Autonomoktisis: Prolegomenon to the autonomy approach

I want to tell you about autonomoktisis. We could also call it the autonomy approach. Simply put: People, societies, and governments should seek to convert heteronomy into autonomy. Let’s explore what that means. What follows is a prolegomenon, intended to chart a direction, not conclude a journey.

Autonomoktisis = autos (self) + nomos (law) + ktisis (to create/bring into being)

1. The central journey of moral life is from heteronomy to autonomy. Heteronomy is the state of being a reader of rules—obeying an external law out of habit, fear, or social pressure without grasping its inner logic. Autonomy is the state of becoming an author of rules, where the moral law is no longer an alien imposition but an intimate, internalized principle that one understands and willingly authors for oneself.

2. The primary moral-psychological function of government is to act as a perpetual engine for autonomoktisis. The state, in this dimension, is not a monolith of authority, but a dynamic machine designed to input heteronomy and output autonomy. It fulfills a sacred, cyclical duty not unlike that of a parent: its success is measured by its ability to raise citizens into a moral adulthood, knowing full well that the next generation will arrive in need of the very same guidance.

3. True freedom is not found in liberty, but in autonomous obedience to an internalized, universal law. A society of merely liberated individuals is a chaos of competing desires, an archipelago of lonely egos. A society of autonomous individuals, however, would be a communion; it would be a hyperorganism acting with a spontaneous moral cohesiveness, guided by a shared internal compass pointing toward the Good. This is the distinction between the empty freedom from external constraint and the substantive freedom to participate perfectly in a moral order.

4. Autonomy is the foundational layer of political morality, residing beneath both the Capability Approach and Utilitarianism. Imagine political philosophy as the architecture of a house. Utilitarianism is the interior decorator, arranging the furniture for maximum happiness. The Capability Approach is the contractor, ensuring the residents have the strength and skill to use the furniture and navigate the rooms. But autonomy is the architect of the foundation itself; it asks the basement question of who we must become, and in so doing, provides the unshakeable ground upon which all other, more superficial arrangements must rest.

5. This internalized law must be a reflection of natural law, not the arbitrary whims of positive legislation. To internalize a bad or arbitrary rule is simply to become a more efficient prisoner, to decorate one’s own cage with exquisite care. The project of autonomoktisis is therefore a rapprochement with natural law and a pre-existing moral logic that is woven into the fabric of reality. It is a dialogue with a truth we discover rather than invent, a truth that prevents our self-authorship from becoming solipsistic.

6. The autonomous citizen is not a God creating morality ex nihilo, but a Demiurge, skillfully shaping a moral world from the given material of natural law. This distinction guards against the hubris of the modern will-to-power. We are not aiming for a positivist creation of the Good, but for a sacred craft; we are the artisans of our own souls, and the soul of our society, working with a substance that is not of our own making but which we are uniquely suited to perfect. We are, in a sense, bookbinders for the scattered pages of the universe.

7. An autonomy-promoting society structures its economy as a form of practical morality. Transitioning to an economic paradigm like Georgism from other systems like capitalism and socialism is a mirror-image of the movement from heteronomy to autonomy. It embeds the morality of autonomoktisis directly into our material lives. Material gain should not be the driving force of these changes, but greater autonomy should go hand-in-hand with greater ownership of one’s labor.

8. The ascent of autonomy is the societal vector toward integritas and eudaimonia over the mere pursuit of felicitas. The entire project rejects happiness as the primary goal of a well-lived life or a well-run state. It aims instead for wholeness, for integrity of the self, for the kind of flourishing that comes from confronting difficult truths. It embraces the torment of self-discovery as the necessary price for a soul that is complete, rather than one that is merely comfortable.

9. Each autonomous citizen becomes a living moral blueprint from which a just society could be infinitely rebuilt. Like a single cell containing the complete DNA of an organism, the perfected individual would carry within them the complete code for a perfected world. This creates the ultimate resilience against social entropy. Outsourcing morality to experts and governments is fragile. Autonomoktisis is antifragile.

10. The moral evolution of a society mirrors the psychological development of a child, and we are currently in a form of arrested development. A healthy society is one that grows up. It moves from an infantile reliance on external commands toward mature self-governance. There is no heteronomous escape from our metacrisis. We must seek autonomy.