Taking The Measure of Autonomy

Dr Suzy Killmister (University of Connecticut)

In this paper I offer a sketch of the theory of autonomy developed in my forthcoming manuscript Taking the Measure of Autonomy, and show how that theory can be utilized to better understand the relationship between autonomy and addiction, on the one hand, and autonomy and physical disability, on the other. What’s distinctive about the theory is that autonomy is taken to be comprised of four distinct dimensions (what I call self-definition, self-realisation, self-unification, and self-constitution). It’s this multi-dimensionality, I argue, that makes the theory so useful across a wide range of applications.