• Autonomy,  Robert Kane

    There Can Be Only One Ultimate

    According to philosopher and advocate of libertarian free will, Robert Kane, autonomy is having the “power to be the ultimate creator and sustainer of one’s own ends or purposes” (The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. Second Ed. 382-383). And, as Kane suggests, if a human being has the essential property of autonomy, then no other being can have ultimate authority in one and the same choice when the human agent is using her power to be the ultimate creator and sustainer of her own ends and purposes. It seems to me that choosing an external authority, such as a deity, is a case of a human agent using his or her autonomous choice.…