The Sources of Normativity

Abstract

Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least when we invoke them, we make claims on one another; but where does their authority over us - or ours over one another - come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy. She traces their history, showing how each developed in response to the prior one and comparing their early versions with those on the contemporary philosophical scene. Kant's theory that normativity springs from our own autonomy emerges as a synthesis of the other three, and Korsgaard concludes with her own version of the Kantian account. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by Korsgaard.

Political Authority, Practical Identity, and Binding Citizens

“…15 For problems with actual consent theories of political obligation see Simmons (1979), Beran (1987), Klosko (2005), and Knowles (2010). 16 The term 'practical identity' is borrowed from Korsgaard (1996). Although I do not endorse her theory of the foundations of a categorical morality, I have learned a great deal from her many insights.…”

Knowing Your Own Strength: Accurate Self-Assessment as a Requirement for Personal Autonomy

“…This idea of the practical reflexivity of human agency is defended across a variety of schools of thought, although it is probably most prominent in broadly Kantian (and Hegelian) approaches to agency (see, e.g., Brandom 1994;Habermas 1984;Honneth 1995;Korsgaard 1996;andVelleman 1989, 2000, ch. 1, 6, 8).…”

Do androids dream of normative endorsement? On the fallibility of artificial moral agents

“…They have to endorse the moral principles they act upon as principles that are action-guiding in themselves, i.e. that supply them with reasons to act (or to omit action) without being just instrumentally valuable means to some other end (see Korsgaard 1996 for a general account of normative endorsement).…”