Autonomy and the principle of respect for autonomy.

Autonomy is defined as the capacity to think, decide, and act freely independently on the basis of such thought and decisions. Three types of are distinguished: autonomy of thought, which embraces the wide range human intellectual activities called "thinking for oneself"; autonomy of, or the capacity to decide to do things on the basis of one's; and autonomy of action, the absence of which is illustrated by situation of a patient whose voluntary muscles are paralyzed by curariform and who thus cannot tell the surgeon that the anesthetist has forgotten nitrous oxide. Autonomy is viewed as a prerequisite for all the virtues, than as a virtue in its own right. The arguments of Immanuel Kant and Stuart Mill concerning the principle of respect for autonomy are as exemplars respectively of the deontological and utilitarian approaches. (KIE abstract)