One of the ideas embedded in the notion of freedom is that of autonomy; a part of being free is that one's decisions and actions  really be one's own.  It may be helpful to distinguish between two complementary aspects of autonomy, namely, non-perfectionist and perfectionist autonomy: the former occurs when a subject's decisions and actions are free from undue interference from others; the latter when, in addition, the subject's decisions and actions are free form undue interference from one's unwanted passions or character traits .

1. Non-perfectionist autonomy
Autonomy is a right (not a mere permission) to make certain personal decisions without undue interference from others.
There are two types of argument for autonomy:

1. Kantian argument: persons are ends in themselves because they possess a rational will.  But a rational will manifests itself in decisions and actions, and consequently the respect due to a person requires autonomy.
2. Utilitarian arguments:
• Once people achieve a certain level of welfare and  education, they value their individuality and the development of their own capacities; these can flourish only in an environment in which free deliberation and choice are possible.  Hence, general happiness is increased by creating a right of autonomy.
• The alternative to a right to autonomy is some form of paternalism, which suffers from ‘paternalistic distance’, for:
1. the subject is usually more concerned with his good than paternalist.
2. the subject usually knows his good better than paternalist.

objection: often people act stupidly.
reply: yes, but all we should do is to make right options available to them.
• Depriving people of autonomy (i.e., engaging in paternalism) leads to treating adults as children.  But this turns adults into children, unable to contribute to the free market of ideas and practices which increases general happiness.

One can view autonomy as the capacity to be the sort of person one wills to be, that is, the capacity to attune one's motivations to one's values.  This involves the difficult task of changing one's character.
However, this leaves the issue of the origin of one's values open.

• Clearly, to the extent that one's values are the result of indoctrination, hypnosis or brain-washing, and are accepted without any critical evaluation, one cannot be  autonomous.
• Although there is a need for the social transmission of values through parents,  school, etc., to the extent that one accepts them uncritically, one cannot achieve autonomy.

 NOTES:

• One may add the demand that the values be the right ones.  The problem, is that different people may have different conceptions of the good.
• A particularly interesting issue is that of false consciousness, namely, a set of (usually) descriptive beliefs with high moral relevance which contribute to keep  one in a position of unwarranted inferiority.  For example, a woman or a paria may believe (wrongly) that their position is the result of some natural inferiority, not of specific forms of exploitation.
• Some social philosophers believe that the consumer society produces a peculiar form of false consciousness by creating ‘false needs’ (the need for expensive clothing, cars, big TV’s etc.).  The satisfaction of false needs produces euphoria (but not happiness), requires aggressive and competitive behavior (a sort of rat race) and favors powerful economic and political groups at the expense of the welfare of most people.

  
  Problem: how does one determine what a false need is?  Perhaps one can claim that a need which is not based on any rational means of persuasion is a false one.
  NOTE: I one accepts the theory of false needs, a liberal consumer society like ours presents the particular problem that its members, suffering from false consciousness, do not want to be emancipated.