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Sep 28, 2017 · word-forming element of Greek origin meaning "self, one's own, by oneself, of oneself" (and especially, from 1895, "automobile"), from Greek autos, reflexive pronoun, "self, same," which is of unknown origin. It also was a common word-forming element in ancient Greek, as in modern English, but very few of the old words have survived the interval.
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Wortbildungselement griechischer Herkunft mit der Bedeutung...
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Elemento formativo di parole che significa "se stesso,...
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Automotive - autonomy | Etymology of autonomy by etymonline
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Autosome - autonomy | Etymology of autonomy by etymonline
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Autopilot - autonomy | Etymology of autonomy by etymonline
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Autophobia - autonomy | Etymology of autonomy by etymonline
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zombie. (n.). also zombi, jumbie, 1788, possibly...
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Do a number on is by 1969, exact meaning unclear; by the...
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- Kantian autonomy
- Millian and hierarchical accounts of autonomy
autonomy, in Western ethics and political philosophy, the state or condition of self-governance, or leading one’s life according to reasons, values, or desires that are authentically one’s own. Although autonomy is an ancient notion (the term is derived from the ancient Greek words autos, meaning “self,” and nomos, meaning “rule”), the most-influen...
For Kant, a person is autonomous only if his choices and actions are unaffected by factors that are external, or inessential, to himself. Thus, a person lacks autonomy, or is heteronomous, to the extent that his choices or actions are influenced by factors such as convention, peer pressure, legal or religious authority, the perceived will of God, or even his own desires. That desires are inessential to the self is shown by the fact that, unlike the self, they are contingent on the situation in which one finds oneself (e.g., a person living in the 18th century would not have a desire to own a personal computer, and a person living in the 21st century would not—at least not ordinarily—have a desire to use a chamber pot). A person whose situation and desires change, however, does not thereby become a different person. Even if the desires in question are not the product of one’s social environment but instead arise from one’s physiology, they are still inessential to the person who has them. A person who likes caviar but dislikes lobster would not become a different person if he were to acquire a taste for lobster and lose his taste for caviar.
Rationality, in contrast, is an essential feature of the self, according to Kant. Thus, a person will be autonomous with respect to his choices and actions if they are directed solely by his rationality. Kant is clear that this does not mean that a person is autonomous if he acts rationally to achieve some external end (e.g., to satisfy a desire to eat caviar). To act in this way is merely to act on what Kant called a “hypothetical imperative”—a rule of the form “If you want to achieve X, you should do Y.” Because actions that are guided by hypothetical imperatives are motivated by desires, they cannot be performed autonomously. To act rationally in the sense that grounds ascriptions of autonomy, therefore, a person must act according to a rule that would be valid for all similarly situated rational agents, regardless of their desires. This requirement is expressed in general terms in Kant’s “categorical imperative,” one version of which is: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal [moral] law”—i.e., a law that every similarly situated rational agent should follow. A person whose actions were guided by the categorical imperative could not lie to gain an advantage, for example, because he could not consistently will that everyone should follow the rule “Lie when it is to your advantage to do so.” If everyone did follow this rule, then no one would trust the word of anyone else, and no one, including the person contemplating the lie, would be able to reap the benefits of lying.
According to the Millian view of autonomy, a person is autonomous to the extent that he directs his actions in accordance with his own values, desires, and inclinations. Mill’s view thus contrasts with Kant’s in that it does not hold that autonomous persons cannot be motivated by desires; all that it requires is that the desires be their own. The crucial question then becomes what it means to say that a given reason, value, or desire is truly a person’s own.
The Millian account of autonomy has been more widely adopted within applied ethics than the Kantian account, in part because it appears to be more realistic. Very few, if any, persons intentionally act in accordance with at least the first version of the categorical imperative, yet it does not seem that autonomy is a rare phenomenon. In addition, the Millian view has been developed in fruitful and interesting ways since the 1970s in so-called hierarchical analyses of autonomy, which were introduced by the American philosopher Harry Frankfurt in his seminal paper “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person” (1971).
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Frankfurt’s early hierarchical account of autonomy addressed, among other problems, the intuitively plausible claim that there are cases in which a person might act in accordance with his own desires and yet not act autonomously. A drug addict, for example, has a desire to take the drug to which he is addicted. But is he acting autonomously when he takes the drug? It is arguable that he is not. If one also assumes that the drug addict wishes he were not addicted—i.e., he wishes that he did not have the desire to take the drug—then it becomes even more plausible to say that he is not acting autonomously. To accommodate such cases, Frankfurt claimed that in order for a person to perform an action autonomously, he must not only possess a desire to perform the action but also reflectively endorse his desire to take that action. For Frankfurt, endorsing a desire consists in having a second-order desire to have that desire. To be autonomous with respect to drug taking, therefore, the addict would have to possess both the desire to take the drug and the desire to have the desire to take the drug. Even if the addict had such a second-order desire, however, he still might not be autonomous with respect to his drug taking, because he might want to have the first-order desire for the drug but not want it to move him to act. (He might, for example, want to know what it feels like to be addicted to a drug but not actually to take the drug to which he would feel addicted.) To take the drug autonomously, therefore, the addict must desire to take the drug, desire to desire to take the drug, and desire that his first-order desire move him to act.
Frankfurt’s account has been subject to three criticisms. The first concerns the criteria for establishing that a given desire is authentic, or truly one’s own. Given that the authenticity of first-order desires is guaranteed by the possession of certain second-order desires, what guarantees the authenticity of second-order desires? If the answer is the possession of certain third-order desires, then the account leads to an infinite regress (the same question could be asked regarding third-order desires, fourth-order desires, and so on) and thus to no real explanation. But if the answer is something else, then Frankfurt’s account is seriously incomplete.
- James Stacey Taylor
"Autonomous" is derived from the Greek word autonomos [13] where 'auto' means self and 'nomos' means to govern (nomos: as can be seen in its usage in nomárchēs which means chief of the province). Kantian autonomy also provides a sense of rational autonomy, simply meaning one rationally possesses the motivation to govern their own life.
I. Definition Autonomy (pronounced aw-TAW-nuh-mee) is Greek for “self-rule,” and it’s basically another word for liberty. If you have autonomy, you are able to make your own choices and go your own direction. It’s a central idea in modern political theory, closely related to the ideas of political freedom and democracy. Autonomy is all about thinking for yourself and acting on your own desires, while living in a free society whose laws give you the liberty to make your own decisions ...
Aug 31, 2021 · What is the word origin of autonomous? According to Etymonline, the word autonomous has been used since the late 18c and comes from the Greek autonomos/Greek autónomos meaning having one’s own laws or of animals to mean feeding or ranging at will. This comes from the Greek autos meaning self and Greek nomos meaning law.
When a group wants to govern itself or a person wants to make independent decisions, they are looking for autonomy.
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The adjective 'autonomous' has its etymological origins in Greek. It is formed from the Greek words 'auto' (meaning 'self') and 'nomos' (meaning 'law' or 'rule'). When combined, 'autonomous' literally means 'self-governing' or 'self-ruling.' In its original Greek context, it was used to describe city-states or regions with the authority to ...
