ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the positive requirements for ordering one's life in an autonomous way, then turns to the 'external' obstacles to autonomous existence. Accordingly, preparedness to carry through with one's plans and desires is necessary for the exercise of autonomy. Joel Feinberg's classificatory scheme provides a helpful framework for considering the enormous number of ways in which barriers to an individual's dispositional autonomy may arise. There is an important argument to the effect that the socialisation of individuals eliminates all autonomy. While there has been significant agreement about the potential effect on autonomy of the external positive constraints, there has been something of a divide over the external negative ones. Insufficient resources do restrict autonomy. Hence it is reasonable to accept that external negative constraints may diminish autonomy. Moreover, some barriers to autonomy are just 'outgrown' and so may not require the individual to gain understanding of them in order to overcome them.
