Carla Bagnoli

Carla Bagnoli argues that Kant’s conception of respect as a moral feeling is crucial to any constructivist theory of practical reason because it provides the only satisfactory account of how moral commands carry subjective authority—how they are experienced as binding by finite agents endowed with rationality. Without positing a moral feeling of respect, a constructivist theory can account for objective moral obligations, but it cannot explain why finite agents can take an interest in action. This account centered on the moral feeling of respect is defended in contrast to the mechanisms of the “reflective endorsement” of moral ends or actions, which has been proposed by prominent Kantian constructivists. The theory of respect as a moral feeling is an integral and eliminable element of Kantian constructivism, whose absence compromises the constructivist account of practical reason and undermines its objectivist aspirations.

This chapter introduces the novel category of ‘disclaimers’—distinctive normative acts which challenge third-party attributions of responsibility in a community governed by norms of mutual accountability. While the debate focuses on evasive and wrongful refusals to take responsibility for one’s wrongs, this chapter argues that disclaimers are fundamental modes of exercising normative powers, whose main functions are demanding recognition, responding to wrongs, voicing disagreement, exiting alienating conditions, and calling for a fair redistribution of specific responsibilities. In particular, understood as disclaimers, denials of responsibility are shown to be key modes of ethical and political empowerment, which play a significant role in producing normative changes and directing societal transformations.

On a standard interpretation, the aim of the formula of universal law is to provide a decision procedure for determining the deontic status of actions. By contrast, this chapter argues for the practical significance of the Categorical Imperative (CI) centering on Kant’s account of the dynamics of incentives. This approach avoids some widespread misconceptions about how the CI operates and false expectations about what it promises and delivers. In particular, it explains how it differs from deductive practical inferences. The CI is the supreme form of morality, and yet not in the sense that particular categorical principles can be derived deductively from it, once the relevant details are supplied. The efficacy of practical reasoning primarily concerns agents and consists in their reorientation toward the right end. Moral knowledge is knowledge about what we ought to do, but it is also a distinctive variety of self-knowledge, that is, knowledge of ourselves as rationally efficacious agents.

This chapter argues that Murdoch’s main and not yet fully acknowledged contribution to moral philosophy is to reclaim the concepts for exploring the activities of the mind, a topic that had become outcast with logical positivism. In contrast to current realist and particularist interpretations of Murdoch’s philosophy, Bagnoli argues that Murdoch’s project does not amount to a retrieval of metaphysics, but it requires a complex moral psychology. Murdoch shows that in order to explain the phenomena of moral change and progress, we need a conception of objectivity that recognizes the historicity and dynamicity of the moral life. According to Bagnoli, this account of objectivity does not presume the truth of moral realism, but it rather shows its inadequacy. The relevant progress that Murdoch underscores is from abstraction to concreteness in moral vision, and it requires that we focus on the constructive activity of the mind. While non-cognitivist and realist accounts of deliberation fail to acknowledge such essential constructive power of the mind, Murdoch offers the rudiments of a developmental account of agency.

The relation between rationality, morality, and agency is one of the most fundamental problems in philosophy. This volume explores Kant’s distinctive contribution to addressing it, arguing that the constitutive norms of rationality are also norms of self-constitution—that is, the principles by which rational agents govern themselves and regulate their relations to one another. How Kant defends this claim, and whether he succeeds in grounding the objectivity and authority of moral obligations, lies at the heart of a lively and expanding debate that bridges moral philosophy, practical reason, and action theory. By bringing traditional exegesis into dialogue with cutting-edge work on constitutivism, autonomy, and practical knowledge, the essays collected here expose unresolved questions, refine contested distinctions, and introduce methodological tools that open new avenues for discussion. The main aim of the volume is to broaden its horizons—encouraging Kant scholars to engage more fully with contemporary meta-ethics and prompting theorists of normativity to reckon with both the resources and the limits of Kant’s approach. Contributors: Stefano Bacin, Carla Bagnoli, Jeremy D. Fix, Evgenia Mylonaki, Alexandra Mudd, Alexandra Newton, Thomas Pendlebury, Konstantin Pollok, Andrews Reath, Karl Schafer, Oliver Sensen, Jens Timmermann, and ArielZylbermann.

