Autonomy

Autonomy
(Greek: Auto-Nomos - nomos meaning "law" and auto meaning "self": one who gives oneself his/her own law)

autonomiā, from autonomos, self-ruling;

Various uses:

• In computing, an autonomous peripheral is one that can be used with the computer turned off
• Within self-determination theory in psychology, autonomy refers to 'autonomy support versus control', "hypothesizing that autonomy-supportive social contexts tend to facilitate self-determined motivation, healthy development, and optimal functioning."
• In mathematical analysis, an autonomous ordinary differential equation is time-independent.
• In linguistics, an autonomous language is one which is independent of other languages, for example has a standard, grammar books, dictionaries, literature etc.
• In robotics "autonomy means independence of control. This characterization implies that autonomy is a property of the relation between two agents, in the case of robotics, of the relations between the designer and the autonomous robot. Self-sufficiency, situatedness, learning or development, and evolution increase an agent’s degree of autonomy.", according to Rolf Pfeifer.
• In economics, autonomous consumption is consumption expenditure when income levels are zero, making spending autonomous to income.

How is autonomy, or self-rule, good?

In what ways is autonomy not good?