AUTONOMY. — From the Greek αὐτονομία, it is, in general, the faculty of governing oneself by one’s own laws.
I. SOCIAL A
The principle of the autonomy of the will, applied to the social and juridical sciences, has given rise to a twofold current: individualism and absolutism.The autonomy of the will is the foundation of Rousseau’s system and the consequent social and economic liberalism. The Social Contract opens with a phrase that is the distillation of rationalist Enlightenment philosophy: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” A derivation of this principle is the presocial state of nature, in which, according to Rousseau’s conception, man would have been subject only to the law of his own will and his instincts. The contract, by which social life would have begun, is merely a device intended to preserve the originality of man. The problem that Rousseau sought to resolve with it consisted in finding a type of association in which man would obey only himself and remain as free as before. Popular sovereignty was likewise imposed by the same theoretical prejudice. General will, being the arithmetical sum of individual wills, does not diminish the autonomy of the subjects, inasmuch as by obeying it they obey themselves.
On the same path moves the social thought of Kant, a more systematic advocate of the autonomist principle, from which he derives his concept of right, understood as the set of conditions under which the arbitrariness of the individual can coexist with the arbitrariness of others, according to a general law of freedom. The social problem is reduced for Kant to the preservation of the original autonomy of the will, and this leads him to conceive of right as a means destined to regulate the coexistence of conflicting freedoms and to establish the following universal norm of social life: “Act in such a way that the free exercise of your freedom can coexist with the freedom of every other.” From these premises arose the theory of the political state as a “night-watchman” (Lassalle) and the liberal conception in all its nuances.
An opposing current, however, has constructed on the same principle the absolutism of the State. This substitutes for atomistic individualism the organic conception of society, though deforming its sense. Both positivism and materialist sociologism, as well as spiritualist idealism, conceive of society either as the effect of fatal, cosmic, and biological laws or as the final stage of the necessary evolution of the absolute spirit, and they attribute to it a superior will perfectly distinct from that of individuals, to which they submit without remainder the cells of the organism or the transitory phenomena of the spirit.
The will of this abstract entity is, in turn, conceived as entirely autonomous, intolerant of any external law and law unto itself. Hence the prevalent dogma in modern social and juridical doctrine of the unlimited autonomy of the State’s will, elevated to the unique source of law, even of that which it is called upon to observe. The transfer of the autonomist principle from the individual to the State is clearly shown in Jellinek’s theory of the automatization of the State, evidently constructed by applying the Kantian schema to the State. The ultimate consequence, however, is diametrically opposed, since the absolute autonomy of the State’s will leads to oppression and tyranny. The autonomy of the will thus appears as a double-edged sword, which, in the hands of the individual, severs every bond of subjection to authority, and, in the hands of the State, cuts off the head of man, suppressing his freedom.
These two opposing consequences already demonstrate the falsity of the principle, further revealed by the order of nature, the testimony of conscience, and the concept of law and obligation. Objective experience teaches that every entity is guided by an internal law in the exercise of its activity, which, being a law of nature, is at once immanent and transcendent, inasmuch as nature postulates a supreme creator as its sufficient reason. Man, although the noblest part of the visible cosmos, is no exception to this incontrovertible datum of experience, and therefore carries within his own rational nature a law of his being, immanent and transcendent, with which the autonomy of the will is in opposition.
The immediate testimony of conscience confirms this conclusion. Among the most universal and profound convictions of the human race is the belief that man is not the author of the law, for he feels not only that he cannot change it but that he must observe it as a categorical prescription. The dictate of conscience is indeed absolute, expressing an inescapable duty that cannot be explained on the supposition of the total autonomy of the will. Moreover, the law is not a piece of advice, a directive, or an ideal, but a precept, a command, an injunction. It therefore essentially presupposes a dualism of wills: a will from which the command proceeds and a will to which it is directed, it being altogether evident that no one can command himself. Total autonomy of the will could only be sustained on the absurd supposition that no law, moral or juridical, exists.
The considerations set forth retain their full value with respect to the State, which, being a natural moral entity, also carries within its being a law that is at once immanent and transcendent, which it does not create but finds already constituted and must acknowledge, subordinating its own will to its prescriptions. Otherwise, social life would be abandoned to arbitrariness, and the ethical essence of law would be inexplicable.
