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VOCABULARY OF PHILOSOPHY – AUTONOMY

AUTONOMY (αὐτὸς νόμος, itself a law).—Autonomy of the will is Kant’s phrase for the doctrine that the human will is a law unto itself, or carries its guiding principle within itself. «Autonomy of Will is that quality of Will by which a Will (independently of an object willed) is a law to itself» (Metaphysics of Ethics, Semple, 3rd ed., p. 55; Kant’s Theory of Ethics, Abbot, 3rd ed., p. 59).Bearing on this, Kant’s leading positions are these:— «Reason is given to man as the governor of his Will, by its sway to constitute it altogether good» (Semple, 5); the notion Duty comprehends under it «that of a good Will, considered, however, as affected by certain inward hindrances» (7); Duty is the necessity of an act out of reverence felt for law» (11); the formula of «ideal legality» is this—»Act from a maxim at all times fit for law universal» (13); «ethical ideas have their origin and seat altogether à priori in the Reason» (23); an intelligent being «alone has the prerogative of acting according to the representation of laws, i.e., according to principle, or has a Will» (25); «freedom of will is autonomy, i.e., that property of will by which it determines its own causality, and gives itself its own law» (58); «reason must have a causality of its own, adapted for determining the sensory according to its own principles » (74).
 
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