Autonomy and Idionomy

'Autonomy' has been a prominent notion in Moral Thoery since Kant's attempt to equate Autonomous and Moral Conduct. His 'Fundamental Principle of Pure Practical Reason', better, but less adequately, known as the 'Categorical Imperative', challenges the long tradition that asserts that all human behavior is insuperably subject to irrational instincts, e. g. fear of punishment, hope for reward. Since such behavior is ultimately merely mechanical, it hardly deserves to be classified as 'Moral', according to Kant. Instead, for him, Morality must be autonomous, and only acting out of respect for one's own Rational nature qualifies as such. The latter, more specifically, entails the free obedience to the Principle 'Act only on such a maxim that you can at the same time will to be a universal law.' But, such a notion of 'Autonomy'--the free choice to submit to impersonal authority--has seemed to many to be a paradoxical interpretation of a word defined as 'self-rule'. Now, the Phronetic Principle, 'Evolve as much as possible', likewise entails self-motivation, i. e. Conduct that is the enactment of an Intention that explicitly takes one's own Past as a prelude. But, the Evolvement that it prescribes remains within the locus of Individual experience, i. e. a transition from one stage of accomplishment to another. Hence, to avoid confusion with Kant's ambitions, though 'Autonomous' does, strictly speaking, describe Individual Evolvement, I have coined the stucturally equivalent 'Idionomous' to characterize the latter instead. In contrast with Kantian Autonomy, Evolvemental Idionomy is, as I have earlier discussed, more completely Individualistic.