ABSTRACT
The traditional model of the autonomous political state, as a state free from external governance, is an unsatisfactory basis for thinking about personal autonomy. Foremost among the reasons for its unsatisfactoriness is that autonomy does not merely consist in being unobstructed in one's pursuits. To be thus unobstructed is necessary, but not sufficient. To exercise autonomy, certain positive qualities are also required, viz. the possession of rational capacities, strength of will and, for certain purposes, self-knowledge. Personal autonomy thus conceived is valuable for its own sake as well as for the achievements it can make possible. The equal worth of each person's autonomy has always been the centrepiece of individualism. While paternalistic interferences with autonomy have been judged by many liberals and libertarians to be despotic and insulting, they are sometimes necessary to protect and preserve the very scope for exercising dispositional autonomy to which such critics are pledged.
