Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Heteronomy
/hɛtəˈrɒnəmi/noun
Subjection to a law or rule imposed from outside, rather than one the agent gives itself.
The Greek roots
ἕτερος
héteros
other, different
νόμος
nómos
law
Literally: “law from another”
The story of the word
Kant made the word carry weight by setting it against autonomy, self-law. For him an act done from fear, appetite or reward is heteronomous even when it looks perfectly moral, because the rule came from somewhere other than reason. Political theorists later stretched it to states and institutions governed from outside, and biologists borrowed it again for organs following different developmental rules.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German philosophical usage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
autonomyheterodoxheterogeneouseconomyastronomy
In a sentence
He argues the reforms replaced one heteronomy with another rather than granting real self-rule.
Kant treats obedience motivated by punishment as heteronomy, not virtue.