ABSTRACT
In political and ethical theory it is understood that our actions are in a very specific way spontaneous, and that moral agents necessarily exercise freedom. Epistemology as first principle appears in the ethical domain as the valorization of autonomy, the idea that the subject gives its rule to itself, that it might be self-legislating as it is believed to be self-sufficient in the realm of science. Perhaps the most common-sense understanding of autonomy is its equation with liberty and the concept of positive freedom, or with the idea of sovereignty and self-rule, this being the most literal translation of the Greek auto-nomos. Continuing with the idea of choice, Gerald Dworkin argues that autonomy is revealed through taking responsibility for decisions made and an understanding of one's agency. The priority of free choice situates judgement, rather than action, as the locus of autonomy.
