HETERONOMY (from Gr. ἕτερος and νόμος, the rule of another), the state of being under the rule of another person. In ethics the term is specially used as the antithesis of “autonomy,” which, especially in Kantian terminology, treats of the true self as will, determining itself by its own law, the moral law. “Heteronomy” is therefore applied by Kant to all other ethical systems, inasmuch as they place the individual in subjection to external laws of conduct.