Autonomy

The current definition. I haven't looked at my crappy old dictionary entries.

The autonomy of the individual.

Let's see here, what individuals do we have? 

 

This is easy. Mr. Big Food, Suzy, Rocky, Missy, me. (There is a cat, but-- much as we love her-- she doesn't count in March.)

(If I were smarter, I'd make this a logical argument.)

And which of them is in the (2) condition?

This is the really hard question. I have always been sympathetic to attributing more to mammals, humans are mammals, than is really experimentally justified.

Can a dog be autonomous? Yes. Next question. 

Rocky is "free" in a contextual sense. Rocky is a dog. At 10 months old, and now with Missy-- almost 7 months old but three times his size--Rocky is struggling to maintain dominance. Missy is big. She's smart. He's having to work hard to stay on top of her. PUN. 

But some how or other, Rocky is sound asleep laying on a blanket that's not all that close to me or Missy, and is far far away from Mr. Big Food. 

Rocky has achieved autonomy. :-) He's managing his little corner of the world.

So long as he behaves himself, he's free. 

Rocky is a Dog.