  This disagreement about the defining characteristics of autonomous agency reflects the fact that even as concrete examples appear to call attention to a very real difference between those who govern themselves and those who do not, there are significant conceptual obstacles to making sense of this distinction. These obstacles are tied to the very feature of agency mentioned above—the feature that appears to support the demand that individuals be granted considerable political and legal power. If an agent fails to govern herself when she acts, this must be because what she does is independent of her power to determine how she will act. But if she necessarily has the authority to determine how she will act, and if this essential feature of agency is inseparable from the fact that she necessarily defers to herself whenever she initiates her action, then how can her behavior possibly escape her control? Intuitively, an agent can fall under the sway of desires, or urges, or compulsions whose power is at odds with her own power as an agent; she can be moved by such impulses “in spite of herself.” But in what sense, exactly, are such motives “external” to the agent herself? How can their power to move her fail to be a manifestation of her power to act? How can their power reduce her authorization of her action to a mere formality? It is difficult to answer these questions when the governing agent and the agent she governs are one and the same.