Autonomy

AUTONOMY. - From the Greek αὐτονομία, it is, in general, the faculty of governing oneself by one's own laws.

I. SOCIAL AUTONOMY

The principle of the a. of the will, applied to the social and juridical sciences, gave rise to a twofold current: individualism and absolutism.

The system of Rousseau and the consequent social and economic liberalism are founded on the a. of the will. The Social Contract opens with a phrase that is the condensation of the philosophy of rationalistic Enlightenment: "man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." A derivation of this principle is the pre-social state of nature, in which, according to Rousseau's conception, man would have been subject to no law other than that of his own will and his instincts. The contract, in turn, by which social life would have had its beginning, is nothing but an expedient directed at preserving man's original a. The problem that Rousseau intended to solve by it consisted in finding a type of association in which man would obey no one but himself and would remain as free as before. Popular sovereignty too was imposed by the same theoretical presupposition. The general will, being the arithmetical sum of individual wills, does not diminish the a. of the subjects, inasmuch as in obeying it they would be obeying themselves.

Kant's social thought moves along the same lines, as the more systematic assertor of the autonomistic principle, from which he derives his concept of right, understood as the sum of the conditions in which the free choice of the individual can coexist with the free choice of others, according to a universal law of freedom. For Kant the social problem is reduced to the preservation of the original a. 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 associated life: "act in such a way that the free exercise of one's own freedom can coexist with the freedom of every other." From such premises was born Lassalle's theory of the policeman state or night-watchman state and the liberal conception in all its nuances.

An opposite current, however, has constructed State absolutism on the same principle. This substitutes for atomistic individualism the organic conception of society, though deforming its meaning. 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 last step of the necessary evolution of the absolute spirit, and attribute to it a superior will perfectly distinct from that of individuals, to which they subject without residue the cells of the organism or the transient phenomena of the spirit.

The will of this abstract entity is, in turn, conceived as totally autonomous, intolerant of any external law and a law unto itself. Hence the dogma prevalent in modern social and juridical doctrine of the illimitability of the will of the State, elevated to the sole source of right, including that which it is called upon to observe. The accomplished transfer of the autonomistic principle from the individual to the State is clearly shown in Jellinek's theory of self-limitation, evidently constructed by applying the Kantian schema to the State. The ultimate consequence, however, is diametrically opposite, since the absolute a. of the will of the State leads to oppression and tyranny. The a. of the will thus appears as a double-edged sword, which, in the hands of the individual, cuts every bond of subjection to authority, and, in the hands of the State, severs man's head, suppressing his freedom.

The two opposite consequences already demonstrate the falsity of the principle, further revealed by the order of nature, by the testimony of conscience and by the concept of law and obligation. Objective experience teaches that every entity is guided by an internal law in the unfolding 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 he is the noblest part of the visible cosmos, is no exception to this incontrovertible datum of experience, and therefore bears, even more deeply inserted in his rational nature, a law of his own being, immanent and transcendent, with which the a. of the will is in opposition.

The immediate testimony of conscience confirms the conclusion. Among the most universal and most profound convictions of the human race belongs that according to which man is not the author of the law, since he feels not only that he cannot change it, but that he must observe it as a categorical prescription. The dictate of conscience is, in fact, absolute, expressing an indefeasible ought-to-be, inexplicable on the supposition of the total a. of the will. The law, moreover, is not a counsel, a directive or an ideal, but a precept, a command, an injunction. It therefore essentially supposes a dualism of wills, of a will from which the command proceeds and of a will to which it is addressed, it being entirely intuitive that no one can command himself. The total a. of the will could only be maintained on the absurd supposition that no law exists, whether moral or juridical.

The considerations set forth retain all their value with respect to the State, which, being a natural moral entity, also bears connected with its own being a law at once immanent and transcendent, which it does not create but finds constituted and must recognize, subjecting its own will to its prescriptions. Otherwise, both social life would be abandoned to arbitrary will, and the ethical essence of right would remain unexplained.

Antonio Messineo

II. ETHICAL AUTONOMY

In the broadest sense "moral a." is the independence of human reason and will from every extrinsic norm or law, as regards the foundation and the constitutive principles of morality. Hence the expression "autonomous ethics," to designate any system of morality founded solely on human nature, affirmed as the primary source of the ethical law and the ultimate norm of good and evil. The author of moral a. in modern philosophy is Kant. For Kant, a. is that character of the will, absolutely necessary to 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 acting were to let itself be determined by any extrinsic motive, following the impulse and activity of empirical good, or bending to a law come from outside, then, in one way or another, it would act for hedonistic or eudaemonistic ends, and morality itself would fail along with a. The only 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 a. 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 all matter of the law"; "The moral law expresses nothing other than the a. of pure practical reason" (Critique of Practical Reason, I, 1, § 4, Bari 1924, p. 40). The Kantian a. is taken up and strengthened in Fichte's idealism, in which the moral law is the reason and the stimulus of the development of the I; and the I itself, in its free activity and expansion, is essentially self-determination, moral a.