II. ETHICAL A
In the broadest sense, “moral autonomy” is the independence of human reason and will from any extrinsic norm or law regarding the foundation and constitutive principles of morality. Hence the expression “autonomous ethics,” to designate any moral system founded solely on human nature, affirmed as the first source of the ethical law and the ultimate norm of good and evil. The author of moral autonomy in modern philosophy is Kant. For Kant, autonomy is that character of the will, absolutely necessary for morality, by which it determines itself solely by virtue of the universal form of the law that it bears within itself. For if the will in its action were to allow itself to be determined by any extrinsic motive, whether following the impulse and activity of empirical good or bending to a law coming from without, then in one way or another it would act for heteronomous and eudaimonistic ends, and autonomy itself, along with morality, would be lost. The sole source of obligation and determination is and must remain in practical reason, which posits the unconditional moral law and makes it felt through the categorical imperative. “The autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of the duties corresponding to them”; “The sole principle of morality consists in independence from every material of the law”; “The moral law expresses nothing other than the autonomy of pure practical reason” (Critique of Practical Reason, I, I, § 4, Bari 1924, p. 40). Kantian autonomy is taken up and strengthened in Fichte’s idealism, in which the moral law is the reason and stimulus of the development of the Ego; and the Ego itself, in its free activity and expansion, is essentially self-determination, moral autonomy.After Kant, while on the one hand positivistic-materialistic currents reduce ethics to utilitarianism, moral autonomy, variously understood according to the different metaphysical interpretations of human nature, becomes the common conception of rationalistic systems that claim to find, in every subjection of the human will to an extrinsic or transcendent law, an incurable corruption of the purity and independence of morality, which can only arise and flourish from the root of the purest human autonomy. But it is not difficult to see that autonomy in the Kantian and rationalist sense also leads, by another path, to the consequences of utilitarianism, being unable to safeguard the absoluteness of moral values. Indeed, no true and unconditional necessity can accompany the moral law if, outside the individual and human reason—which cannot certainly be identified with the Absolute, unless one falls back into pantheistic systems—there is no eternal value of truth and order in which good and evil, and thus the moral law, find their ultimate reason and foundation.
Nor does this conception of Christian ethics, which places in God the supreme reason of morality, annul that true autonomy which rightly claims the human person. For the moral law, in its principles and in all its particular determinations, is not posited as extrinsic to man; rather, it is the expression of the order and value of human nature in its intrinsic relationship with the Absolute, and thus becomes truly the law that man carries within himself, in the deepest interiority of his moral being. Hence, obedience to the law is not submission to a norm imposed from without, but is ultimately the free action’s accord with the most immanent exigencies of rational human nature. And even when one defends the morality of an action performed for the sake of reward and happiness—against the formal rigidity of Kantian, and even earlier Stoic, morality—one does not lapse into a heteronomy that destroys the purity of morality, since the end of reward for the will and action is affirmed as essential and intrinsic to the moral order, as it is and is concretely determined in the relationships of the human creature (v. ETICA).
It can be said that autonomy pertains, to some degree, to every juridical person (v.), since all have at least the *ius statuendi vel condendi statuta*; but, if one excepts sovereign societies (primary or original juridical orders, perfect societies), such as the Catholic Church and the State, the autonomy of all juridical persons is limited at least in this respect: the statutes and other norms they issue have no value unless they do not conflict with the juridical order of the perfect society to whose sovereignty the juridical person is subject.
In canon law, autonomy is particularly recognized (and generally to a greater extent in past centuries) in cathedral or collegiate chapters, monasteries, religious associations, universities and faculties, and associations of the faithful. But, if one excepts exempt clerical religious institutes, the autonomy of these entities does not seem to include the power to issue true juridical norms; at most, it includes norms of a nature not dissimilar to contractual ones.
Each chapter must draw up (by collegial deliberation of its members) its own statutes, which, however, are subject to the approval of the bishop (can. 410). The statutes regulate the internal affairs of the chapter, such as: the number and duties of the various members and auxiliary offices; the time, place, and various modalities of the chapter’s acts and the religious functions to be performed by the chapter; the administration of goods and the distribution of revenues, and so forth. Although the chapter statutes cannot derogate from pontifical or diocesan laws, some provisions of the CIC on chapters are of a suppletive nature, i.e., they are binding only if the chapter statutes do not provide otherwise (can. 397).
Religious institutes (religious associations), and often, in monastic orders, even individual monasteries (autonomous or *sui iuris* monasteries), must have their own statutes or constitutions, to which the CIC frequently refers (cf. can. 489, 500 § 2, 501, 504, 505, 507, 509 § 2 n. 1, 532, 593, 612, 618 § 2 n. 1, and many others); such constitutions are subject to approval, depending on the case, by the Holy See or the ordinary. Moreover, religious superiors and chapters or councils can issue norms to regulate the internal life of the institute; in exempt clerical religious institutes, these norms can even be true legislative norms (cf. can. 501); in these same institutes, certain superiors also have judicial powers (cf. can. 654 ff., 1579, 1594 § 4).
As for statutes, what has been said regarding religious institutes also applies to associations of common life without vows (cf. can. 673 § 1, 675 § 1, 676 § 3, 677, 679, 681) and to secular institutes (cf. Apostolic Constitution *Provida Mater*, 2 Feb 1947, in AAS, 37 [1947], pp. 114-24 and Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, 19 March 1928, in AAS, 40 [1948], pp. 293-97).
Every ecclesiastical university or faculty has its own statutes, which must be approved by the Holy See (can. 1376 § 2, arts. 5 and 20 of the Apostolic Constitution *Deus scientiarum Dominus*, 25 May 1931, in AAS, 23 [1931], pp. 241-62; Sacred Congregation of Seminaries, *Ordinamenta*, 12 June 1931, arts. 3, 40, 47 and Appendix 2, in AAS, 23 [1931], pp. 263-80), and the academic authorities of each university and faculty can issue other norms or provisions for the proper functioning of the institute.
Associations of the faithful (and principally Third Orders, confraternities, and pious unions) also have the power to draw up their own statutes, which, however, are subject to approval by the Holy See or the ordinary, depending on the case (can. 689, 697, 715 § 1); and they have other limited powers of autonomy.