Historical and modern attempts to define, apply, and understand autonomy in terms of personal and national conception, capacity, condition, ideal, and right have fallen short for respective reasons due to the micro and macro intricacies and disjunct definitions of Autonomy.
Considering Autonomy’s origination and etymology, ancient opinions and definitions regarding the dilemmic concept were associated with law creation & factional governance in Greece. This initiation related to “self-governance” has influenced and still influences the use of Autonomy and the understanding of sovereign rule since the Grecian era and in the contemporary geopolitical interactions.
Autonomy as capacity can be viewed from two major perspectives. The judiciary viewpoint considers autonomy as capacity to be defined in terms of competency or lack-thereof. This binary definition is based on the activity that an individual or group is capable or not of participating in with adeptness. This capability determines the autonomy of one such individual. Aside from the judiciary viewpoint, the common-sense view defines competency in a more human sense based on generally perceived wisdom, innate or conditioned ability, mental health and wellness, dispositions of character, and other more subjective perspectives that take into account the complexity of human ability, and thus is less binary.
Autonomy as Condition can be defined in twelve unique striations, which all presuppose a certain level of luck to achieve de fact autonomy. Belonging to no one but oneself, a form of self-possession, is required for conditional autonomy. Individuals must show distinct individuality or self-identity, which reflects no one person, or trend, or vein of society in order to show autonomy. Persons must also attempt to define their own philosophies, perspectives, psychology via a kind of gyroscopic radical reflection directed by rationality & reason in pursuit of Authenticity and self-creation or determination persistently and relentlessly. Also, autonomous beings must practice self-legislation to lay down ones own laws or governing principles, distinct from the governing social pressures or norms, but within the extremes, so as not to become egotistical, isolated and withhold a certain rectitude. Persons must also practice moral authenticity, which requires devotion to tackling difficult moral dilemmas to achieve some sort of conclusion which neither forgoes decidedly moral values or concretely resists any malleability or alterations of conscience. For sake of time, I must quickly tap on the remaining conditions of autonomy. Persons must also practice moral independence to avoid commandeering ideals from others, but be careful not to become isolationist to avoid influences. Similar to authenticity, one must practice integrity and self-identity relating to principles and resist the seductive appeal of agreement with philosophical authorities. I will have to leave the other two off for the word limit restricts any more elaboration.
As an ideal, autonomous individuals must reconcile the draw to standby ones autonomous conditions and avoid philosophical suicide with the true nature of human civilization, which is social and connected no matter the amount of diasporas seen historically. There is a certain amount of conformism and integration with culture and community.
Autonomy as a right is flimsy and hard to precisely define due to the variation of human experience. Many things reduce ones autonomy considering some conditions, but simultaneously increase autonomy in other conditions. As a right, countries, or nation-states, and/or nations express a respect for individual autonomy and feign respect for it on the geopolitical scale. Some nations have more autonomy, others less, but the most important consideration is that so long as nations don’t intrude on personal autonomy and the aforementioned conditions, a nations political and geopolitical autonomy isn’t infringed on by other entities on the world-stage. So, though autonomy arose originally to describe governmental entities and the freedoms they were rewarded or afforded, now individual autonomy is the ruler of international, governmental, faction, etc., autonomy. The more autonomy afforded the individuals within a society, dependent on economic stability, also, the more autonomy a nation has.