Heteronomy
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The communitarian position has been stated most plainly by Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel. MacIntyre engages the whole liberal, Kantian moral tradition, in which the account of justice has a prominent place. There is no categorical imperative, at least unless there is a categorical end to be achieved — the heteronomy that Kant rejected."--Natural Law and Justice (1987) by Lloyd L. Weinreb, p. 251-52 |
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Heteronomy refers to action that is influenced by a force outside the individual. Immanuel Kant, drawing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considered such an action nonmoral.
It is the counter/opposite of autonomy.
Philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis contrasted heteronomy from autonomy in noting that while all societies create their own institutions (laws, traditions and behaviors), autonomous societies are those in which their members are aware of this fact, and explicitly self-institute (αυτο-νομούνται). In contrast, the members of heteronomous societies (hetero = others) attribute their imaginaries to some extra-social authority (e.g., God, the state, ancestors, historical necessity, etc.).
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