Definition of autonomy:
Autonomy is at the core of human self governance. It means to be independant agent when making decisions and when making will of his/hers own.
Definition of Love, as force of action and reaction:
Love as an action is becoming a giving-agent and providing for receiving-agent in form of some material and some immaterial wellbeing with intentions and focus on receiver’s convenience while somewhat being fulfilled at giver’s convenience.
Love as a reaction is becoming a receiving-agent and responding and reacting to giver’s intentions, while also measuring weight of material wellbeing received and immaterial wellbeing received.
Definition of love in context of autonomy:
Love is a feeling, not a force to push other agents to subordination.
When an agent is under pressure or danger, or stuck in a situation where he/she is unable to act in certain way, the agent can invite other agent temporarily to act as a representative-agent for him/her. This temporary representation is an authority in a sense, that allows the representative-agent to act on behalf of the original agent, in certain parts of decision making that involves some action or reaction of some kind be it legal, economical, etc. This authority stems from social contract (usually verbal understanding) that must be formed via agreement of both sides and understanding that there was authority delegated to trustee. Ofcourse this whole process of usage has limitations. Such limitations to the authority must be voluntarily granted to the beneficiary because delegation of authority of the original-agent to the beneficiary has potential to remove the right from the original-agent for that temporary duration. This happens because there are cases where the authority is unique and may only be transfered but not copied. So that sharing an unique authority can only be temporary, and trustee must return it to the original-agent upon the agent’s recall.
Another way the authority can be temporarily shared (but usually not copied) to the trustee is having some legally recognized authority, such as government, recognize and enforce such delegation to the trustee. The method of temporary transfering such authority should be used with moderations and understand that it has limitations as well as know that it is most suitable usage on people of minor ages and people with physical problems such as invalids who have physical impairedness to move and act in the society, be it economically, physically, legally, etc.
Lastly, such authority must never become target of abuse by the strength of one’s own attachment, meaning just because one agent has feelings over another, it doesn’t mean that someone can break the rule of autonomy and cross the line. And such authority should be reversible and expired when the agent in need of help speaks or expresses usually in form of words or message that the help is no longer wanted or needed, and thus wants his pre-existing delegated rights back.
As a result, I have come to conclusion about love:
Love must be inviting to be wholesome. Invitation must be shown to start socializing, such as ‘hello’, etc. Shyness must be shown to show the others the need to take moderation when closing distance with each other. Reciprocation must be shown to show interest such as ‘I like u’
So what’s your take on the connection between Love and Autonomy? Can humans preserve their autonomy whilst being in love? And are there previous studies related to this topic?
Well,it’s a decent idea but what I’d encourage you to consider is whether you are conflating being influenced with being controlled. Love often influences our, decisions,priorities and values but that doesn’t mean autonomy has been surrendered. If I choose to prioritize another person’s wellbeing over mine that may be an exercise of my autonomy rather than a loss of it.
Because of that distinction I’m not convinced that love requires a model of delegated authority to explain its relationship with autonomy. It may instead be a question of how a person adopts another’s welfare as their own practical reasoning.
I think you may find it useful to compare your account with existing work on relational autonomy ,since the philosophers in that tradition have explored whether close relationships can shape our decisions without undermining self-governance.
Thank you ^^ i agree with your position as well.
According to you, love of a giving-agent is willful sacrifice, hence not a loss of autonomy. And you also said that love of a receiving-agent is not surrendering but “being influenced” much like being persuaded.
What’s your definition of being persuaded and persuasion? Is it a power or some form of upperhand over another person?
If persuasion was power or some form of upperhand, then you are contradicting your argument. So I hope you can help me with explaining your case.
Well, I think I didn’t explain my point very clearly. Anyway, to answer your question, I don’t think persuasion is the same thing as having power or an upper hand over another person; rather, to persuade is simply to present reasons, emotions, or experiences in a way that may influence another person’s judgment. Whether those reasons are accepted is still up to the person being persuaded.
That’s the distinction I was trying to make between influence and control. We influence each other constantly, through conversations, affections, examples, even simple presence, but influence doesn’t by itself remove autonomy. If it did, every successful argument would be a loss of autonomy.
I’d say autonomy is compromised only when the person’s capacity to decide for themselves is overridden or bypassed through coercion, manipulation, or inability to refuse. Persuasion, by contrast, still leaves the final act of endorsement with the person being persuaded.
So no, I don’t see persuasion as an upper hand but an invitation to change one’s mind, which the other person remains free to accept or reject.
Persuasion is an interaction between giving-agent and receiving-agent. It’s an act by an agent of choosing a content, and presenting it with a label.
