| Abstract [eng] |
Problem of moral normativity is a question of what justifies the claims that morality makes on us and of their source. In this thesis we claim that the answer to this problem proposed by Ch. Korsgaard is a success as a Kantian account. First, the analysis of the internalism / externalism controversy lets us to conclude, that the success of Korsgaard’s conception of normativity was granted, first of all, by its Neo-Kantian premisses. Externalists split justificatory and motivational functions between resp. belief and desire therefore, theoretical success of justifying moral claims does not by itself lead to motivational success: the relation between the two is purely contingent. The majority on the internalist side though (intuitionists, expressivists, the neo-Humeans) consider moral judgements impossible to justify in principle. Therefore, only the Neo-Kantians are able to treat the problem of normativity as a meaningful question and to give an adequate account of it. What enables them is the Neo-Kantian orientation to the task of justification and their conception of the functions of reason, which assures the necessary relation between the discursive justification and the motivation to act. Second, the Neo-Kantian reply by Korsgaard is successful as a solution to the difficulties which the Kantian ethics meets: she does not reduce normativity to its formal aspect only. In the Neo-Kantian tradition the essential autonomy of the agent is transferred to certain fundamental principles which grant the normativity of judgements settled in accordance with them. Korsgaard adds to the formal normativity its substantial aspect: maxim is also capable to oblige due to its content received through the practical identity. Hence the model of act-choosing consists of three principles two of which are formal and the third is psychological or social one. The first principle is the categorical imperative which sorts maxims according to their form, and only the maxims which embody non-animal impulses are held to be normative. Normativity of the categorical imperative is metaphysically justified in its necessity for a reflective beeing which is doomed to act. However not all formally normative maxims are moral in content, that is why the second principle, which must secure it, is introduced. It is the moral law, an additional restriction on maxims, which involves an aspect of idealized sociability. This law prescribes acting only on maxims that all rational beings could agree to act on together in a workable cooperative system. Moral law is justified as normative due to our obligation to value our human nature as the source of all values and the necessary condition of our acting. Nevertheless some maxims are expressive of impulses which spring from our practical identities. In case of having two formally normative maxims of such kind we have a problem of choosing one as the object of will. The most important roles which constitute our identity are selected by the third principle which is the psychological/ social one. It must be established by each agent individually, because contingent social or psychological background conditions assigning different value to different parts of one’s identity. That is why this principle depends on every agent’s substantial self-apprehension. Yet it has to be normative in order to enable the action and the agency itself (integrity is constitutive of the agency). While analysing criticism of Korsgaard one might consider as a negative proof of her success the fact that present critique has not yet succeeded to disarrange it (it was mainly based on different theoretical premisses or misconception of the arguments). One of the most weighty criteria of the success of the conception is its normative adequacy. However this criterion is pragmatic (whether it moves to act morally the agent in the practical situation). Therefore, in this respect the evaluation of Korsgaard’s account is impossible in principle. |
