ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the solutions to the problems of self-determination and value share a common origin. The foundations of agency are located in the organizationally closed, autonomous processes of self-production that constitute living systems. The chapter provides an account of how complex systems can objectively distinguish themselves from their environments. The centrality of metabolic self-production to the living system distinguishes organismic life from not only machines, but also many naturally occurring self-organizing systems. The persistence of the living system as a unified whole depends on its taking part in continuous processes of catabolism and anabolism. The first essential element of organismic organization operational closure is shared by many self-organizing systems. The viability of a system cannot be determined in abstraction from that system's environment. Hans Jonas characterizes the historical development of organismic life as a series of increasingly complex systems that have consequently enjoyed progressively more freedom of action from their environment.
