Original scientific paper

Commitments of a Divided Self: Authenticity, Autonomy and Change in Korsgaard's Ethics

Lydia L. Moland

Abstract

C
hristine Korsgaard attempts to reinterpret Kantian ethics in a way that might alleviate Bernard Williams’ famous worry that a man cannot save his drowning wife without determining impartially that he may do so. She does this by dividing a reflective self that chooses the commitments that make up an agent’s practical identity from a self defined as a jumble of desires. An agent, she then argues, must act on the commitments chosen by the reflective self on pain of disintegration. Using Harry Frankfurt’s emphasis on love as a final end, I argue that disintegration as motivation is not a more acceptable motivation than impartiality and so does not adequately address Williams’ criticism. I also argue that the idea of a divided self either leads to an infinite regress or to an implausible description of how our commitments evolve and change. To make this last claim, I discuss a case from John Updike’s novel In the Beauty of the Lilies.

Keywords

Christine Korsgaard; Harry Frankfurt; Bernard Williams; practical identity; Kantian ethics

Hrčak ID:

93220

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/93220

Publication date:

28.4.2008.

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