Comprehensive Theory of Self-Determination
Support
The institution as infrastructure
An institution supports self-determination when it creates predictability, trust, participation, and real capacity to act. Its task is not to turn the person into an object of the system, but to create an environment where the person can act as a responsible subject.
Education
In CTSD, education is not only the transfer of knowledge. It should form a person who can understand the world, build judgment, choose direction, and act responsibly. An educational institution is self-determination-based when it strengthens the learner’s subjecthood.
Law
Law supports self-determination when it protects subjecthood and clarifies the conditions of freedom and responsibility. A person is a legal subject when they know their rights and duties and can defend their position without being lost in legal uncertainty.
Economy
The economy should expand human agency rather than turn the person into a dependent consumer, replaceable labor, or resource. A self-determination-based economic environment creates conditions in which work, property, and productivity serve the growth of real capability.
Technological environments
A technological environment supports self-determination when it expands human decision capacity and does not move the source of decision entirely into algorithms or closed systems. CTSD’s criterion is simple: does technology strengthen subjecthood, or replace it?