Autonomy Of Others Research Articles

Restricting family life - an examination of citizens’ views on state interventions and parental freedom in eight European countries

ABSTRACT This paper examines the public views – a total of 10,348 persons – on restrictions of personal autonomy of others to protect the interest of children. We use representative country samples of the adult populations of Austria, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and Spain, and ask them to consider an experimental vignette with three different parental conditions: substance abuse, mental health problems, and learning difficulties. The findings display that most people would restrict parental freedom to protect the child, and a stricter restriction when the parent struggles with substance abuse compared to mental health compared to learning difficulties. There are some country differences, and when examining the role of institutional context of child protective system, a correlation is detected with significant differences between population views in a right-oriented system versus a well-being system and maltreatment system. In light of the ongoing European debates about child protection and how controversial and contested this area of the welfare state seem to be, it is interesting to learn (also) from this study that people, across countries, individual differences, child protection systems, overall are supportive of state intervention and support in a situation with a child at potential risk.

Research on the Social Mindfulness Affected by Money Priming

Social mindfulness is a prosocial behaviour that respects the autonomy of others’ choices, which requires individuals to sacrifice their own interests. Previous studies have found that money priming makes individuals pursue to maximize their own interests, meaning that it may have a potential negative effect on social mindfulness. However, the question has received unsatisfactory attention from the recent investigations. Thus, our study aims to investigate whether money priming has a negative effect on social mindfulness. A total of 59 college students were recruited. We used paradigms of money priming and social mindfulness, finding that money priming did have a negative effect on social mindfulness. In summary, this study help us understand the negative effect of money priming on social mindfulness.

The age of fuzzy bifurcation: Lessons from the pandemic and the Ukraine War

AbstractAcademics, decision‐makers and policy makers have suggested that COVID and the war in Ukraine represent an ‘inflection point’. The consequence will be ‘the end of globalisation’, ‘a bipolar Cold War 2.0’ and a return to Containment. In reality, the emerging world order is much messier. The logics of geoeconomics and geopolitics, largely aligned during the Cold War, are now in tension, ruptured by decades of globalisation, America's decline, and China's ascent. Consequently, US security allies now often wrestle with the fact that their economic ties link them to US rivals, notably China, or adversaries, like Russia. The pandemic and war have wrought geopolitical and economic adjustments, but any resemblance to Cold War blocs is superficial. What is consolidating is an era best described as fuzzy bifurcation. Unlike the Cold War, alliances will be tenuous across policy domains. With this greater latitude, even small and medium‐sized states may band‐wagon on security but will balance, hedge and even pursue strategic autonomy in others. Terms like ‘allies’, ‘competitors’, ‘rivals’, and even ‘adversaries’ become contingent on the policy issue. It is a world that American and Chinese policy makers will find challenging, indeed frustrating, because of the inconstancy of allied behaviour.

Death Anxiety, Immortality Projects and Happiness: A Utilitarian Argument Against the Legalization of Euthanasia

The current, utilitarian debate on the relation between euthanasia and happiness focusses primarily on the subject of dying patients. Where some utilitarians stress how euthanasia may relieve suffering in the process of dying, others emphasize the importance of respecting the autonomy of others to make decisions like these themselves. However, less attention has been paid to how legalizing euthanasia may impact the human decision-making processes of those still in a healthy and mentally sound state. This paper aims to shed light on this relatively underdeveloped subject within utilitarian theory. In particular, I focus on euthanasia’s most contested form: active, voluntary euthanasia. I draw on Ernst Becker, who argues that moderate death anxiety stimulates people to work on ‘immortality projects,’ decisions that help them cope with the concept of death. Subsequently, I draw on several studies to defend the notion that immortality projects are indirectly conducive to happiness because they stimulate healthy decisions and long-term, human progress. Additionally, immortality projects counterbalance decisions that are based on an excessive drive for short-term pleasure. As euthanasia can make dying less painful, I argue it may diminish death anxiety to significant degree, and thereby also an incentive to work on immortality projects. This brings me to the conclusion that legalizing euthanasia is problematic from a utilitarian point of view, considering the observation that immortality projects are indirectly conducive to happiness.

