Quotes About Autonomy

First, they contend that compassion makes euthanasia morally mandatory. We wouldn't let our dog continue to scream for years with uncontrolled pain: we'd take it to the vet to be put down. Why should we deny to humans what basic decency makes us do to our dogs? And second, they emphasize autonomy. Our lives are our own, they say. We can decide what to do with them. If we choose to end them, that's our business.

The capacity for judgment, to make plans, to choose one's good, is what we share with other persons. It is what makes us persons.

So too the growth of modern science depended on the premise of the individual's ability to judge evidence and argument for himself, free from the authority— though not the argument and evidence—of tradition.

Allowing people the freedom to pursue their own interests (within the limits of just conduct) is the best and only sustainable way to achieve societal progress. For individuals to develop and have a chance at happiness, they must be free to make their own choices and mistakes, rather than be forced to accept choices made for them by others.

How others treat me is their path; how I react is mine.

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.

No man that lives can satisfy everybody. The recipe for perfect peace is, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Man makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world. The sacred is the prime obstacle to his freedom. He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized. He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god.

If God doesn't like the way I live, let him tell me, not you.

In retirement, every day is Boss Day and every day is Employee Appreciation Day.

There are plenty of people holding flashlights casting shadows, offering directions. Perhaps it's best if you light your own way.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

Do not fear a life without the presence of those who gave up on you. Instead, fear a life where you have abandoned yourself.

We must be our own, before we can be another's.

You do not need to be the designated driver of someone's intoxicated ego.

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

only you really know yourself and only you can really make your decisions.

The only alternative to making mistakes is for someone to make all your decisions for you, in which case you will make their mistakes instead of your own.

Was it just that the right man hadn't come along? Or did I simply not want to get married? The truth was probably a combination of the two. I hadn't yet met a man who interested me for any extended period of time, nor had I met one who seemed to offer a life that could be any more enjoyable than the one I was leading on my own. The problem was that married life seemed to me likely to be a lot less enjoyable than the one I'd built for myself.

One of the broadest claims of this book is that there will be no further progress in philosophy or the arts without an explicit embrace of the autonomous thing-in-itself.

Parents always have their own ideas about how they wish their children to be brought up, both morally and spiritually. But they must understand that their children are not their property; that their children are entitled to pursue happiness in any way they wish.

A wise man makes his own decisions. An ignorant man follows public opinion.

The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God… then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man (or men) - the standard of self-law or autonomy. And when autonomous laws come to govern a commonwealth, the sword is certainly wielded in vain, for it represents simply the brute force of some men's will against the will of other men.