Heteronomy

From Geography

Heteronomy is a term strongly related to the opposite term autonomy. Immanuel Kant wrote about the contrast between autonomy and heteronomy in his Critique of Practical Reason. In his Critique Kant outlined the distinctions of a free will that constituted its own law and a coerced will that permitted itself to be commanded (Kant, 1949). Rousseau would say much the same. So heteronomy is about to be forced to act in a certain and specific way by others, by rules, by law, by God etc. There is less or none free will to act in certain way, but people are forced to act that way.

Autonomy on the other hand is about acting in a completely free way by free will. Kant, and also Rousseau, say the following: Autonomy raises man above his passions, the narrows of belief and ideology, and positions him instead in the realms of universal moral law and reason, which cut across geography and historical context (Kant, 1949). In that manner people can make choices out of a free will without being forced or pushed by contexts (political, filosofical etc.) or other third actors. But The seductions of heteronomy, of course, cannot be so easily dismissed. A life of ease, a life without the hardscrabble pull of idealism and compromise, would appear at first of finer quality. A man’s choices would already be preset; the limits on action would restrict him to a tapered range of theological, moral or political options (Hartmann, 2007).

References:

Hartmann, D. (2007). The commanded Life. Thesis. New York, United States.

Kant, I. (1949). Critique of Practical Reason and other writings in moral philosophy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.