Heteronomy refers to action that is influenced by a force outside the individual. Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

, drawing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considered such an action nonmoral.

It is the counter-opposite of autonomy

Autonomy

Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

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Philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek philosopher, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group.-Early life in Athens:...

contrasted heteronomy from autonomy in noting that while all societies create their own institutions (laws, traditions and behaviors), autonomous societies are those in which their members are aware of this fact, and explicitly self-institute (αυτο-νομούνται). In contrast, the members of heteronomous societies (hetero = others) attribute their imaginaries to some extra-social authority (i.e. God, the state, ancestors, historical necessity).