Individual Differences in Decisions on Physical Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic decisions on physical distancing including decisions on wearing face masks in public may depend on a number of individual characteristics, representations of threats and the degree of personal responsibility for complying with the imposed requirements.. This study on a Russian sample (N = 308) took placeduring April-May 2020. We used verbal tasks on social distancing to test the hypotheses that individual differences in empathy, implicit theories of emotions, the Dark Triad traits, rationality, and risk readiness predict decisions on whether or not to wear a mask. We developed five verbal tasks – situations where decisions on whether to wear a mask or not were made by choosing from several given reasons. Among the reasons for wearing a mask, Care for Self was chosen by 46% of participants who received this as a reason, the Law-abidingness reason was chosen by 44%, and 31% selected Care for Others. Regarding the reasons for not wearing a mask, 16% of participants chose Autonomy for Oneself, 11% – Risk Underestimation and 5% – Autonomy for Others. Logistic regressions identified that empathy, rationality, and narcissism were significant predictors of a decision to wear a face mask, while risk readiness and psychopathy were predictors of a decision not to wear a mask. Implicit theories of emotions and problem-solving self-efficacy were significant predictors only for choices between the reasons for wearing a mask. Personality variables of empathy, rationality, risk readiness, and the Dark Triad traits influence decisions on adhering to physical distancing.

Do people intervene to make others behave prosocially?

We experimentally investigate people's willingness to intervene in others' decision-making in order to promote a charitable donation. We find that only a minority of those subjects who would donate themselves enforce the donation by banning the selfish choice from the decision-maker's choice menu. Bans are more acceptable if they are implemented only after the decision-makers could choose between the selfish and the prosocial option themselves. Also, many subjects decide against offering decision-makers a monetary incentive to switch from the selfish to the prosocial choice. We discuss potential hypotheses about underlying motivations for the (non-)usage of interventions, with a special focus on the hypothesis that interventions to promote prosocial choice are more acceptable the more they respect the autonomy of others.

‘More than a Thought Bubble…’

‘More than a Thought Bubble…’

Limitations to the Right to Religious Freedom: Rethinking Key Approaches

Abstract The right to freedom of religion or belief is one of the most controversial fundamental human rights, and an increasing number of cases on religious freedom highlight the need for normative clarity about its limits. Courts across jurisdictions adopt different approaches to justifying limitations to religious claims in order to resolve conflicts. This article identifies current key approaches to justifying limits to religious practices before proposing a perfectionist version of the harm principle as an alternative. Section 1 sets out the complexities of determining the limitations to religious freedom. Section 2 identifies the shortcomings of four dominant approaches to limitations, and these include the following categories: (i) practices deemed to be against the liberal democratic order; (ii) practices that breach the duty of neutrality; (iii) practices that do not constitute a core religious belief; and (iv) the choice of alternatives. Section 3 proposes a typology of harms to the autonomy of others as a model for limitations to religious freedom. Section 4 concludes by emphasizing the need for consistency in deciding limitations.

Smokefree leadership among the Yolŋu peoples of East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory: a qualitative study.

This qualitative study examined smokefree leadership among the Yolŋu people, Indigenous landowners of East Arnhem Land. Despite disproportionately high smoking prevalence, the study found that most people enacted smokefree leadership within families and communities. While there was broad concern about not impinging on the autonomy of others, Indigenous health workers regularly advised clients, family and community members to quit smoking. This followed a general belief that the issue of smoking was best raised by health workers, rather than traditional leaders. Protecting children from second-hand smoke and preventing smoking initiation was important to all participants irrespective of their smoking status. An enduring and highly valued cultural connection to ŋarali' (tobacco) remains an essential part of the sacred practices of the funeral ceremony, an important and unique social utility. The study found consensus among participants that this would not change. Navigating traditional connections to ŋarali' in a context where most people are still addicted to commercial tobacco is challenging and requires respectful and culturally compelling approaches. Tobacco control initiatives with the Yolŋu should therefore utilise existing smokefree leaders within the social context in which ŋarali' is valued and used, an approach that may resonate with other Indigenous Australian nations and communities.

