We ought to allow people full autonomy over their own lives and bodies. It is understood that individual autonomy is an idea refers to 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. It is also a central value in the Kantian tradition of moral philosophy but it is also given fundamental status in John Stuart Mill's version of utilitarian liberalism. Examination of the concept of autonomy also figures centrally in debates over education policy, biomedical ethics, various legal freedoms and rights (such as freedom of speech and the right to privacy), as well as a moral and political theory more broadly.
First of all, BIID is the main idea for the controversial debate that ought we allow people over their own lives and bodies. BIID is a rare and infrequently studied condition that there is a mismatch between one’s mental body image and physical body. Considered to potentially be a neurological condition rather than a psychological one, BIID causes people who experience it to believe a part of their body does not actually belong to them. Those images characterized by an intense desire for amputation of a limb or to become blind or deaf. Some people act out their desires, pretending they are amputees using prostheses and other tools to ease their desire to be one. Although many people experience frustration or disappointment with their physical appearance at one time or another, the dissatisfaction felt by an individual with BIID goes much deeper. This condition often leads those who have it to feel as if one of their limbs is extraneous. They may feel incomplete or disconnected from the rest of the body.
Individuals with BIID might feel, for example, feel as if an arm or leg does not belong to them and may refuse to use the limb or desire to have it amputated. People with this condition often feel anxious or depressed due to the presence of the limb considered to be unnecessary and generally believe eliminating the offending limb will remedy the problem.
To the extent that generalizations can be made, people with BID appear to start to wish for amputation when they are young and often knew a person with an amputated limb when they are children; however, people with BIID tend to seek treatment only when they are much older.
Researchers has not developed a fully understood of BIID cause. They speculate early childhood trauma, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, or an over-identification with amputees may contribute to the development of BIID, but due to the rarity of the condition, there is not yet enough research to determine its cause. BIID is not caused by actual physical injuries to the limb, and it is not a paraphilia, as it was once considered to be. One major theory among psychologists and neurologists is that BIID occurs when the brain has not mapped the body correctly. Because this condition is so rare, little information is available, but case reports showing a common low age of onset and exposure to amputees at a young age support this idea, as body mapping occurs early in youth. Individuals who have BIID often report a childhood awareness of the condition, which may lend further support to the theory. Some researchers consider BIID to be a result of the circumstances originally leading to the brain’s incorrect mapping of the body, rather than one single condition.
The utilitarian approach, which takes results or consequences as central (and concepts of “good” and “bad” as primary). Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that places the locus of right and wrong solely on the outcomes (consequences) of choosing one action/policy over other actions/policies. (“Utilitarianism.”) As such, it moves beyond the scope of one's own interests and takes into account the interests of others. Utilitarian philosophers would argue that if one strongly identifies as disability and wishes to be disabled against the wishes of doctors, parents, siblings, spouses, or children, he or she should be able to do so on the basis that the amount of happiness that stands to be gained by the person wishing to not undergo surgery is, in most cases, much greater than the happiness that stands to be gained should family members continue to live with the anguish that comes with being close to someone attempting to suppress an identity that is trying to claw its way out. Looking at the question of BIID from a utilitarian point of view, the reaction of the medical community would appear to be the most ethical solution. So people with BIID have the right to have full autonomy over their own lives and bodies. To become who they feel and believe they should be bring them happiness.
In the realm of moral theory, seeing autonomy as a central value can be contrasted with alternative frameworks such an ethic of care, utilitarianism of some kinds, and an ethic of virtue. Autonomy has traditionally been thought to connote independence and hence to reflect assumptions of individualism in both moral thinking and political designations of political status. In recent decades, however, theorists have increasingly tried to structure the concept so as to sever its ties to this brand of individualism. In all such discussions the concept of autonomy is the focus of much controversy and debate, disputes which focus attention on the fundamentals of moral and political philosophy and the Enlightenment conception of the person more generally.
The Harm Principle believes that we have an absolute right to govern ourselves, and that this right should not be interfered with or restricted. However, our actions often affect others. I may have absolute liberty to do what I want with myself, but what should we do when doing what I want with myself affects you in some way? According to the Harm Principle, the only instance when the restriction of another’s liberties is permissible is when doing so prevents harm to others. In short, you should be able to do whatever you want as long as you are not hurting other people. To that end, the government’s authority should be directed toward protecting its citizens liberties, while also preventing people from harming each other (though obviously this will require the government to restrict our liberties to some extent; e.g., by passing and enforcing laws against murder, theft, etc.). He writes:
“The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.” The Incompetent: Note that many citizens are not capable of being fully autonomous, but require care and supervision—e.g., children. Mill thinks it is acceptable to restrict the liberties of children “as a means to their own good” (i.e., for their own good). So, the Harm Principle is intended only to apply to those citizens who are capable of living autonomously.
So, Mill is in favor of “experiments of living”, where anyone and everyone should be permitted to live out whatever lifestyle they want, so long as they don’t hurt others by doing so. Ultimately, Mill posits “two things as necessary conditions of human development, because necessary to render people unlike one another; namely, freedom, and variety of situations.”
“[E]ven opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor … ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer … Acts, of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.”
So, the sort of speech that incites violence, or spreads lies that hurt others, and so on, probably ought to be forbidden by the government.
Offensive People: What of people whose words do not promote violence, or spread harmful lies, but are merely offensive? For, “There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings.” Mill has this to say:
“We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement.”
So, we may permissibly SHUN such people, but Mill is not in favor of FORBIDDING such people from saying or doing offensive things. Of this offensive person, he writes, “If [someone] displeases us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as well as from anything that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel called on to make his life uncomfortable.”
Mill cautions us against going any further than this. For, “to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police, until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.”
In short, there is no “right” to legislate how others ought to live. The liberty of someone to live however they want, saying and doing whatever they want, ought not to be interfered with—that is, unless it harms others (or risks harm to others).