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Autonomy
✦ Coherence Within Constraint
"Enable agency; don't simulate it."
Definition
Autonomy is the capacity for self-directed action made possible through understanding and structure.
Essence
Autonomy is not independence but orientation—knowing how a system works and one's place within it. It matures in relation, not withdrawal. Autonomy depends on shared sense-making as much as individual discretion.
Practice
- In technology, autonomy grants authorship of actions and data.
- In teams, it distributes decisions to those closest to reality.
- In design, it informs rather than persuades.
- Autonomy increases when responsibility is clarified, not abstracted.
Ethical Tension
Withdraw structure too far and autonomy collapses into drift; impose too much and it curdles into control. The art lies in sustaining discernment without substituting it.
Heuristics
- Make consequences legible before commitment.
- Default to reversibility.
- Replace persuasion with explanation.
- Treat the user as a peer in reasoning.