Content used in persuasion can be - data, information or interpretation, or even food or energy (in terms of biology or physics)
Labels used in persuasion are often synonymous with rating such as “good” or “bad” or in between, and/or “1 star” or “10 star” or in between, etc.
There are cases where the content is consumed and is good, but there are cases where the content is consumed but is bad.
By good, I mean good for the overall system in behavior and society. By bad, I mean bad for the overall system in behavior and society.
There are cases where persuasion fails, because flaw has not been dealt with, due to several reasons:
Content is flawed, but labeled/presented as good.
Content is good, but labeled/presented as bad.
In the case of #1 where the flaw is in the content, we can imagine that accepting this content would lead our society to suffering under logical flaw, causing casualties in portion of population who are weak to logical flaws. This includes those who are more prone to allergic to logical flaws. Basically, logical flaw is toxin.
But the bigger problem is in labeling, where the persuasion is in action. If someone with force of persuasion, labels the toxin as healthy alternative, which may happen, then innocent people will suffer in numbers.
Interesting thread. Would you say that it is okay for a mother to love her newborn child even though the child has not provided consent for the “other agent temporarily to act as a representative-agent for him/her”?
The persuasion vs. coercion contrary is interesting, but I think that love is a bit different than persuasion (even though when one loves something one is not thereby being coerced).
Aristotle defines love as willing the good of the other for their own sake. So I might give you a sandwich on the basis of love, and when you receive that sandwich you might be a recipient of love via the act of sandwich-giving.
Still, the act of love is not consensual. We don’t ask for someone’s consent before we love them. We would only ask for their consent before we act in a way that has some tangible effect on them, and this would include acts motivated by love.
It does follow that something like marriage must be freely consented to, given that it is a covenant of mutual love. But I would say that love interacts with consent in the same way that everything else interacts with consent, namely via external actions that have some tangible effect on the person-being-acted-upon (i.e. patient).
People of minor ages, including newborn child, have right to live under human rights. Even though the Newborn child has rights to live, he/she is barely autonomous - it can’t move physically enough to exercise it’s rights - as well as have the ability to think for his/her own good. So that it’s necessary to provide for the newborn child and do non-consensual intervention. But as the child gets older and becomes a teen, then adult, the degree of non-consensual intervention must stop.
I haven’t talked about persuasion vs coercion in this post or thread.
You may be giving-agent and give me sandwich, then call it an action of love. However, I can deny the labeling you did to an action as love, as well as deny the sandwich. Or deny the labeling as love, but receive sandwich. Because in the end, receiving-agent has the right to choose to be persuaded.
Well, I actually like the distinction between content and labels; it’s an interesting way of thinking about persuasion because it reminds us that persuasion isn’t just about what is presented, but also how it’s presented.
Take your example of a toxin being labelled as healthy. I’d agree that the label can influence whether someone accepts it, but I’d still say the influence comes through the person’s own judgment. They evaluate the label, perhaps wrongly, and then decide to accept the content. That’s why I see persuasion as operating through the receiving agent rather than over them.
If someone accepts a flawed argument because it was skilfully presented, they’ve certainly been misled, but I don’t think they’ve surrendered their autonomy. Otherwise, every successful deception will count as a temporary transfer of autonomy, and I’m not sure I’d want to say that.
I suppose that’s where my interest still returns to your original thread. Can someone be deeply influenced, even persuaded by something false, and yet remain autonomous because the final act of endorsement was still their own? That’s the distinction I’m trying to get at.
My answer is highly related to the idea of survival of the fittest. Which argues that those who have survived are the ones who are strong.
Your last question basically boils down to, Can someone who has micro-evolved to survive inside toxic (somewhat logically flawed) environment, still be able to contain or preserve the characteristics of autonomy?
My simple answer is, yes. But I imagine that the level of autonomy is to a degree lower than those hypothetical people who would have lived if the environment was less toxic. So we - as species and society as whole - would have more autonomy if we went with less toxicity, however, since we live in reality where survival of the fittest remains true, whoever survived the disaster are considered capable and strong.
But in future, it’s absolutely possible for even stronger species to emerge, where the species can demonstrate ability to survive in the toxic environment but also capable to have ability to hold more autonomy.
Well, I’m sorry to say this, but the nature of your arguments keeps evolving, and I think now we’ve reached the point where our interests diverge.
I’ve enjoyed the discussion but I was mainly Interested in the relationship between autonomy and persuasion in the individual case. You’re recent replies seem to be shifting towards a broader evolutionary account of autonomy which is an interesting discussion in its own right but I think it’s different from the question I originally wanted to explore, so I think I’ll leave it here.