Download or read book Normativity and Agency written by Tamar Schapiro and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christine M. Korsgaard has had a profound influence on moral philosophy over the past forty years. Through her writing and teaching she has developed a distinctive, rigorous, and historically informed way of thinking about ethics, agency, and the normative dimension of human life more generally. The twelve original essays in this volume are written in her honor on the occasion of her retirement from teaching. They engage questions that recur in her work: Why are we obligated to do what morality demands? What features of our nature make us subject to moral obligation? What does it mean to be autonomous and responsible for what we do? What do we owe to nonhuman animals? Contributors include Stephen Darwall, Kyla Ebels-Duggan, Barbara Herman, Richard Moran, Japa Pallikkathayil, Faviola Rivera-Castro, T.M. Scanlon, Tamar Schapiro, Sharon Street, David Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, and David Velleman. These essays shed light on Korsgaard's own views while staking out provocative new positions on the topics that feature centrally in her own work.
Download or read book The Constitution of Agency written by Christine Marion Korsgaard and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christine M. Korsgaard is one of today's leading moral philosophers: this volume collects ten influential papers by her on practical reason and moral psychology. Korsgaard draws on the work of important figures in the history of philosophy such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hume, showing how their ideas can inform the solution of contemporary and traditional philosophical problems, such as the foundations of morality and practical reason, the nature of agency, and the role of the emotions in action. In Part 1, The Principles of Practical Reason, Korsgaard defends the view that the principles of practical reason are constitutive principles of action. By governing our actions in accordance with Kant's categorical imperative and the principle of instrumental reason, she argues, we take control of our own movements and so render ourselves active, self-determining beings. She criticizes rival attempts to give a normative foundation to the principles of practical reason, challenges the claims of the principle of maximizing one's own interests to be a rational principle, and argues for some deep continuities between Plato's account of the connection between justice and agency and Kant's account of the connection between autonomy and agency. In Part II, Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology, Korsgaard takes up the question of the role of our more passive or receptive faculties--our emotions and responses --in constituting our agency. She sketches a reading of the Nicomachean Ethics, based on the idea that our emotions can serve as perceptions of good and evil, and argues that this view of the emotions is at the root of the apparent differences between Aristotle and Kant's accounts of morality. She argues that in fact, Aristotle and Kant share a distinctive view about the locus of moral value and the nature of human choice that, among other things, gives them account of what it means to act rationally that is superior to other accounts. In Part III, Other Reflections, Korsgaard takes up question how we come to view one another as moral agents in Hume's philosophy. She examines the possible clash between the agency of the state and that of the individual that led to Kant's paradoxical views about revolution. And finally, she discusses her methodology in an account of what it means to be a constructivist moral philosopher. The essays are united by an introduction in which Korsgaard explains their connections to each other and to her current work.
Download or read book Believing Against the Evidence written by Miriam Schleifer McCormick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of whether it is ever permissible to believe on insufficient evidence has once again become a live question. Greater attention is now being paid to practical dimensions of belief, namely issues related to epistemic virtue, doxastic responsibility, and voluntarism. In this book, McCormick argues that the standards used to evaluate beliefs are not isolated from other evaluative domains. The ultimate criteria for assessing beliefs are the same as those for assessing action because beliefs and actions are both products of agency. Two important implications of this thesis, both of which deviate from the dominant view in contemporary philosophy, are 1) it can be permissible (and possible) to believe for non-evidential reasons, and 2) we have a robust control over many of our beliefs, a control sufficient to ground attributions of responsibility for belief.
Download or read book The Sources of Normativity written by Christine M. Korsgaard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-06-28 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Roots of Normativity written by Joseph Raz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book concerns one of the most basic philosophical questions: the explanation of normativity in its many guises. It lays out succinctly the view of normativity that Raz has sought to develop over many decades and determines its contours through some of its applications. In a nutshell, it is the view that understanding normativity is understanding the roles and structures of normative reasons which, when they are reasons for actions, are based on values. The book aims also to clarify the ways in which normative reasons are made for rational beings like us. It brings the account of normativity to bear on many aspects of the lives of rational beings, most abstractly, their agency, more concretely their ability to form and maintain relationships, and live their lives as social beings with a sense of their identity"--
Download or read book Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger written by Steven Crowell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates how phenomenology constructively addresses problems in philosophy of mind, moral psychology and philosophy of action.
