Evidence-Responsiveness and Autonomy

Weimer, Steven

doi:10.1007/s10677-012-9381-4

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The philosophical discussion of autonomy posits that each person has some set of pro-attitudesreferred to variously as their "motivational set" [7], "collection of values" [3], "conception of the good" [13], "psychological core" [14], or "worldview" -and that the possession of this set underlies his or her autonomy in several ways, two of which have been discussed heavily in the literature. First, there are hierarchical internalist considerations concerning whether there is identification, at time t, between one's pro-attitudes and those first-order desires that are directed towards action [1,2].…”

Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is clearly and importantly distinct from the first kind of critical reflection, since it enables people to "appropriately update the inputs" to self-evaluations, as opposed to interpreting their experiences in light of the pro-attitudes that they already happen to hold, which is likely to inevitably confirm their evaluative outlook [7]. In this way, relevant new experiences and other, non-sensory evidence -specifically, those that convey unexpected information, given one's set of pro-attitudes -have "the power to call into question [pro-attitudes] in a way that so far has not been accounted for by either internalist or history-sensitive accounts of autonomy" [18].…”

Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For our purposes, we use the term "experience-responsiveness" to capture both "the acquisition of information through direct perception", i.e., experiential information [18] and the more expansive idea of any evidence -experiential or not -that offers a reason to review the relevant part of one's worldview [7].…”

Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…its development) and (ii) remains able to reconsider, and adjust if necessary, the pro-attitude in light of any relevant and unanticipated experiences [7].…”

Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The primary focus of this paper is to explore the question of how we incorporate new pro-attitudes into our worldview. This question is of fundamental importance to theories of autonomy for at least two reasons: (1) Our set of pro-attitudes defines, to some degree the "self," and, hence, determines a necessary part of the process of self-governance -or, "selfcreation" [4], "self-authorship" [5], or "self-constitution" [6]; and (2) Given that incorporating new pro-attitudes is an adaptive feature of daily life, theories about the nature of autonomy that are satisfied with the mere ability of the agent to set her own course in life, without recognizing that certain experiences or evidence require that she reconsider and perhaps adjust her plan, may be incomplete [7]. Despite its importance to the nature of autonomy, the question of how new pro-attitudes are incorporated into one's worldview, as well as how existing pro-attitudes are revised or updated, has been little addressed in the literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Updating our Selves: Synthesizing Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Incorporating New Information into our Worldview

2015

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Given the ubiquity and centrality of social and relational influences to the human experience, our conception of self-governance must adequately account for these external influences. The inclusion of socio-historical, externalist (i.e., "relational") considerations into more traditional internalist (i.e., "individualist") accounts of autonomy has been an important feature of the debate over personal autonomy in recent years. But the relevant socio-temporal dynamics of autonomy are not only historical in nature. There are also important, and under-examined, futureoriented questions about how we retain autonomy while incorporating new values into the existing set that guides our interaction with the world. In this paper, we examine these questions from two complementary perspectives: philosophy and neuroscience. After contextualizing the philosophical debate, we show the importance to theories of autonomous agency of the capacity to appropriately adapt our values and beliefs, in light of relevant experiences and evidence, to changing circumstances. We present a plausible philosophical account of this process, which we claim is generally applicable to theories about the nature of autonomy, both internalist and externalist alike. We then evaluate this account by providing a model for how the incorporation of values might occur in the brain; one that is inspired by recent theoretical and empirical advances in our understanding of the neural processes by which our beliefs are updated by new information. Finally, we synthesize these two perspectives and discuss how the neurobiology might inform the philosophical discussion.

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Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…its development) and (ii) remains able to reconsider, and adjust if necessary, the pro-attitude in light of any relevant and unanticipated experiences [7].…”

Section: Philosophical Perspective: the Role Of Experience-responsivementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Updating our Selves: Synthesizing Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Incorporating New Information into our Worldview

2015

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Autonomy, Evidence-Responsiveness, and the Ethics of Influence

Niker¹,

Felsen²,

Nagel³

et al. 2021

The Law and Ethics of Freedom of Thought, Volume 1

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Evidence-Responsiveness and the Ongoing Autonomy of Treatment Preferences

Weimer

2017

HEC Forum

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To be an autonomous agent is to determine one's own path in life. However, this cannot plausibly be seen as a one-off affair. An autonomous agent does not merely set herself on a particular course and then lock the steering wheel in place, so to speak, but must maintain some form of ongoing control over her direction in life-must keep her eyes on the road and her hands on the wheel. Circumstances often change in important and unexpected ways, after all, and it is reasonable to think that a crucial part of autonomy consists of the ability and disposition to recognize and properly respond to such changes. This implies, I contend, that a patient whose initial decision to undergo a given treatment satisfied plausible requirements of autonomy, but who is now unable to recognize that available evidence indicates the need to reconsider her medical situation and options has come to lack autonomy with respect to her desire to continue that treatment. However, and despite its importance with respect to both theoretical understandings of autonomy and applications of the concept to clinical ethics, this ongoing aspect of autonomy has received little attention. This paper aims to go some way toward remedying that. I first critically review two of the few theories of autonomy that do address "evidence-responsiveness" so as to identify and elaborate what I take to be the most promising way in which to account for this aspect of autonomy. After considering and responding to a possible objection to the evidence-responsiveness condition I propose, I conclude by discussing its clinical implications. That condition, I argue, is not merely theoretically sound, but can and should be applied to clinical practice.

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Evidence-Responsiveness and Autonomy

Cited by 5 publications

References 11 publications

Updating our Selves: Synthesizing Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Incorporating New Information into our Worldview

Updating our Selves: Synthesizing Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Incorporating New Information into our Worldview

Autonomy, Evidence-Responsiveness, and the Ethics of Influence

Evidence-Responsiveness and the Ongoing Autonomy of Treatment Preferences

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