The Sources of Normativity

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 phil...

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.

克里斯蒂娜·科尔斯戈德(Christine M．Korsgaard)，1952年生于芝加哥，哈佛大学哲学教授。她在哈佛大学取得哲学博士学位，师从当代最著名的政治哲学家约翰．罗尔斯，先后执教于耶鲁大学、芝加哥大学和哈佛大学；主要研究领域为道德哲学、心灵哲学、个体同一性理论及形而上学等；主要著作有：《规范性的来源》和《创造目的王国》等。