Download or read book Normativity Agency and Life written by James A. Barham and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We find it impossible to speak for long about living things without using terminology that is teleologial, evaluative, or otherwise normative in character. This book argues that the reason why we find such language indispensable is because all organisms literally are agents, in a strong normative sense of that term. In other words, living things are physical systems that actively strive to perpetuate themselves in existence, by acting on the world. Normative agency is an inherent, objectively real property of life as such. Thus, organisms should not be viewed as machines, but rather as constituting a distinct natural kind, with normative agency as their essential property. This means that normative agency constitutes a scientific problem requiring investigation. It is further argued that the conceptual toolkit of neo-Darwinism is inadequate to this task. Finally, various recent ideas are examined, drawn from various scientific disciplines (including nonequilibrium thermodynamics, nonlinear dynamics, and quantum field theory), which take a more direct approach to the investigation of the phenomenon of normative agency.
Download or read book Agency and the Foundations of Ethics written by Paul Katsafanas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Katsafanas explores how we can justify normative claims such as 'murder is wrong'. He defends an original account of constitutivism—the view that we do so by showing that agents become committed to them in virtue of acting—and resolves philosophical puzzles about the metaphysics, epistemology, and practical grip of normative claims.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency written by Luca Ferrero and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-01-26 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most basic and important distinctions we draw is between those entities with the capacity of agency and those without. As humans we enjoy agency in its full-blooded form and therefore a proper understanding of the nature of agency is of great importance to appreciate who we are and what we should expect and demand of our existence. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency is an outstanding reference source to the key issues, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising 42 chapters by an international team of contributors, the Handbook is divided into eight clear parts: The Metaphysics of Agency Kinds of Agency Agency and Ability Agency: Mind, Body, and World Agency and Knowledge Agency and Moral Psychology Agency and Time Agency, Reasoning, and Normativity. A broad range of topics are covered, including the relation of agency to causation, teleology, animal agency, intentionality, planning, skills, disability, practical knowledge, self-knowledge, the will, responsibility, autonomy, identification, emotions, personal identity, reasons, morality, the law, aesthetics, and games. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Agency is essential reading for students and researchers within philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of psychology, and ethics.
Download or read book Inside the Politics of Technology written by Hans Harbers and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though the old saying claims that man is the measure of all things, the authors of Inside the Politics of Technology argue that the distinction implied between autonomous humans and neutral instruments of technology is an illusion. On the contrary, the technologies humans create simultaneously shape humans themselves. By means of case studies of technologies as diverse as video cameras, electric cars, pregnancy tests, and genetic screenings, this volume considers the implications of this "co-production" of technology and society for our philosophical and political ideas. Are only humans endowed with social, political, and moral agency, or does our technology share those qualities? And if so, how should we understand—or practice—a politics of technology?