On Kant’s view, human agents are “animals endowed with reason,” sensitive to both natural and moral incentives. His model is hybrid rather than dualistic: insofar as humans are sensitive to the authority of rational norms, they can transform themselves from animal rationabile into animal rationale. This raises the question: how do hybrid agents navigate the heterogeneity of incentives? This is a live question, giving rise to a methodological puzzle. What methodology fits hybrid agency? Two opposing approaches, reductive naturalism and anti-naturalism, have prevailed, with John McDowell offering a middle ground through the concept of second nature. In contrast, this essay argues that Kant’s view vindicates the positive aspects of naturalism and anti-naturalism, while rejecting the reductive ambitions of the former and the robust ontology of the latter. Hybrid rational agency, characterized by self-reflection, allows for rational changes that are not merely adaptive responses but radical, original acts of reorientation toward the world. By refocusing on Kant’s account of moral agency, we recover the resources for a distinctive critique of reductive naturalism, showing its conservative and alienating effects. Kant provides an empowering view of human agency, in dialectical contrast to the second nature model based on habit and social training.

To identify the place of religious pluralism in democratic political discourse, this chapter refocuses on the purported normative authority of religious claims, providing a philosophical analysis of its features and implications. Bagnoli proposes an account of religious authority as a variety of normative authority, whose distinctive features are the independence of epistemic proof, the unconditionality and universality of its foundational claims, and the obligations based on membership. Bagnoli then considers whether and how the appeal to religious authority could contribute to the process of rational justification in political discourse in contexts marked by divisive religious disagreements. To this purpose, she adopts a constructivist approach, which takes rational justification to be “public,” that is, addressed to others as having equal normative standing. Bagnoli takes reasoning to be productive and transforming: it does not merely manage conflicts by ratifying overlapping reasons but generates new forms of rational agency. Radically departing from current debates, Bagnoli argues that we should reconceive of public reason dynamically, rather than as a static concept. In the third part, Bagnoli points out and illustrates how constructivism may help provide a suitable normative framework for interfaith dialogue and normative adjustments.

Religious diversity raises challenges that reverberate at multiple social and political levels. Religious institutions are sources of authoritative claims for believers. They play a crucial role in the articulation and negotiation of domestic conflicts within multicultural societies as well as at the international level. Religious Authorities and Practices of Conflict Resolution asks the following important questions: How is interfaith dialogue to be conceived and structured? Is such a dialogue even possible, if each religious group is entitled to claim decisive and exclusive authority? The challenge is to explicate how religious authority is compatible with the principle of equal normative standing that is at the core of modern ethics and democracy, and capable of grounding shared action toward peace. This volume proposes that the challenge be addressed by taking a transdisciplinary approach, which appropriates resources and methods from different perspective philosophy, sociology, economics, and law. By integrating perspectives from philosophy, sociology, economics, and law, the book provides a holistic understanding of how religious authority can influence conflict resolution. Introduction Carla Bagnoli and Vincenzo Pacillo Part I: Authority and Agency in Religious Conflicts 1. The Dynamics of Authority in Religious Conflicts: A Constructivist Account Carla Bagnoli 2. Conflict over Religious Authority: An Economic Approach Michael McBride 3. An Islamic Perspective on Authority and Equal Standing Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen 4. Authority and Tradition: Aquinas’ Perspective Paul O’Grady 5. Religious Conflicts: Ethical or Political? Faviola Rivera Castro 6. The Economics of Religious Conflicts Sriya Iyer 7. Religious Conflicts Examined Through a Hinge-Theoretic Framework Annalisa Coliva 8. A Negotiation-Theoretic Approach to Religious Conflicts Massimo Neri Part II: Normative Practices of Religious Conflict Resolution 9. Alternative Communities: Belonging and Religious Authority in Deradicalization Processes and Models of Micro Peace in the Levant Rik Peels and Scott Gustafson 10. Reconciling State Churches and Freedom under International Law Paolo Vargiu 11. Faith, Family Life and Children’s Rights: The Role of Religious Communities’ Standpoints and Parental Control Silvia Angeletti 12. Bridges of Belief: The Role of Religious Cultural Heritage in Fostering Interreligious Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence Vincenzo Pacillo 13. Transformative Conflicts, Heritage and Reconciliation Michelle LeBaron.

