The autonomy principle underlies many of the freedoms and rights spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 in an attempt to learn lessons from two world wars. This includes freedom of thought, speech and movement, freedom from slavery and torture, the right to life, liberty, security and education and the right to marry, work and own property. If we wish to be less anthropocentric, we can generalize this to the freedom to think, learn, communicate, own property and not be harmed, and the right to do whatever
