Christine Korsgaard

Agora

Christine Korsgaard

b. 1952

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Morality binds us because we cannot act at all without valuing our own humanity – and animals too are ends in themselves.

Placement

Political Philosophy & Ethics (20th–21st c.) · North America · Ethics

Harvard Kantian: the authority of morality springs from our “practical identity” – we cannot act without valuing our own humanity; animals too are ends in themselves.

Key ideas

Sources of normativity
Practical identity
Self-constitution

Teachers: John Rawls

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Influence

Influenced by 3

Aristotle

influenced by
Korsgaard compared Aristotle and Kant on the source of value (1986) and drew on Aristotle’s view of action and form in arguing that agents constitute themselves (Self-Constitution, 2009). C. M. Korsgaard, “Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value”, Ethics 96 (1986); Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009)
Evidence: AI draft
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Immanuel Kant

influenced by
Korsgaard derived normativity from Kant’s reflective agent, who cannot act without some practical identity and so must value humanity itself (The Sources of Normativity, 1996). C. M. Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (Tanner Lectures 1992; publ. 1996); Creating the Kingdom of Ends (1996)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
John Rawls studied with

studied with
Korsgaard took her PhD at Harvard in 1981 under Rawls with The Standpoint of Practical Reason (printed 1990). C. M. Korsgaard, The Standpoint of Practical Reason (diss. Harvard 1981; printed 1990); Mathematics Genealogy Project, entry J. Rawls
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
John Rawls › 1921–2002

Criticism

Criticizes 1

Bernard Williams

criticised
Korsgaard argued against Williams that motivational scepticism about practical reason depends on content scepticism: if pure practical reason exists, it can motivate (‘Skepticism about Practical Reason’, 1986). C. M. Korsgaard, “Skepticism about Practical Reason”, Journal of Philosophy 83 (1986), 5–25; B. Williams, “Internal and External Reasons” (1980); Williams’s response in Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (1996)
Evidence: AI draft
Bernard Williams › 1929–2003

Works

1996The Sources of Normativity
Why must I be moral? Because reflective endorsement of my practical identity commits me to valuing humanity.
2009Self-Constitution
To act at all is to make oneself a unified agent – and that already binds one to morality.

Position

Korsgaard asks where the authority of moral obligation comes from. Her answer, developed from Kant, is that it comes from ourselves: as reflective beings we cannot act without taking some description of ourselves – a parent, a friend, a citizen – as giving us reasons; this “practical identity” is the source of normativity. But every particular identity presupposes a more basic one: valuing our own humanity, our capacity to set ends. If we value that in ourselves we must value it in others, and so morality follows. “Self-Constitution” argues that action has a constitutive standard: to act at all is to unify oneself as an agent.

Life & context

Christine Korsgaard (born 1952 in Chicago) studied at the University of Illinois and took her doctorate at Harvard in 1981 under John Rawls. She taught at Yale, Santa Barbara and Chicago before returning to Harvard in 1991, where she is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy. She delivered the Tanner Lectures in 1992 and the Locke Lectures in Oxford in 2002, and has written extensively on Kant and Aristotle.