Pamela Anderson argues for liberating love and vulnerability from the myths of the Western philosophical imaginary that tie them to fragility, subjection, and dependency. Spurred by Judith Butler’s work, Anderson finds herself challenged to rethink her ontological assumptions, away from the Kantian conception of the self as morally and ontologically invulnerable. In (partial) support of Anderson’s agenda, I distinguish different contrastive pairs of concepts of vulnerability, and argue for the relevance of ontological vulnerability, showing that in a Kantian framework this is the root of shared agency. I argue that this – largely unexplored – Kantian claim converges with and sustains Anderson’s general plan to reassess the positive value of vulnerability in relation to mutual accountability. The ontological concept of vulnerability makes the finitude and interdependency of human agency apparent. In this context, love vulnerability can be appreciated and valued as a distinctive drive to cooperative interaction and shared agency, which allows finite and limited agents to deal and cope with the predicaments of contingency. Focusing on the dynamic and reciprocal permeability distinctive of love, I defend the claim that vulnerability to love is not the source of burdens and constraints but a key capacity that shapes human identity, drives and expands agency, and sustains relations of mutual accountability.

ValuingValuing is an important and ordinary endeavor, which pervades all our practices, activities, and institutions. The nature and criteria for valuing decisively depend on the alleged nature of values. First of all, are there values? If so, how to access them, and how do they inform our choices? Second, what kinds of value are there, and how do we identify them conceptually? Sections 1–2 identify these problems, which are the core of debates in meta-ethics and substantive theory, respectively. The criteria for judging the adequacy of a theory ofValue(s)theory(ies) of value including the capacity for explaining phenomena, and the normative capacity to guide action, are highlighted in Sect. 3. Theories of values offer large varieties of answers to these questions, as we shall see in Sect. 4. Such theories are also supposed to account for phenomena such as the possibility of ineradicable disagreements of valueValue(s)disagreement, and explain their implications, which are addressed in Sect. 5. Some disagreements seem to depend on the incommensurabilityIncommensurability of valueValue(s)incommensurability, which can be defined in different ways. The implications of such claim are examined in Sect. 6. In Sect. 7, we consider whether and how the incommensurability of values affects the rationality of choice. Section 8 deals with some crucial receptive modalities of relating to values: the emotionsEmotion(s). Section 9 concerns personsPerson(s) as both bearers and sources of value. Finally, in Sect. 10, we consider various modes of valuing.

The concept of reason is pervasive in our ordinary practices, but there is a large and divisive disagreement about their role in the foundation and explanation of morality. Such disagreement depends on three related issues, which concern the definition of “moral reasons,” their sources and functions. This chapter first takes into account material and formal definitions of moral reasons and clarifies the role of reasons in the explanation and justification of intentional action. Second, it addresses the source of reasons and considers whether reasons are subjective or objective, personal or impersonal, and how they are related to the agent’s values, integrity, and authenticity. Moral theories differ in their account of the contents of moral reasons, but also in their epistemological account of how moral reasons are produced or recognized. Third, the chapter discusses the claim that morality is a cooperative enterprise, proposing an analysis of internalist and externalist accounts of reasons, and their prospects in addressing the phenomena of coordination and moral compliance.

While departing from Kant's account of practices, Anil Gomes's argumentative strategy in his "The Practical Self" has the merit of uncovering a unity in Strawson's work (across perception and reactive attitudes) by focusing on the disabling conditions of both. But in so doing, he offers a view of objectivity that is flattened into the world of objects rather than a world of subjects—that is, independent sources of legitimate claims on one another. He thus underplays self-con- sciousness's relation to others as interlocutors and partners in shared rational action and its consequent link to mutual accountability. Practical assent is an act of freedom. The practices of mutual accountability cannot be merely “central” to the human form of life because claiming responsibility for thinking is an indispensable and inescapable act of freedom, and mutual accountability is the way in which such freedom is protected. Social practices can badly mediate, weaken, or distort our relationship to reality and others. They can be alienating and disorienting, thereby undermining our practical selves. Because social practices can displace us as agents of our thinking, they do not pro- vide a robust route from agential awareness to objectivity.

