The Sources of Normativity

Ethical concepts are or purport to be normative. They make claims on us: they command oblige recommend or guide. But where does their authority over us come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies and examines four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers--voluntarism realism reflective endorsement and the appeal to autonomy--and shows how Kant''s autonomy-based account emerges as a synthesis of the other three. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G.A. Cohen Raymond Geuss Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams and a reply by Korsgaard.