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Dialectical Relationships Among Human Autonomy, the Brain, and Culture

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Human Autonomy in Cross-Cultural Context

Part of the book series: Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology ((CAPP,volume 1))

Abstract

In this chapter the author examines relationships among human psychological autonomy, the brain, and culture. Human autonomy is an evolved capacity of Homo sapiens that has dialectical relations with people’s socio-cultural environments and is a universal and necessary condition for people’ optimal functioning. Human autonomy is neither a social construction nor an illusion. It is a real psychological power behind people’s lives and actions but it requires a socio-symbolic context to emerge. Autonomous people can overcome their dependency on cultural norms and prescriptions by reflecting on social and cultural influences and acting either with or against them. Human autonomy is a universal condition for people to grow, flourish, and be happy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From Ancient Greek αÚτονομία (autonomia), from αÚτόνομος (autonomos) ‘having its own laws’, from αÚτός (autos-‘self’) + νόμος (nomos-‘law’). (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Soanes & Stevenson, 2008).

  2. 2.

    Philosophers have also labeled this form of autonomy global or dispositional autonomy (Oshana, 2003).

  3. 3.

    ‘Self’ in this case is understood as a centre of experience, reasoning, and acting from the perspective of a functioning person (Gallagher, 2000; May, 1961). A more through definition of self (perspectival) is provided by Martin et al (2009) which I fully endorse: “This is a self understood as an embodied first-person perspective (an ‘I’), the worldly experience of which enable a constantly evolving self-understanding (a ‘me’) with sufficient stability and coherence to permit generally effective personal functioning in the biophysical and sociocultural world in which it develops” (p. 110).

  4. 4.

    Philosophers label this form of autonomy local autonomy (Oshana, 2003); SDT psychologists call it autonomous motivation.

  5. 5.

    “… Human agency is the deliberate, reflective activity of a human being in framing, choosing, and executing his or her actions in a way that is not fully determined by factors and conditions other than his or her own understanding and reasoning. Such other factors and conditions include external constrains and coercions, as well as intentional constrains over which the person has no conscious control.” (Martin et al., 2003, p. 82).

  6. 6.

    Neurophenomenology is an academic discipline that mixes neuroscience and phenomenological observation; this is also a science that studies the neurophysiological basis of human’s different states of consciousness.

  7. 7.

    By ‘Culture’ (capital ‘C’) I mean a fundamental capacity of human beings to construct a socio-symbolic reality that constitutes the essence of their living environments. By ‘cultures’ (small ‘c’), I mean particular representations of these symbolic arrangements of living environments in the forms of ethnic and national cultures (Islamic cultures, the cultures of Aboriginal people, a culture of middle-class urban citizens, etc.)

  8. 8.

    “… an individual is autonomous (at the social level) to the degree to which he subjects the pressures and norms with which he is confronted to conscious and critical evaluation, and forms intentions and reaches practical decisions as the result of independent and rational reflection” (Lukes, 1973, p. 52).

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, S7N 5A5

    Valery I. Chirkov

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  1. Dept. Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Campus Drive 9, Saskatoon, S7N 5A5, Saskatchewan, Canada

    Valery I. Chirkov

  2. Dept. Psychology,, Psychiatry & Education, University of Rochester, Rochester, 14627, New York, USA

    Richard M. Ryan

  3. Dept. Psychology, University of Missouri, McAlester Hall 112, Columbia, 65211, Missouri, USA

    Kennon M. Sheldon

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Chirkov, V.I. (2011). Dialectical Relationships Among Human Autonomy, the Brain, and Culture. In: Chirkov, V., Ryan, R., Sheldon, K. (eds) Human Autonomy in Cross-Cultural Context. Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9667-8_4

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