Autonomy is defined as, “the capacity to be one’s own person, to live one’s life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one’s own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces” (Christmas 1). At the core of this concept is the belief that one should attain the ability, “to be one’s own person,” to govern oneself, and to follow and realize their desires and intentions. Gerald Dworkin expands on this as he describes autonomy as, “our notion of who we are, of self-identity, of being this person is linked to our capacity to find and re-fine oneself” (Dworkin, "Theory and Practice of Autonomy" 32). The ability for self-reflection and independence of ones deliberation are key to ensuring that ones autonomy is respected and are protections against paternalistic intervention. Here paternalism is defined as, “the interference of a State or an individual with another person, against their will, and justified by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off protected from harm” (Dworkin, "Paternalism" 1).
This notion of individual autonomy is a central component in Immanuel Kant’s theory on moral philosophy. At the core of Kant’s ethics on autonomy is the belief that human beings operate as moral agents. We ground our actions in universal maxims on moral law and always act in response to our human reason (Christmas 10).Therefore, for Kant, “by virtue of our being autonomous we must act only on those maxims that we can consistently will as a universal law” (Christmas 10).
Prison Context:
Looking at these definitions and applying it to the environment of prisoners in correctional settings, one will see that this capacity to “be one’s own person", to govern themselves, and to operate as independent agents void of external influences is weakened. Therefore prisoners do not attain full autonomy, but have a diminished autonomy as in some ways they are, “controlled by others or incapable of deliberating or acting on the basis of his or her desires and plans” (Beauchamp and Childress 99).Additionally, with autonomy arises the question of competency. In the medical setting, the question of whether a patient is competent enough to make decisions is crucial to deciding between respecting their autonomous decisions or taking paternalistic action.
Focusing on the context of prisons and questioning the capacity for autonomous decision-making, one must factor in the question of autonomous choice. Even though an autonomous individual may attain the ability to govern themselves and reflect on their desires, they may be restricted the autonomous decision-making to act due to various constraints, like their confinement in prison (Beauchamp and Childress 100). Eric Chawng, Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado at Boulder writes,“Even though prisoners live in a very coercive context, so that many of their choices are subject to coercive interference, this does not mean that every choice they make is subject to coercive interference” (Chawng 6). This understanding of how autonomous choice functions within the context of autonomous decision-making will be important when looking at the various human experiments on prisoners and assessing whether prisoners were fully coerced or had a choice in their participation.