20 Examples of Autonomy and Heteronomy

The autonomy and heteronomy are concepts associated with human action, insofar as people's behavior can be carried out as a result of decisions made on their own account, or through the influence of an agent external. For example: listen to one kind of music or another, always wear the clothes that appear in the magazines.

In fact, the actual performance of the action is always private and individual, but it may happen that the person is forced or simply motivated to do it for some other mobile phone.

The origin of the difference between autonomous and heteronomous actions lies in psychology and in research regarding the moral: one way to define this antinomy is to think whether moral standards they come from oneself or from another.

Whoever establishes a mandate for which another must act is using his moral autonomy, while whoever receives the mandate may only be using autonomy if it is he who established it, or if he has complete Liberty to abide by it.

Contributions of Psychology

The psychology

had many contributions in relation to moral judgment, and among all of them the one by Jean Piaget stands out, who considered that throughout the child's education there are two phases precisely delimited by heteronomy or the autonomy of morality:

External conditioning factors

Perform a judgment that objectively divide the autonomous behaviors of the heteronomous ones would imply leaving a large number of assumptions assumed. Perhaps the most important of them is that people have a certain autonomy, which is highly debatable.

Throughout history, there were a large number of factors that conditioned the way of thinking, feeling and acting of the people, among which the religion, but that many authors considered their way.

In order to Augusto Comte society was the issuer of moral mandates, for Karl Marx the ruling capitalist class, and for Friedrich Nietzsche the very subject who obeys, approaching the theory of autonomy.

Examples of autonomous behaviors

To exemplify, some clear examples of behaviors that can be classified as autonomous will be listed below:

1. Dress as one chooses, beyond fashions or trends.
2. Deciding to break up with a partner despite the fact that your parents ask you to continue it.
3. Consume some substance that it is harmful to the body, even though everyone tells it not to do it.
4. Decide individual political preferences.
5. Listen to one kind of music or another.
6. Choose a career to study or change the area of ​​study.
7. Respect the traditions of the creed to which one belongs, in an unfavorable context.
8. Go against the grain, if a child observes that others are doing something wrong.
9. Start practicing a sport, in an environment where one does not know any partner.
10. Stop smoking, in a context where everyone smokes.

Examples of heteronomous behaviors

In opposition, here is a list of examples of clearly heteronomous behaviors:

1. Always wear the clothes that appear in the magazines.
2. To continue a partner that one does not want, due to family pressure.
3. Pay attention to the doctor in front of any advice or prescription.
4. Being part of a clientelist network to support a politician.
5. Always prefer the album that they play on the radio.
6. Carry out the studies ordered by the boss.
7. Comply with a political prohibition to practice a cult.
8. Joining the crowd and mistreating a partner.
9. Starting an activity because all of her friends started it.
10. Stop smoking by order of the doctor.

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