Classical Liberalism and the Problem of Technological Change

The relationship between classical liberalism and technology is surprisingly fraught. The common understanding is that technological advance is complementary to the principles of classical liberalism – especially in the case of contemporary, information-age technology. This is most clearly on display in Silicon Valley, with its oft-professed libertarian (classical liberalism’s kissing cousin) affinities. The analytical predicate for this complementarity is that classical liberalism values liberty-enhancing private ordering, and technological advance both is generally facially liberty-enhancing and facilitates private ordering. This analysis, however, is incomplete. Classical liberalism recognizes that certain rules are necessary in a well-functioning polity. The classical liberal, for instance, recognizes the centrality of enforceable property rights, and the concomitant ability to seek recourse from a third party (the state) when those rights are compromised. Thus, contemporary technological advances may facilitate private transactions – but such transactions may not support private ordering if they also weaken either the property rights necessary to that ordering or the enforceability of those rights. This chapter argues that technological advance can at times create (or, perhaps more accurately, highlight) a tension within principles of classical liberalism: It can simultaneously enhance liberty, while also undermining the legal rules and institutions necessary for the efficient and just private ordering of interactions in a liberal society. This is an important tension for classical liberals to understand – and one that needs to be, but too rarely is, acknowledged or struggled with. Related, the chapter also identifies and evaluates important fracture lines between prevalent branches of modern libertarianism: those that tend to embrace technological anarchism as maximally liberty-enhancing, on the one hand, and those that more cautiously protect the legal institutions (for example, property rights) upon which individual autonomy and private ordering are based, on the other. This chapter proceeds in four parts. Part I introduces our understanding of classical liberalism’s core principles: an emphasis on individual liberty; the recognition of a limit to the exercise of liberty when it conflicts with the autonomy of others; and support for a minimal set of rules necessary to coordinate individuals’ exercise of their liberty in autonomy-respecting ways through a system of private ordering. Part II then offers an initial discussion of the relationship between technology and legal institutions and argues that technology is important to classical liberalism insofar as it affects the legal institutions upon which private ordering is based. Part III explores how libertarian philosophies have embraced contemporary technology, focusing on “extreme” and “moderate” views – views that correspond roughly to liberty maximalism and autonomy protectionism. This discussion sets the stage for Part IV, which considers the tensions that technological change – especially the rapid change that characterizes much of recent history – creates within the classical liberal philosophy. The central insight is that classical liberalism posits a set of relatively stable legal institutions as the basis for liberty-enhancing private ordering – institutions that are generally developed through public, not private ordering – but that technology, including otherwise liberty-enhancing technology, can disrupt these institutions in ways that threaten both individual autonomy and the private ordering built upon extant institutions.

On a Belief-Relative Moral Right to Civil Disobedience

Acts of civil disobedience are undertaken in defense of a variety of causes ranging from banning GMO crops and prohibiting abortion to fighting inequality and saving the environment. Recently, Brownlee has argued that the merit of a cause is not relevant to the establishment of a moral right to civil disobedience. Instead, it is the fact that a dissenter believes his cause for protest to be morally right that is salient. We may term her and similar such theories belief-relative theories of civil disobedience. In this paper, I first argue that Brownlee’s important argument from conscientious conviction fails in its aim to establish a belief-relative moral right to civil disobedience. I then provide a more general argument that no purely belief-relative theory of civil disobedience grounded in a basic moral value will be tenable. Any moral warrant of civil disobedience that is derived from a value must be limited by the value from which it is derived, as well as by other similarly weighty values. If the moral warrant of civil disobedience is derived from the value of autonomy, then the warrant does not extend to acts of civil disobedience that violate the autonomy of others, or other similarly weighty values. Furthermore, granting a right to disobey in promotion of a grossly unjust view is problematic because civil disobedience ought to serve the role of promoting justice.

The right to public health

Much work in public health ethics is shaped by an ‘autonomy first’ view, which takes it to be axiomatic that it is difficult to justify state interference in the lives...

