The Sources of Normativity

Korsgaard's Tanner Lectures of 1992, published with commentaries by G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams and her reply. She asks the "normative question": what justifies the claims morality makes on us, when we ask in earnest why we must do what it says? She reviews three historical answers: voluntarism, which grounds obligation in the command of a legitimate authority; realism, which says some things simply are intrinsically normative; and reflective endorsement, as in Hume, which asks whether our moral dispositions survive reflection. Each, she argues, falls short. Her own answer appeals to autonomy, in the Kantian tradition. Because human consciousness is reflective, we must act on reasons, and our reasons depend on our practical identities: as a parent, a citizen, a friend. Valuing any identity commits us to valuing our humanity, and so the humanity of others. She adds that reasons are public, not private.

It is the most influential modern attempt to ground morality in the structure of rational agency, and the exchange with its critics shows the debate at its best.