Individuals possess a natural and inalienable freedom of conscience and judgment, and are treated as the primary knowers and choosers in social life; they are entitled to form, revise, and act on their own beliefs and purposes within the limits of others' equal rights, and cannot be reduced to mere instruments of a collective plan or technical system.
Epistemic autonomy includes the right to make up your own mind and to have sophisticated efforts to influence your reasoning disclosed. People are owed intelligible justifications for decisions that shape their lives, and the systems—including AI systems—that inform or constrain them must remain open to inspection, challenge, and revision through public criticism, ensuring that no "oracular" source of authority is placed beyond reasoned contest or democratic control.
Human beings are rational agents capable of self-governance, and legitimate authority requires more than passive agreement or procedural acceptance. Consent is meaningful only when individuals are sufficiently informed and intellectually capable of understanding the decisions, systems, and consequences that affect them. People must have access to the relevant information, assumptions, and rules necessary to evaluate outcomes, and they must be free to examine, question, and reason about them without coercion or deception.