Education Scenario: A Study of Malwa Region

In India, education is provided by the public sector as well as private sector, with control and funding at three levels: federal, state and local. Education in India falls under the control of both union government and the states, with some responsibilities lying with the union and the states having autonomy for others. Education has been made too easy for the students so that more and more students can enter into the scope of education system of the country. The announcements like abolishing compulsory CBSE board exams for Class 10th from session 2010-11, introduction of grading system, the passage of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, reservation policies etc. are a few efforts taken by the government. Now the question arises as to what extent such efforts in the field of education have succeeded in different states of the country. Punjab is served by several institutions of higher education, including 32 universities which provide undergraduate and postgraduate courses in all the major arts, humanities, science, engineering, law, medicine, veterinary science, and business. Primary and secondary education systems are mainly affiliated to Punjab School Education Board. According to the 2011 Indian Census, the population of Punjab is 27,704,236 (males 14,634,819 & females 13,069,417). The literacy rate is 75%, male literacy being 80.23% and female literacy 68.36%. The present paper is an attempt to study the literacy level of the male and female in the various districts of Malwa region of the Punjab. This paper concludes that literacy rate in Punjab increased to 76.7% as per 2011 census, out of which maximum literacy rate has been found in the district Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (Mohali) (83.8%) and the lowest in district of Mansa (62.8%) of Malwa region. Male-female literacy rate shows an improvement sign. Sex ratio improved in all the districts of Punjab but found to be maximum in the district of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshar) (95%).

Lagging Behind or Not? Four Distinctive Social Participation Patterns Among Young Adults With Chronic Conditions

Typical childhood and adolescent development and acquiring self-management skills are crucial for a satisfying adult life and autonomy in social participation. The aims of this study were to identify patterns of autonomy in social participation and to explore differences between these patterns. Adolescents with various chronic conditions participating in a survey in 2006 (T0) were re-invited for a follow-up study (T1) in 2012. The young adults (18-25 years of age) assessed self-management skills, their condition's impact on school or work, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and social participation in various domains. Patterns were identified through cluster analysis. Differences between patterns were analyzed in bivariate and multivariate analyses. Compared with healthy age-mates, our sample (n = 483) generally lagged behind in social participation. Four patterns emerged: typical developers, financially secure laggers, slow developers, and outgoing laggers. The patterns differed regarding gender, educational level, attending special education, having disability benefits, and degree of physical limitations. Groups with a higher level of autonomy in social participation did not necessarily have higher HRQoL but did report higher self-efficacy and independence at both measurements. Autonomy in some participation domains can coincide with a lack of autonomy in others. In addition, better social participation does not necessarily correlate with higher HRQoL, or vice versa. Yet, more social participation was associated with more self-efficacy and independence. Our results emphasize that there is no standardized approach. Clinicians should take care to address all life areas in clinical practice to screen patients' lived experiences and the need for social and self-management support.

Between the social and the selfish: learner autonomy in online environments

This paper explores what it means to be an autonomous learner in an online social context. Using distinctions originally drawn by Jürgen Habermas, it argues that classic accounts of learner autonomy as teleological action are inadequate to explain learner activity in group settings. It points out that learners in such settings display attitudes and behaviours identified with human sociality (empathy, altruism, reciprocity, fairness and collaboration). It argues that, far from undermining the concept of learner autonomy, an understanding of these behaviours can lead us to a fuller picture of what autonomy may mean, when it incorporates the concept of respect for the autonomy of others.

Beyond Capacity: Identifying Ethical Dilemmas Underlying Capacity Evaluation Requests

Psychiatric consultations involving the evaluation of patients' medical decision-making capacity often seem to have little to do with truly compromised patient autonomy. The authors seek to examine hidden ethical dilemmas that lead to capacity evaluation requests. The authors utilize the "principlism" approach to biomedical ethics to illustrate some common moral issues in patient care that are poorly captured by the "autonomy-versus-paternalism" paradigm. Patient autonomy sometimes comes into conflict with ethical imperatives to do "good," to avoid harm, and to deliver care fairly, as well as with the autonomy of others. Consultation psychiatrists are well positioned to unearth these dilemmas and begin to address them. Effective engagement of everyday ethics in clinical medicine is hindered by reflexive resort to capacity evaluations when moral problems arise. Greater attention to matters of values, aggressive urges, and obligations to others can enhance the negotiation of routine ethical dilemmas.

