Self-Constitution

Christine M. Korsgaard presents an account of the foundation of practical reason and moral obligation, based on a new theory of action and interaction. She proposes that the function of an action is to constitute the agency and therefore the identity of the person who does it, and that only morally good action can serve this function.

Christine M. Korsgaard earned her B.A. at the University of Illinois in 1974, her Ph.D. at Harvard University, where she studied with John Rawls, in 1981, and an LHD at the University of Illinois in 2004. She is currently Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. She works on moral philosophy and its history, practical reason, agency, personal identity, and the relations between human beings and the other animals.

Preface
1: Agency and Identity
2: The Metaphysics of Normativity
3: Formal and Substantive Principles of Reason
4: Practical Reason and the Unity of the Will
5: Autonomy and Efficacy
6: Expulsion from the Garden: The Transition to Humanity
7: The Constitutional Model
8: Defective Action
9: Integrity and Interaction
10: How to be a Person
Bibliography
Index