TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2018//
TI  - African communal basis for autonomy and life choices
JO  - Developing world bioethics
A1  - Ikuenobe, Polycarp
SP  - 212
EP  - 221
VL  - 18
IS  - 3
N2  - I argue that the metaphysical capacity of autonomy is not intrinsically valuable; it is valuable only when used in relation to a community's values and instrumentally for making the proper choices that will promote one's own and the community's well-being. I use the example of the choice to take one's life by suicide to illuminate this view. I articulate a plausible African conception of personhood as a basis for the idea of relational autonomy. I argue that this conception is better understood as a social-moral thesis, and not a metaphysical thesis. A metaphysical thesis gives an account of the abstract nature of an atomic individual, his agency, and rational choice. The social-moral thesis indicates that personhood and autonomy are positive and relational to the life plans, well-being, material conditions, and the best means for achieving them that are made available and possible by harmonious living in a community. This idea of autonomy is not just having the capacity of freewill; it also involves how such freewill is used, in terms of how an individual's choices are guided by internalized communal values.<br><br>© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1471-8731
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12161
ID  - ref1
ER  -