The Sources of Normativity
1996
First Published
4.14
Average Rating
290
Number of Pages
Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. But where does their authority over us come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies and examines four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers—voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy—and shows how Kant's autonomy-based account emerges as a synthesis of the other three. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G.A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by Korsgaard.
Avg Rating
4.14
Number of Ratings
405
5 STARS
38%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
15%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
1%
goodreads
Author
Christine M. Korsgaard
Author · 6 books
Christine M. Korsgaard is an American philosopher whose main academic interests are in moral philosophy and its history; the relation of issues in moral philosophy to issues in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of personal identity; the theory of personal relationships; and in normativity in general. She has taught at Yale, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Chicago; since 1991 she has been a professor at Harvard University. Korsgaard received a B.A. from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D from Harvard where she was a student of John Rawls.
