In the second Critique, Kant argues that we learn about our freedom through our experience of autonomous motivation, which reveals that we can set our strongest natural impulses aside when obligation demands it. Darwall's own argument is both modeled on Kant's and predicated on a criticism of it: he argues that we only learn of our capacity for autonomous motivation through the kind of second-personal exchange in which one person makes a demand on the other. I criticize Darwall's interpretation of Kant's arguments and argue that if they were correct they would create problems for Darwall's own argument.

Frankfurt argues (among other things) that the normativity of morality depends on whether we care about it. After exploring some differences between my own conceptions of reason, morality, and the will, I argue that, even on Frankfurt’s own account, we are committed to morality by our commitments to the other things we care about.

De Waal opposes “Veneer Theory” according to which morality is a thin veneer over our self-interested animal nature, and traces the roots of altruism, cooperation, and empathy in non-human animal behavior. I argue that Veneer theory is not very tempting, both because moral concerns are deeply interwoven with natural human concerns, and because non-human animals cannot plausibly be thought to be self-interested. But I also argue that there is something distinctive about human action that makes human beings, and not the other animals, moral. Human action, like human belief, is normatively governed, and the actions of the other animals are not.

Raz argues that most values are dependent upon social practices. The values of classical architecture are dependent upon the traditions of classical architecture, and a good instance of classical architecture is a good thing because it is a good instance of its kind. In this commentary I argue that social practices exist to serve human needs and interests, which in turn shape and limit the values that depend on them. As against Raz's claim that socially dependent values give life meaning, I argue that our capacity for valuing does that. Value depends on humanity, not on social practices.

In this piece, Ana Marta González interviews Christine Korsgaard about her work. Topics discussed include Kantian dualisms, the compatibility of Aristotle and Kant, the status of teleology, the current status of ethical debate, Korsgaard’s existentialism, animal action, the connections among universalizability, unity, and goodness, and relation between ethics and metaphysics.

In this piece, Herlinde Pauer-Studer interviews Christine Korsgaard about her work. Topics discussed include the influence of Rawls’s work on Korsgaard’s; Korsgaard’s views on the compatibility of Kantian and Aristotelian ethics; the public reason argument in The Sources of Normativity; the relationship of Kantian ethics to “virtue ethics”; consequentialism and the nature of action; Kant’s attitude towards desire and inclination, and how desires are related to reason and reflection; the sense in which we must will a “universal law”; internalism and externalism; value theory and environmentalism; and the nature of the motive of duty.

In this essay I answer criticisms posed by Ginsborg, Guyer, and Schneewind in a symposium on Creating the Kingdom of Ends. As background I begin by setting out a detailed account of the distinctive features of Kantian moral psychology. I argue, against Ginsborg, that Kant is committed to the view that the choice not only of moral ends, but of all ends, must be free and autonomous. Against Guyer, I argue that my reconstruction of Kant’s argument for the Formula of Humanity does not render it a metaphysical argument too distant from ordinary moral reasoning to explain the ground of ordinary valuing. In response to Schneewind’s defense of the idea that justifications must come to an end somewhere, I defend the Kantian project of seeking the unconditioned, and the Kantian conclusion that justifications can come to an end only in our own autonomous legislation.

Sen and Cohen propose ways of measuring the quality of life. One may assess such metrics simply as proposals about what constitutes a good life, or for their legitimacy in determining what the state should do for its citizens. For liberals, the purpose of the state is not to produce the good life for its citizens, but rather to provide a sphere in which citizens freely pursue their own conceptions of the good. On this and other grounds, I argue that Sen’s “capability” metric, which focuses on the agents freedom, is more suitable for use in a liberal society than Cohen's “access to advantage” metric.