In contrast to standard rationalism and sentimentalism, my argument is that an adequate explanation of moral authority requires a different philosophical treatment of the role of emotions, and of their relation to practical reason. The problem with these standard views is that they take emotions to be either completely separable from or only contingently related to reason. By contrast, I argue that the experience of moral emotions is constitutive of the exercise of practical reason. The categorical authority of moral reasons does not depend upon, but constitutively implies, moral emotions. I argue for this claim by drawing from a Kantian account of practical reason, which takes respect as the emotional attitude constitutive of rational agency. My contention is that moral reasons have categorical authority insofar as they are subjectively experienced in the guise of respect.

To show the promise of the Kantian constitutivist approach to international relations, I consider its relevance in the case of the “sanctioner’s dilemma.” This dilemma arises when the costs of sanctioning a state for the violation of international law seem prohibitive, for instance when a state is strategically important and its absence would significantly undermine global cooperation, or because the proposed sanctions would have humanitarian consequences. This case is generally analyzed in terms of cost–benefit and discussed against the background of strategic rationality. My contention is that the instrumentalist view fails to fully capture the nature of the dilemma. Instead, the constitutivist argument offers a deeper understanding of the dynamics of power and authority inherent in the sanctioner’s dilemma and highlights some morally perplexing aspects of sanctions. The discussion brings to the fore the potentially disruptive impact of a Kantian constructivist approach in the field of international relations.

The place of emotions in morality is the subject of widespread and divisive philosophi- cal controversies. This is hardly a peculiarity of present debates; as the history of moral philosophy shows, the relation between morality and the emotions has always been problematic. This volume is born out of the conviction that philosophy provides a distinctive approach to the cluster of problems about the emotions and their relation to morality. The task of this Introduction is to motivate this conviction by highlighting some aspects of the novelties and peculiarities that characterize current debates. 1. The Retrieval of Emotions in Moral Philosophy 1.1 Bernard Williams’ diagnosis of the neglect of emotions 1.2 One step back: Iris Murdoch and the demand for moral psychology 1.3 Aristotelian themes: emotions and practical reason 1.4 Humean themes: emotions and motivation 1.5 The Kantian approach to moral psychology 2. The Emergence of the Cognitive Sciences: Some Methodological Issues 2.1 The status of moral psychology: some methodological issues 2.2 The question of the normative relevance 2.3 New challenges to the place of emotions in morality 3. Morality and the Emotions: New Assessments 3.1 Emotions, practical reason, and moral agency 3.2 Emotions as modes of valuing 3.3 Emotions, responsibility, and moral identity.

The most distinctive feature of Murdoch's philosophical project is her attempt to reclaim the exploration of moral life as a legitimate topic of philosophical investigation. In contrast to the predominant focus on action and decision, she argues that “what we require is a renewed sense of the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons. We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being” (AD 293).1 I shall argue that to fully appreciate the novelty of this proposal we need to recognize some elements of continuity with analytic methods of philosophical inquiry and themes that belong to continental traditions. On Murdoch's view, the most important question facing moral philosophy is that of whether and how we can become better. In order to describe moral progress and failure, struggle and ascent, we need ethical concepts capable of capturing mental events such as change in mind, self-examination, and redescription. These concepts are presently unavailable, and this lack seriously undermines our attempts to understand the phenomena of morality. Because of this conceptual loss, we succumb to the mistaken idea that moral life coincides with its scattered outer manifestations, i.e. public acts. Instead, Murdoch urges us “the moral life […] is something that goes on continually, not something that is switched off in between the occurrence of explicit moral choices” (SG 37).2 Murdoch's point is that we need to conceive the locus of agency more broadly if we want to understand the complicated machinery of action. But perhaps more importantly, she points out that we may be morally active while entertaining a contemplative attitude, which does not issue in action. The grain of moral life, she argues, is constituted by the..

