Across societies, cultures, and political ideologies, autonomy is a deeply valued attribute for both flourishing individuals and communities. However, it is also the object of different visions, including among those considering autonomy a highly valued individual ability, and those emphasizing its relational nature but its sometimes-questionable value. A pragmatist orientation suggests that the concept of autonomy should be further specified (i.e., instrumentalized) beyond theory in terms of its real-world implications and usability for moral agents. Accordingly, this latter orientation leads us to present autonomy as an ability; and then to unpack it as a broader than usual composite ability constituted of the component-abilities of voluntariness, self-control, information, deliberation, authenticity, and enactment. Given that particular abilities of an agent can only be exercised in a given set of circumstances (i.e., within a situation), including relationships as well as other important contextual characteristics, the exercise of one’s autonomy is inherently contextual and should be understood as being transactional in nature. This programmatic paper presents a situated account of autonomy inspired by Dewey’s pragmatism and instrumentalism against the backdrop of more individual and relational accounts of autonomy. Using examples from health ethics, the paper then demonstrates how this thinking supports a strategy of synergetic enrichment of the concept of autonomy by which experiential and empirical knowledge about autonomy and the exercise of autonomy enriches our understanding of some of its component-abilities and thus promises to make agents more autonomous.

在各个社会、文化和政治意识形态中，自治对于蓬勃发展的个人和社区来说都是非常重要的属性。然而，它也是不同观点的对象，包括那些将自主性视为高度重视的个人能力的人，以及那些强调其相关性但有时会受到质疑的价值的人。实用主义的倾向表明，自治的概念应该在其现实世界的含义和对道德主体的可用性方面进一步明确（即工具化）超越理论。因此，后一种取向引导我们将自主性视为一种能力；然后将其解压缩为一种比通常更广泛的复合能力，由自愿性、自我控制、信息、深思熟虑、真实性和制定的组件能力构成。考虑到代理的特定能力只能在给定的一组环境中（即在一种情况下）行使，包括关系以及其他重要的上下文特征，一个人的自主性的行使本质上是上下文的，应该被理解为是交易性的在自然界。这篇纲领性论文在更多个人和关系性的自主性叙述的背景下，呈现了受杜威实用主义和工具主义启发的自主性情境叙述。使用健康伦理的例子，