autonomism

[ aw-ton-uh-miz-uhm ]

noun

1. the belief in or a movement toward autonomy.

Other Words From

• au·tono·mist adjective noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of autonomism¹

First recorded in 1870–75; autonom(y) + -ism

Example Sentences

Moralism holds that the purpose of art is essentially a question of morality; autonomism, or separatism, holds that aesthetics are entirely autonomous/separate from morality.

From Time

Works of philosophy about the morality of art, which date at least all the way back to Plato, have tended to focus more on the moral role of the art’s content — the topic that led Oscar Wilde to write that books can be good or bad, but not moral or immoral — than on that of the artist, but the two perspectives that come out of that history can still be applied in the R. Kelly question: moralism versus autonomism.

From Time