Gaslighting is a form of domination which builds upon multiple and mutually reinforcing strategies that induce rational acquiescence. Such abusive strategies progressively insulate the victims and inflict a loss in self-respect, with powerful alienating effects. In arguing for these claims, I reject the views that gaslighting is an epistemic or structural wrong, or a moral wrong of instrumentalization. In contrast, I refocus on personal addresses that use, affect, and distort the very practice of rational justification. Further, I argue that the social dimension of gaslighting cannot be fully explained by reference to bare social structures because this compound wrong succeeds via emotional person-to-person addresses. Rational justification becomes, then, the locus where the struggle for power takes place. This struggle involves and is operated by not only victims and wrongdoers but also third parties. They are crucial actors in wrongdoing as well as in rescuing the victims and restoring their normative status. Ultimately, this study shows that the deontic structure of wrong is multifocal, and its relationality points to modes of epistemic and moral rehabilitation that are also modes of social empowerment.

[...] Schapiro’s new metaphor of ‘being drawn out of oneself’ is suggestive of alienation, even though it is supposed to apply at a different level. As much as in Korsgaard’s account of reflective endorsement, the problem of the agent’s dealing with their inclinations is treated as a solitary internal affair: what is staged is a psychodrama, that is, a drama that plays in the agent’s mind. The (social) world enters solely as backdrop scenery, and social roles and scripts are ultimately up for choice. But this is reductive and unduly simplifies matters. In this regard, Kant’s forensic and political metaphors seem far more perspicuous in articulating the activity that leads to the agential authority of action. The ekstatic view is bound to disregard the dynamic and historical dimension of rational agency. The ekstatic view of the rational will charges the dramatic moment of choice-making with all significance, hence implicitly overshadowing the long-term history of inner conflict and the preparatory and processual stages of deliberation. This may result in a loss of explanatory power regarding the diachronic dimension of practical thinking, the long-term activities leading to decision-making, the complex processes of self-formation, the construction of practical identity and the social practices and activities that help us to sustain our commitments across time. [...]

This book explores the role of time in rational agency and practical reasoning. Agents are finite and often operate under severe time constraints. Action takes time and unfolds in time. While time is an ineliminable constituent of our experience of agency, it is both a theoretical and practical problem to explain whether and how time shapes rational agency and practical thought. The essays in this book are divided in three parts. Part I is devoted to the temporal structure of action and agency, from metaphysical and metaethical perspectives. Part II features essays about the temporal structure of rational deliberation, from the perspective of action theory and theories of practical reasoning. Finally, Part III includes essays about to the temporal aspects of failures of rationality. Taken together, the essays in this book sheds new light on our understanding of the temporality of agency that coheres with our subjective sense of finitude and explains rational agency both in time and over time. Time in Action will be of interest to advanced students and researchers working on the philosophy of time, metaphysics of action, action, theory, practical reasoning, ethical theory, moral psychology, and rational justification.

This paper investigates some unexplored ambivalences of Strawson's distinction between the participant stance marked by reactive attitudes and the objective stance in which such attitudes are deemed inappropriate. First, a distinction between recipient‐oriented and agent‐oriented reasons for taking the objective stance is introduced. These are both practical reasons rooted in the agent's position. The former category of reasons refers to the recipient's capacities for moral agency, and the latter to the agent's interests and concerns. Second, it is shown that taking the objective stance for recipient‐oriented reasons (a) is a moral move, which alters one's normative relation to others; and (b) it may have severe disempowering effects on others. Third, departing from current debates, this investigation refocuses on cases in which the objective stance is grounded on self‐defensive or adversarial reasons. The examination of such cases shows that the objective/participant divide stands behind and organizes the complex dynamics through which moral membership is negotiated. Once agent‐oriented reasons are brought into focus, it appears that the divide is contestable and renegotiable: the boundaries of the relevant community can be altered by claiming and reclaiming responsibility. Correspondingly, reactive attitudes should be acknowledged as means and drives of the struggle for moral and political recognition.

This chapter argues that Williams’ criticisms of Kant’s account of morality should be viewed in light of their disagreement about the function of reason. This interpretation unearths a fundamental challenge, due to the tension between the temporal features of human agency and the allegedly categorical authority of some normative claims. This is a predicament central to any theory of practical reason. For Kant its root lies in human embodiment, finitude and fragility, and the remedy is the normative standard of reason, which plays a constitutive role in unifying the agent across time. By contrast, for Williams, mortality is the condition of possibility for valuing life, and agential unity is both unfeasible and undesirable, in the face of multiple sources of practical necessity whose significance is assessed from the present stance. The contrastive analysis of these views aims to identify their respective merits.