After Kant, while on the one hand the positivistic-materialistic currents annul ethics in utilitarianism, moral a., variously understood, according to the different metaphysical interpretations of human nature, becomes the common conception of the rationalistic systems that claim to find, in every subjection of the human will to an extrinsic or transcendent law, an insatiable corruption of the purity and independence of morality, which can be born and germinate only on the root of the purest human a. But it is not difficult to perceive that a. in the Kantian and rationalist sense likewise leads, by another path, to the consequences of utilitarianism, being unable to safeguard the absoluteness of moral values. In fact, no true and unconditional necessity can accompany the moral law, if, outside the individual and human reason — which certainly cannot 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 therefore the moral law, find their ultimate reason and foundation.

Nor in this conception of Christian ethics, which places in God the supreme reason of morality, is that true a. annulled which the human person rightly claims. For the moral law, in its principles and in all its particular determinations, is not posited as extrinsic to man; rather it is an expression of the order and value of human nature in its intrinsic relationship with the Absolute, and thus becomes truly the law that man bears within himself, in the deepest interiority of his moral being. Wherefore to obey the law is not to subject oneself to a norm imposed from outside, but is fundamentally to harmonize free action with the most immanent demands of rational human nature. And even when the morality of an action performed for an end of reward and happiness is defended — against the formal rigidity of Kantian morality, and, even earlier, of Stoic morality — one does not fall back into a heteronomy destructive of the purity of morality, since the end of reward for the will and the action is affirmed as essential and intrinsic to the moral order, as it is and determines itself concretely in the relationships of the human creature (v. ETICA).

Ugo Viglino

III. LEGAL AUTONOMY

In juridical language, "autonomy" is also the power that an entity has to establish by itself, through its own organs, the norms for its organization and its internal activity, even if such norms must be submitted to the approval of a higher authority, or must, in order to be valid and effective, not be in conflict with the norms or other measures issued by a higher entity or authority. As can be seen, therefore, autonomy is a very broad concept that admits of various gradations, and sovereignty too can fall within it. The broad and unitary notion of autonomy goes back to the first decades of the last century.

It may be said that autonomy belongs, to some extent, to every juridical person (v.), given that all of them 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, that the statutes and other norms issued by them have no value except insofar as 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 recognized in a particular way (and generally it was recognized to a more notable extent in past centuries) for cathedral or collegiate chapters, for monasteries, for religious associations, for universities and faculties, for associations of the faithful. But, if one excepts exempt clerical religions, the autonomy that these entities have does not seem to include the power to issue true and proper juridical norms, but at most norms of a nature not unlike contractual ones.

Each chapter must draw up (by collegial deliberation of the members of the chapter) its own statute, which, however, is subject to the approval of the bishop (can. 410). The statute governs the internal affairs of the chapter, such as: the number and the duties of the various members, and of the auxiliary offices; the time, the place, and the various modalities of the acts of the chapter and of the religious functions that must be performed by the chapter; the administration of goods and the distribution of revenues, and so on. Although capitular statutes cannot derogate from pontifical or diocesan laws, nevertheless some norms of the CIC in matters of chapters have a supplementary character, that is, they are obligatory only if the capitular statutes do not provide otherwise (can. 397).

Religions (religious associations), and often, in monastic orders, also individual monasteries (autonomous or sui iuris monasteries), must have their own statutes or constitutions, to which the CIC repeatedly refers (cf. cann. 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 the approval, according to the case, of the Holy See or of the ordinary. Furthermore, religious superiors and Chapters or councils may issue norms to regulate the internal life of the religion, norms which in exempt clerical religions may even be true legislative norms (cf. can. 501); in these same religions, certain superiors also have judicial powers (cf. cann. 654 ff., 1579, 1594 § 4).

As for statutes, what has been said for religions also holds for associations of common life without vows (cf. cann. 673 § 1, 675 § 1, 676 § 3, 677, 679, 681), and for secular institutes (cf. Ap. Const. Provida Mater, 2 Feb. 1947, in AAS, 37 [1947], pp. 114-24 and Instr. of the S. 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 Ap. Const. Deus scientiarum Dominus, 25 May 1931, in AAS, 23 [1931], pp. 241-62; S. Congregation of Seminaries, Ordinationes, 12 June 1931, arts. 3, 40, 47 and appendix 2, in AAS, 23 [1931], pp. 263-80) and the academic authorities of individual universities and faculties may issue other norms or measures for the good running of the institute.

Associations of the faithful (and principally Third Orders, confraternities, and pious unions) also have the power to give themselves their own statutes, subject however to the approval of the Holy See or of the ordinary, according to the case (cann. 689, 697, 715 § 1); and they have other limited powers of autonomy.

Pio Ciprotti