On Personal Autonomy: David Berreby | GP Interview #7
This is the seventh in a series of written interviews with thinkers, artists, activists and other luminaries around the world, people whose life’s work resonates with our founding principles.
Our friend David Berreby is a science writer living in New York City. He’s the author of Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind and has contributed over the years to the NY Times, the New Yorker, National Geographic, The Guardian, Smithsonian, Psychology Today, The New Republic, Nature and many other publications.
David’s newest work in progress is a look at the concept of personal autonomy, from its origin in theological argument to its current unsettled state. Today the rational-individual model is under challenge from psychology, political theory, neuroscience and artificial intelligence research. We explore what this all means for everyday people’s lives.
GP: Could you share a few of the central ideas from the book you’re working on? How do you see the nature of personal autonomy?
DB: The project began a few years ago, when I realized people were talking about personal autonomy in ways that weren’t possible when I was a child.
I grew up with the idea that the summit of human achievement was a society in which individuals freely made choices that were best…
