Christine M. Korsgaard
Publications and Other Writings

  • Books
  • Essays
  • Other Publications and Writings
  • Encyclopedia Articles
  • Co-Editor
  • The Locke Lectures 2002
  • My C.V.


    • Books

    Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity
    Forthcoming from Oxford, 2009.
    An expansion of my 2002 Locke Lectures, in which I argue that moral principles, and the principles of practical reason generally, are constitutive principles of agency, and that in the course of constituting our agency, we also constitute our own identities.



    The Constitution of Agency
    Forthcoming from Oxford, 2008.
    A collection of papers, mostly published between 1996 and 2005.

    Abstracts of the essays in this volume

    Table of Contents:

    Part One: The Principles of Practical Reason
    1. The Normativity of Instrumental Reason
    2. The Myth of Egoism
    3. Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant

    Part Two: Moral Virtue and Moral Psychology
    4. Aristotle's Function Argument
     5. Aristotle on Function and Virtue
    6. From Duty and for the Sake of the Noble: Kant and Aristotle on Morally Good Action
    7. Acting for a Reason

    Part Three: Other Reflections
    8. Taking the Law into Our Own Hands: Kant on the Right to Revolution
    9. The General Point of View: Love and Moral Approval in Hume's Ethics
    10. Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth Century Moral Philosophy





    The Sources of Normativity
    Cambridge University Press, 1996
    An expanded version of my 1992 Tanner Lectures
    In these lectures I identify four accounts of the normativity of moral obligation which have been advocated by modern moral philosophers. I trace their history, showing how each developed in response to the prior one, and compare earlier versions with those on the contemporary philosophical scene. Kant's theory that normativity springs from our own autonomy emerges as a synthesis of the other three, and in the latter part of the lectures I conclude with my own modified version of the Kantian account. The lectures are followed by commentary from G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by me.





    Creating the Kingdom of Ends
    Cambridge University Press, 1996

    A collection of previously published papers on Kant's moral philosophy and Kantian approaches to issues in contemporary moral philosophy.

    Abstracts of the essays in this volume

    Table of Contents:

    Part One: Kant's Moral Philosophy
    1. An Introduction to the Ethical, Political, and Religious Thought of Kant
    2. Kant's Analysis of Obligation: The Argument of Groundwork I
    3. Kant's Formula of Universal Law
    4. Kant's Formula of Humanity
    5. The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil
    6. Morality as Freedom
    7. Creating the Kingdom of Ends: Reciprocity and Responsibility in Personal Relations

    Part Two: Comparative Essays
    8. Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value
    9. Two Distinctions in Goodness
    10. The Reasons We Can Share: An Attack on the Distinction Between Agent-Relative and Agent Neutral Values.
    11. Skepticism about Practical Reason
    12. Two Arguments Against Lying
    13. Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A Kantian Response to Parfit





    Essays

    Just Like All the Other Animals of the Earth: Moral and Religious Attitudes towards Animals and Our Animal Nature in the Philosophies of Hume and Kant
    Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Summer, 2008.
    Natural Motives and the Motive of Duty; Hume and Kant on Our Duties to Others
    In progress.
    Fellow Creatures: Kantian Ethics and Our Duties to Animals
    in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. by Grethe B. Peterson. Salt Lake City: Utah University Press, Volume 25/26, and at The Tanner Lectures web site via the link above.



    Some Other Publications and Writings


    Abstracts of some of the works listed below

    Autonomy and the Second Person Within
    A Commentary on Stephen Darwall's The Second-Person Standpoint
    Ethics vol. 118, October, 2007.

    Facing the Animal You See in the Mirror
    A contribution to a panel on ethics and animals forthcoming in The Harvard Review of Philosophy

    Morality and the Logic of Caring
    A Commentary on Harry Frankfurt's Tanner Lectures in Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting it Right, Stanford University Press, 2007.

    Morality and the Distinctiveness of Human Action
    A Commentary on Frans De Waal's Tanner Lectures in Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, Princeton University Press, 2007.

    The Dependence of Value on Humanity
    A Commentary on Joseph Raz's Tanner Lectures in The Practice of Value, Oxford Press, 2003.
    Normativity, Necessity, and the Synthetic a priori: A Response to Derek Parfit.
    Unpublished; written for a conference on Derek Parfit at Rutgers in 2003.

    Ethics at the Intersection of Kant and Aristotle: an Interview with Christine M. Korsgaard
    by Ana Marta Gonzalez. In Anuar io Filosofico, XXXVI/3, 2003

    Internalism and the Sources of Normativity: An Interview with Christine M. Korsgaard
    by Herlinde Pauer-Studer. in Constructions of Practical Reason: Interviews on Moral and Political Philosophy, edited by Herlinde Pauer-Studer. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.

    Motivation, Metaphysics, and the Value of the Self
    A Reply to Ginsborg, Guyer, and Schneewind
    Ethics vol. 109, October, 1998.

    A Reply to Carol Voeller and Rachel Cohon
    Unpublished; written for an "Author Meets Critics" session on The Sources of Normativityfor the Central Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association in May 1998.

    Introduction to Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
    For the edition translated and edited by Mary Gregor in the series Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

    An Index to Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
    While preparing the Index for the volume above, I prepared a parallel index to the Academy edition pages of the Groundwork.




    Rawls and Kant: On the Primacy of the Practical
    in the Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress,Memphis 1995, edited by Hoke Robinson. Marquette University Press, 1995.

    A Note on the Value of Gender-Identification
    in Women, Culture, and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities, edited by Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Glover. Oxford University Press, 1995.

    Commentary on Amartya Sen's "Capability and Well-Being"
    and Gerald Cohen's "Equality of What? On Welfare, Goods, and Capabilities"
    in The Quality of Life, edited by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. Oxford University Press, 1993.

    The Standpoint of Practical Reason (Dissertation, 1981)
    Published in Garland's Distinguished Harvard Dissertations series, 1990.



    Encyclopedia Articles

    Theories of the Good in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

    Teleological Ethics in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

    Conscience in Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia,Garland, 1996.

    Formalism in Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia,Garland, 1996.

    Immanuel Kant in The Garland Encyclopedia of Ethics,1992.

    John Rawls in The Garland Encyclopedia of Ethics,1992. Second edition version co-authored with Samuel Freeman

    Richard Price in The Garland Encyclopedia of Ethics,1992.





    Co-Editor

    Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls
    edited by Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, and Christine M. Korsgaard. Cambridge University Press, 1997.

    A collection of essays offering an approach to the history of moral and political philosophy that takes its inspiration from John Rawls. All of the contributors are philosophers who have studied with Rawls and we offer this collection in his honor. Includes essays by Marcia L. Homiak, S. A. Lloyd, Jean Hampton, Joshua Cohen, Susan Neiman, Onora O'Neill, Barbara Herman, Andrews Reath, Adrian M. S. Piper, Nancy Sherman, Christine M. Korsgaard, Hannah Ginsborg, Thomas W. Pogge, and Daniel Brudney










    The Locke Lectures 2002

    In May and June of 2002 I gave the Locke Lectures at Oxford under the title Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. In recent years I have posted the texts of these lectures here on my web site, but since the book version will be coming out next year, I have taken them down. Anyone inconvenienced by this should contact me at:

    Christine_Korsgaard@Harvard.edu(Christine_Korsgaard@Harvard.edu)


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