Summary

We have argued that the moral value of personal autonomy grounds rights to psychological autonomy. Rights to psychological autonomy are rights, held by individuals against other individuals and the state, to freedom from undue interference in the exercise of the various capacities for autonomy needed for forming and maintaining values in the domain of their own life. We have argued that certain kinds of attacks on an agent s motivational attitudes, informational attitudes, and executive qualities infringe on individuals rights to psychological autonomy because they distort individuals personal autonomy. We have provided support for the claim that electronic surveillance in the workplace, together with other management techniques, may be used to distort individuals psychological autonomy. Finally, we have argued that, even if rights to psychological autonomy are limited to the domain of a person s own life, the scope of this domain is sufficiently broad that those rights also hold in the workplace.