ABSTRACT
We live and experience ourselves in action. That is to say, autonomous, self-directed action. By a stretch we might say that all living things exist in action. This might be said even of the movement of a sunflower turning to follow the sun, but its action is sun-directed, not self-directed. It is in the conscious choices that we make, in what we choose to do or say, that we experience ourselves most keenly as autonomous beings. It is in those choices that we experience our action as ours, something that we initiated, for which we are responsible. So it is no wonder, when our action or our anticipation of it evokes personal anxiety or discomfort, that we want to disown it, try to avoid or disclaim our responsibility for it. It is no wonder that we try, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, in the course of that effort, to escape from the fact, or at least the experience, of our autonomy, even to surrender our critical judgment, to find direction elsewhere, or deny capability, and thus dilute our responsibility for what we do or say. That is what this book is about.
