Individuals autonomy

QuaHtative arguments deal primarily with the sense of ownership and security which result from individually owned generation systems. Additional complexity will arise from the aesthetic criteria specific to both individual homes and the surrounding community. Of course, the autonomy inherent in distributed rooftop arrays probably constitutes an institutional barrier to their acceptance by some utiHty companies, unless they are involved in the financing and/or marketing chain. 

In recruiting facility managers for the pilot test, be sensitive to your company s chain of command—and the preferences of the individuals involved. In most organizations facility managers report up the line. In some companies a request for this kind of assistance must be cleared at a higher level in others, facility managers have considerable autonomy and do not take kindly to its being underestimated. 

The existential state of being a patient is perhaps an even more immediate domain of the moral. The loss of autonomy, the fear of the unknown, the dissolution of identity accompanying pain in its multifarious forms, the dehumanization of being subjected to the administrative processes of healthcare, and the psychological dependence each of these challenges fosters combine to make the physician the patient s advocate in a different way to the social one described above. Here, individual concerns are paramount, and the most immediate response must be a humane one. 

In the United States, as in most other countries, individual informed consent is generally required before research may be done with a living, identifiable human being. Informed consent for research generally has two different justifications. First, it allows the potential subject to weigh for himself or herself the balance of risks and benefits from his or her participation in the proposed research. Second, it embodies the individual s autonomy and control over interventions in or about his or her own body. 

Another possible reason for public interest in herbal medications is that they provide some autonomy from medical professionals. Multiple factors contribute to a person s satisfaction with medical care (Siahpush et al. 1999 Sixma et al. 1998 Kaptchuk and Eisenberg 1998). One cause of dissatisfaction results from the traditionally passive role of the patient. Independent of its efficacy, alternative medicine provides an individual with a greater range of explanations and treatment options for their illnesses. The psychological appeal of more options is sufficient to draw individuals to consult alternative medicine, especially in cases where modern medicine has not been effective. 

J. Neil Schulman, science fiction writer, libertarian, and gun rights activist. He is active in the Libertarian Futurist Society, which gave him the Prometheus Award for The Rainbow Cadenza, an exploration of the meaning of individual autonomy and its relation to creativity in a collectivist... 

The principle of autonomy entails that persons should be treated as inherently valuable individuals with the moral right to make decisions about their own lives. To the extent that one s actions and choices do not negatively affect others, individuals with the capacity to make their own decisions should be free to do as they wish, even if their choices are risky or harmful to themselves. The principle also entails that persons with diminished autonomy, such as those who are illiterate or retarded, deserve to have their interests protected. Many moral obligations for professionals engaged in scientific research or health care are derived from the principle of autonomy, such as the physician-researcher s obligation to fully inform potential research subjects and respect the individual s informed consent or informed refusal. This obligation is founded on the principle that individuals are the appropriate decision makers for choices that do not harm others. 

However, even with this recognition of the importance of social context to the possibilities of individual self-creation, the liberal model of autonomy still at heart seems to be about the individual making choices about his or her own life. For Raz social forms determine the range of options open to the individual, but... 

We encourage social policies that protect cognitive autonomy, the right of each individual to remain free from compelled or surreptitious manipulations of consciousness by outside forces. 

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