Forms of Rational Agency

Abstract

Abstract A measure of good and bad isinternalto something falling under it when that thing falls under the measure in virtue ofwhat it is. The concept of an internal standard has broad application. Compare the external breed standards arbitrarily imposed at a dog show with the internal standards of health at work in the veterinarian's office. This paper is about practical standards, measures of acting well and badly, and so measures deployed in deliberation and choice. More specifically, it is about the attempt to explain the unconditional validity of certain norms (say, of justice and prudence) by showing them to be internal to our agency and the causality it involves. This isconstitutivism. Its most prominent incarnations share a set of assumptions about the nature of agency and our knowledge of it:conceptualism,formalismandabsolutism. This essay investigates the merits and viability of rejectingallof them while still seeking the ground of practical normativity in what we are, in our fundamental activity.

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