [Abbott: p. 46] Kant argues that we should repudiate all maxims that do not accord with the will's own enactment of universal law and "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law". For Kant, any account grounded on the view that moral law is commanded from ... ...owledge and with its attendant moral dilemmas, there is a clear need for realism and, since individuals must both act and assume responsibility for their actions, little of value to be gained from, as McNaughton [p.57] puts it, "asserting that where there are many conflicting views there can be no correct answer". For the individual concerned to relate his sense of personal autonomy to a genuine quest for moral truth, the confident belief that, whilst truth may be difficult to discover, it nevertheless exists, remains a vital necessity. Bibliography: Glover, Jonathan Causing Death and Saving Lives Penguin, 1977 Kant, Immanuel Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics trans. T. K. Abbott, Longman, 1962 MacIntyre, Alasdair A Short History of Ethics Routledge, 1993 McNaughton, David Moral Vision: An Introduction to Ethics Blackwell, 1992 Personal Autonomy and Individual Moral Growth Essay examples -- Ethics Personal Autonomy and Individual Moral Growth The term 'autonomy', from the Greek roots 'autos' and 'nomos' [self + law] refers to the right or capacity of individuals to govern themselves. Agents may be said to be autonomous if their actions are truly their own, if they may be said to possess moral liberty. The necessity of this moral liberty is made clear in the work of many philosophers, in that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, in whose Social Contract are discussed what Rousseau sees as the centrally important relationships between what he terms the general will, liberty, equality and fraternity. From this work also comes that most famous of all revolutionary rallying-cries, Rousseau's memorable and epigrammatic, "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains". The term is also a cornerstone of Kant's ethical theory, in which the possession of autonomy of the will is a necessary condition of moral agency. For Kant, autonomy functions as the ability to know what morality requires of us, rather than as the freedom to pursue our ends. The possession of autonomy permits an agent to act on objective and universally valid rules of conduct certified by reason alone. In Kantian terminology, this idea is quite separate from 'heteronomy', the term Kant uses to refer to the condition of acting on desires which are not legislated by reason. In Chapter 2 of his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics [Abbott: p. 46] Kant argues that we should repudiate all maxims that do not accord with the will's own enactment of universal law and "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law". For Kant, any account grounded on the view that moral law is commanded from ... ...owledge and with its attendant moral dilemmas, there is a clear need for realism and, since individuals must both act and assume responsibility for their actions, little of value to be gained from, as McNaughton [p.57] puts it, "asserting that where there are many conflicting views there can be no correct answer". For the individual concerned to relate his sense of personal autonomy to a genuine quest for moral truth, the confident belief that, whilst truth may be difficult to discover, it nevertheless exists, remains a vital necessity. Bibliography: Glover, Jonathan Causing Death and Saving Lives Penguin, 1977 Kant, Immanuel Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics trans. T. K. Abbott, Longman, 1962 MacIntyre, Alasdair A Short History of Ethics Routledge, 1993 McNaughton, David Moral Vision: An Introduction to Ethics Blackwell, 1992