I have been thinking a lot about authority and autonomy lately. I know I would like some standard–or algorithm, in today’s language–as to when to follow authority and when to follow our own judgment. The truth, though, is that it always comes down to the latter. Even if we defer to some authority, we have…
Philosophy-types often argue about the existence of “free will.” The notion is that we either have the ability to decide how to behave or there is something–maybe our DNA or the laws of physics or social pressures or some combination thereof–that determines those decisions. It’s a typical “either/or” debate in the West. In the East…