nucleation

LIT-297: Autonomy

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Properties5
StatusActive — read in full 2026-09-29 (NOTE-266); worth reading as the clearest short, named statement of the standard objections to the hierarchical model (manipulation, regress, ab initio) and of the feminist and relational critiques of wholeheartedness; it is thin and dated on Frankfurt's later view (no satisfaction, caring or love), gives Bratman one sentence, and cites Frankfurt only by pages of the 1988 collection.
Version2
Tagsagency, ethics, society-and-governance, self-governance
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-266 — Autonomy
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-029 — A higher-order attitude cannot make a motive the agent's own by its order alone: any attitude specified without presupposing the agent's participation can itself be disowned, and any specified to include it presupposes what it was meant to explain, THEORY-040 — A condition on free agency stated only in present psychological structure is met by a manipulated agent, so the account must count that agent free or add a historical condition, and no historical condition in the record's readings is shown to escape, THEORY-1118 — McKenna and Coates argue, with Dryden and with Buss and Westlund, that a condition on free agency stated only in the agent's present psychological structure is met by an agent whose structure a manipulator installed, so a mesh account must count that agent free or add a historical condition; Frankfurt, read first-hand, takes the first option, THEORY-120 — A motive is the agent's own, and she acts of her own free will, when she identifies with it, and that is all the freedom moral responsibility requires: identification is the conformity of the effective desire to a decisive higher-order volition (1971), and later wholehearted acceptance with no conflict at any higher order

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Dryden (2010), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ISSN 2161-0002); undated on the page; WordPress post date 2010-11-21, last modified 2013-12-25; Wayback capture 2010-11-25 — https://iep.utm.edu/autonomy/

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-09-29 at the owner’s request, as one of the texts assembled to represent Harry Frankfurt’s account of higher-order volitions, whose 1971 statement is paywalled. published: is the first appearance (ADR-002).

It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-266 is the close reading of 2026-09-29, and it placed the work: Active — worth reading as the clearest short, named statement of the standard objections to the hierarchical model (manipulation, regress, ab initio) and of the feminist and relational critiques of wholeheartedness; it is thin and dated on Frankfurt’s later view (no satisfaction, caring or love), gives Bratman one sentence, and cites Frankfurt only by pages of the 1988 collection.

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