Against Self-Interest: Trollope and Realism

IT IS A STRIKING TRAIT of many Trollope protagonists, Stephen Wall observes in his fine study Trollope and Character, that they act ‘against self-interest’.1 They are capable of discerning what it would be best for them to do, in the sense that it would tend to promote their worldly advantage or their personal happiness, but how they behave is not in accordance with that judgement. Their acting so disadvantageously to themselves, in ways that are not explained by alternative calculations or even clear emotional imperatives, has, moreover, a vital bearing on the reader's apprehension of their ‘reality’. ‘Casualties of their own wills’ as they are, in Wall's deft phrase (p. 57),2 their propensity for self-sabotage confirms Trollope's ‘intense respect for the[ir] experience’: they ‘liv[e] in his mind’ in a way that ‘seems to preclude any thought of … ethical or rhetorical exploitation by the novelist’ (pp. 57, 61). To argue so is, up to a point, to say something familiarly within the traditions of description for classic realism. Characters impress us with their reality in so far as they establish their singularity, escaping or pre-empting the characterological straitjackets of genre, mode, stereotype, and moral formula. In Trollope's most persuasive endeavours at rendering ‘the authenticity of presence’ (p. 76) there is a touch of that quality Auerbach admired in Flaubert:3 a sense of something ‘unget-at-able’ in an individual nature, troubling the character him or herself and reinforced by the writer's more or less resigned awareness that literary representation cannot (should not?) hope to do better than the character themselves in this respect, and must accept the ‘hopelessly inexplicable’ aspects of motive (p. 76). This is, Wall suggests, largely what we mean by respect for the autonomy of others: accepting the impossibility of subduing them, in art as in life, to a purpose, a rationale, a law of behaviour; recognising that they will behave with no more perfect a lucidity or coherence of motives than a just apprehension of our own behaviour would lead us to discover in ourselves.

Temporal Autonomy in a Laboring Society

The aim of this paper is to discuss which stance towards the allocation of labor and leisure would be defensible from the perspective of modern liberal political theory. There is a long tradition in philosophy defending an ideal of leisure, but this tradition has been rightly criticized for being too perfectionist. A liberal perspective seems more attractive in not dictating how much time people spend in labor or leisure, but leaving this choice to individuals. The question is whether this is possible. After scrutinizing the traditional philosophical defense of leisure I focus on Robert Goodin and his collaborators' recent proposal to think about labor and leisure in terms of “temporal autonomy”. I show that their concept is a great improvement over the older philosophical theories, both in its conceptualization of labor and leisure and in its ambition to leave labor/leisure choices to individuals. Nonetheless, it contains an important unresolved ambiguity about whether discretionary time maximization is a desirable end. Since the exercise of one's temporal autonomy can undercut the temporal autonomy of others in society, this leads to a dilemma. This dilemma can be resolved either in a libertarian or in a sufficientarian direction. I provide a cautious defense of the sufficientarian conception of temporal autonomy, because it accounts for the intuition in the older tradition of leisure that it is important not to be overwhelmed by the demands of labor, while also retaining the liberal emphasis on individual choice.

Development of a Statement on Autonomous Practice

Development of a Statement on Autonomous Practice

A Meta-analysis of the Effectiveness of Intervention Programs Designed to Support Autonomy

The twofold purpose of the present study was, first, to determine whether training intervention programs designed to help people support the autonomy of others are effective and, second, to identify the set of conditions that allowed these interventions to be most effective. A meta-analysis of the findings from 19 studies with 20 effect sizes showed that the training programs were, overall, effective with a weighted effect size of 0.63. Moderator analyses of the overall effect size showed that the relatively more effective intervention programs were structured in ways that trained multiple elements of autonomy support and were presented in relatively brief (1–3 h) sessions in a laboratory training setting that focused on skill-based activities and utilized multiple types of media to deliver its content. Furthermore, relatively effective intervention programs were offered to teachers (rather than to other professionals), trainees (rather than to experienced professionals), and individuals with an autonomy (rather than a control) causality orientation. Though the small number of included studies warrants caution, results generally affirmed the effectiveness of autonomy-supportive training programs and identified the conditions under which future programs can be designed to be highly effective.