autexousious

English

Etymology

autexousy, from Ancient Greek αὐτεξούσια (autexoúsia) + -ous.

Adjective

autexousious (comparative more autexousious, superlative most autexousious)

1. (rare) Of, pertaining to, or exercising free will; volitient.
   • 1678, Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe‎^[1], volume 1, The California University Press, published 1820, page 454:

     Inclinations in all rational beings, vitally united to bodies, and that as autexousious, or free-willed, they should have a power of determining themselves more or less either way.

   • 1995, Stephen Darwall, The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought'‎^[2], The Michigan University Press & The Cambridge University Press, page 144:

     Moreover, these materials are sufficient, Cudworth holds, for a kind of "animal" obligation. It is possible that the soul may be here defective in the exertions of this autexousious faculty ... in not exerting or continuing sufficient conatus.

   • 2015 April 30, “The British Empire Party”, in Radley College Chronicle, volume 25, number 0.5, Radley: Radley College, page 5, column 1:

     Naturally, one would not want to exert certain idolisms on a nation and such imperialisation will be an act of the promotion of an autexousious auturgy.

   • 2022, Everisto Benyera, The Failure of the International Criminal Court in Africa, Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge, →ISBN:

     Because it was too focused on hindsight, the 1648 world order failed to forsee major upcoming events which were to threaten this world order and cause an upheaval in the internal arena. These upheavals occurred almost homoplasiously with European states agitating to be autexousious.

Related terms

• homousious

References

• “autexousious”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.