Authority rules and commands with fear like a bully or in Smilla's case a police officer. Smilla was raised in Greenland, she lived outdoors for half her life when she came to the city she felt like an outsider" she felt confined, and out of her norm, being locked up in a prison cell frightens her profoundly. The police know this and threaten her with imprisonment if she furthers her search for the truth. She acts in every other instance as to be as tough, rebellious, thorny character until this horrific threat is brought to her attention. Terrified Smilla decides to not further the search for the truth. Smilla's decision to search for the truth of Isaiah's murder changes when her beliefs of right and wrong overpower her fear. Wolf states that individual duty to follow his/her moral reasoning conflicts with authority right to determine what the individual shall do. This is what happened in Smilla's case, even though authority told her not to further the investigation she went against their authority and furthered the investigation, because of her moral beliefs. Smilla is following Wolf's view of moral autonomy. .
Moral autonomy is a combination of freedom and responsibility; it is a submission to law, which one has made for oneself. The autonomous man is not subject to the will of another therefore in the political sense he is free. In this sense Smilla is free and has the right to make the decision on her own, without obeying the authority of the police. To be autonomous is to be "self-regulating" meaning reserving the right to think for oneself as far as making important decisions about belief and conduct. Smilla's belief system is based on her Greenlandic heritage, in the film she says to her neighbor "My people believed that when you kill something you offend its soul, I need Isaiah's soul to be at peace." Smilla's beliefs, in Wolf's view justify her actions. Smilla knows by fact that Isaiah was murdered and she feels morally obliged to find out who killed him and why.
