The Constitution of Agency

Abstract

This book is a collection of ten papers on practical reason and moral psychology. Part 1 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 we take control of our own movements and so render ourselves active, self-determining beings. Part II takes up the question of the role of our passive or receptive faculties — our emotions and responses — in constituting our agency. It offers a reading of the Nicomachean Ethics based on the idea that our emotions are perceptions of good and evil, and argues that Aristotle and Kant share a distinctive view about the locus of moral value and the nature of human choice. Part III takes up the question how we come to view one another as moral agents in Hume's philosophy, and 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, the book discusses methodology in an account of what it means to be a constructivist moral philosopher.