Self-Constitution Agency, Identity, and Integrity

by Korsgaard, Christine M.

• ISBN13: 9780199552801
• ISBN10: 0199552800
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780191567827
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Christine M. Korsgaard presents an account of the foundation of practical reason and moral obligation. Moral philosophy aspires to understand the fact that human actions, unlike the actions of the other animals, can be morally good or bad, right or wrong. Few moral philosophers, however, have exploited the idea that actions might be morally good or bad in virtue of being good or bad of their kind - good or bad as actions. Drawing on the work of Plato, Aristotle,and Kant, Korsgaard develops a theory of action and interaction that supports this conclusion. Through action and interaction, we constitute our own identities, and Korsgaard argues that we cannot do this successfully without moral integrity.

Author Biography

Christine M. Korsgaard earned her B.A. at the University of Illinois in 1974, her Ph.D. at Harvard University, where she studied with John Rawls, in 1981, and an LHD at the University of Illinois in 2004. She is currently Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. She works on moral philosophy and its history, practical reason, agency, personal identity, and the relations between human beings and the other animals.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Works	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Agency and Identity	p. 1
Necessitation	p. 1
Acts and Actions	p. 8
Aristotle and Kant	p. 14
Agency and Practical Identity	p. 18
The Metaphysics of Normativity	p. 27
Constitutive Standards	p. 27
The Constitution of Life	p. 35
In Defense of Teleology	p. 37
The Paradox of Self-Constitution	p. 41
Formal and Substantive Principles of Reason	p. 45
Formal versus Substantive	p. 45
Testing versus Weighing	p. 49
Maximizing and Prudence	p. 52
Practical Reason and the Unity of the Will	p. 59
The Empiricist Account of Normativity	p. 59
The Rationalist Account of Normativity	p. 64
Kant on the Hypothetical Imperative	p. 68
Against Particularistic Willing	p. 72
Deciding and Predicting	p. 76
Autonomy and Efficacy	p. 81
The Function of Action	p. 81
The Possibility of Agency	p. 84
Non-Rational Action	p. 90
Action	p. 93
Attribution	p. 100
The Psychology of Action	p. 104
Expulsion from the Garden: The Transition to Humanity	p. 109
Instinct, Emotion, Intelligence, and Reason	p. 109
The Parts of the Soul	p. 117
Inside or Outside?	p. 122
Pull Yourself Together	p. 125
The Constitutional Model	p. 133
Two Models of the Soul	p. 133
The City and the Soul	p. 135
Platonic Virtues	p. 142
Justice: Substantive, Procedural, and Platonic	p. 148
Kant and the Constitutional Model	p. 153
Defective Action	p. 159
The Problem of Bad Action	p. 159
Being Governed by the Wrong Law	p. 161
Four or Five Bad Constitutions	p. 165
Conceptions of Evil	p. 170
Degrees of Action	p. 174
Integrity and Interaction	p. 177
Deciding to be Bad	p. 177
The Ordinary Cases	p. 180
Dealing with the Disunified	p. 184
Kant's Theory of Interaction	p. 188
My Reasons	p. 197
Deciding to Treat Someone as an End in Himself	p. 200
Interacting with Yourself	p. 202
How to be a Person	p. 207
What's Left of Me?	p. 207
Conclusion	p. 212
Bibliography	p. 215
Index	p. 219
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