Universality and the Reflective Self
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Description
Christine Korsgaard has provided us with an illuminating analysis of the problem of the normativity of ethics. She observes that it is the reflective character of human consciousness that gives us the problem of the normative—the fact that unlike other animals, we can fix our attention on ourselves and become aware of our intentions, desires, beliefs, and attitudes, and of how they were formed. But it is not awareness alone that does it; a further aspect of our reflective consciousness is involved, which can appropriately be called freedom. Here is what she says: “Our capacity to turn our attention on to our own mental activities is also a capacity to distance ourselves from them, and to call them into question . . . Shall I believe? Is this perception really a reason to believe? . . . Shall I act? Is this desire really a reason to act?” The new data provided by reflection always face us, in other words, with a new decision. The normative problem does not arise with regard to everything we observe about ourselves: we cannot decide whether or not to be mortal, for example (though we may have to decide how to feel about it). It is only beliefs, and acts, or intentions that face us with the problem of choice, and it is in our response to this problem that values and reasons reveal themselves. Korsgaard's account of the normativity of ethics, and her criticisms of rival accounts, appear within the framework of this conception of the human mind and the human will. I should like to explore her view by considering how she would answer the following three questions, which the reflective conception naturally poses: 1 Why does the reflective self have to decide anything at all, either granting or withholding endorsement, instead of remaining a passive observer of the beliefs and actions of the non-reflective self? 2 Why, when it decides, must it try to do so on the basis of reasons, which imply generality, or something law-like? 3 How does it determine what those reasons are? The third question of course comprehends all of moral theory and epistemology, but I plan to discuss only the general character of the answer.
Source Publication
The Sources of Normativity
Source Editors/Authors
Onora O'Neill
Publication Date
1996
Recommended Citation
Nagel, Thomas, "Universality and the Reflective Self" (1996). Faculty Chapters. 1317.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1317
