Summary
Christine Korsgaard's "Self-Constitution" argues that the purpose of human action is to establish an agent's agency and identity. As rational beings, our control over action principles allows us to determine our own identities through our choices and their effects in the world. A good action constitutes its agent as autonomous and efficacious, aligning with Kant's categorical and hypothetical imperatives respectively. Korsgaard develops a theory of action and interaction, asserting that integrity is crucial for agency.
This work explores the foundation of practical reason and moral obligation, explaining why human actions can be morally good or bad. Korsgaard posits that an action is good or bad based on its function, analogous to understanding a heart's goodness by its function to pump blood. She concludes that only morally good actions can fulfill the function of self-constitution, making them essential for robust agency.
Key concepts
- Self-constitution — The act of establishing one's agency and identity through one's actions.
- Agency — The capacity of an individual to act independently and to make their own free choices.
- Autonomy — The state of being governed by one's own will and principles, as described by Kant's categorical imperative.
- Efficacy — The power to produce a desired effect or result, as described by Kant's hypothetical imperative.
- Integrity — A quality essential for agency, achieved through the proper form of interaction.
- Practical reason — The faculty by which we determine what to do; its foundation is explored through the theory of action.
From the book
Description: Christine M. Korsgaard presents an account of the foundation of practical reason and moral obligation, based on a new theory of action and interaction. She proposes that the function of an action is to constitute the agency and therefore the identity of the person who does it, and that only morally good action can serve this function. -;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. Just as we need to…
Snippet: Drawing on the work of Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, Korsgaard proposes that the function of an action is to. constitute the agency and therefore the identity of the person who does it.