Download or read book Normativity and the Will written by R. Jay Wallace and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2006-03-16 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Normativity and the Will collects fourteen important _ papers on moral psychology and practical reason by R. Jay _ Wallace, one of the leading philosophers currently working_ in these areas. The papers explore the interpenetration of normative and _ psychological issues in a series of debates that lie at the heart of moral philosophy. Part I, Reason, Desire, and the_ Will, discusses the nexus linking normativity to motivation, including the relations between desire and reasons, the role of normative considerations in explanations of action, and_ the normative commitments involved in willing an end (such_ as the requirement to adopt the necessary means). Part II,_ Responsibility, Identification, and Emotion, looks at _ questions about the rational capacities presupposed by _ accountable agency and the psychic factors that both inhibit and enable identification with what we do. It includes an interpretation of the Nietzschean claim that ressentiment is among the sources of modern moral consciousness. Part III,_ Morality and Other Normative Domains, addresses the _ structure of moral reasons and moral motivation, and the _ relations between moral demands and other normative domains (including especially the requirements of living a _ meaningful human life). _ _ Wallace's treatments of these topics are at once _ sophisticated and engaging. Taken together, they constitute an advertisement for a distinctive way of pursuing issues in moral psychology and the theory of practical reason. The _ book articulates and defends a unified framework for _ thinking about those issues, while offering sustained _ critical discussions of other influential approaches (by _ philosophers such as Korsgaard, McDowell, Nietzsche, Raz, Scanlon, and Williams). It should be of interest to every _ serious student of moral philosophy. _
Download or read book From Normativity to Responsibility written by Joseph Raz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are our duties or rights? How should we act? What are we responsible for? Joseph Raz examines the philosophical issues underlying these everyday questions. He explores the nature of normativity--the reasoning behind certain beliefs and emotions about how we should behave--and offers a novel account of responsibility.
Download or read book Nature and Value written by Akeel Bilgrami and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, as we confront an unprecedented environmental crisis of our own making, it is more urgent than ever to consider the notion of nature and our place within it. This book brings together essays that individually and as a whole present a detailed and rigorous multidisciplinary exploration of the concept of nature and its wider ethical and political implications. A distinguished list of scholars take up a broad range of questions regarding the relations between the human subject and its natural environment: when and how the concept of nature gave way to the concept of natural resources; the genealogy of the concept of nature through political economy, theology, and modern science; the idea of the Anthropocene; the prospects for green growth; and the deep alienation of human beings in the modern period from both nature and each other. By engaging with a wide range of scholarship, they ultimately converge on a common outlook that is both capacious and original. The essays together present a revaluation of the natural world that seeks to reshape political and ethical ideals and practice with a view to addressing some of the fundamental concerns of our time. Nature and Value features widely known scholars in a broad swath of disciplines, ranging from philosophy, politics, and political economy to geology, law, literature, and psychology. They include Jonathan Schell, David Bromwich, James Tully, Jedediah Purdy, Robert Pollin, Jan Zalasiewicz, Carol Rovane, Sanjay Reddy, Joanna Picciotto, Anthony Laden, Nikolas Kompridis, Bina Gogineni, Kyle Nichols, and the editor, Akeel Bilgrami.
Download or read book From Principles to Practice written by Onora O'Neill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although abstract principles alone cannot guide action, they can be combined to shape good practical judgement and change the world.
Download or read book Self Constitution written by Christine M. Korsgaard and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-03-27 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 know that it is the function of the heart to pump blood to know that a good heart is one that pumps blood successfully, so we need to know what the function of an action is in order to know what counts as a good or bad action. 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. As rational beings, we are aware of, and therefore in control of, the principles that govern our actions. A good action is one that constitutes its agent as the autonomous and efficacious cause of her own movements. These properties correspond, respectively, to Kant's two imperatives of practical reason. Conformity to the categorical imperative renders us autonomous, and conformity to the hypothetical imperative renders us efficacious. And in determining what effects we will have in the world, we are at the same time determining our own identities. Korsgaard develops a theory of action and of interaction, and of the form interaction must take if we are to have the integrity that, she argues, is essential for agency. On the basis of that theory, she argues that only morally good action can serve the function of action, which is self-constitution.
Download or read book Hegel s Theory of Normativity written by Kevin Thompson and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right offers an innovative and important account of normativity, yet the theory set forth there rests on philosophical foundations that have remained largely obscure. In Hegel’s Theory of Normativity, Kevin Thompson proposes an interpretation of the foundations that underlie Hegel’s theory: its method of justification, its concept of freedom, and its account of right. Thompson shows how the systematic character of Hegel’s project together with the metaphysical commitments that follow from its method are essential to secure this theory against the challenges of skepticism and to understand its distinctive contribution to questions regarding normative justification, practical agency, social ontology, and the nature of critique.
Download or read book The Normativity of Obligations written by Alexander Odgaard Heape and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
