Why Should We Value The Humanity Of Others?

This thesis is an investigation on “the problem of public reasons” within ChristineKorsgaard’s early normative theory. Korsgaard’s normative theory entails a set of herviews on the sources of the practical normativity of moral obligations. In its early stage,this theory implies a revised Kantian ethical doctrine under the conception of “practicalidentities.” By virtue of a transcendental argument, Korsgaard states that it is becausethe function of moral agents’ agency must be launched by a most fundamental practicalidentity, i.e. the human identity, that moral agents will be normatively constrained bymoral obligations. The conception of human identity implies that one identifies himselfas a genuine human being, and therefore values the humanity of himself. Nevertheless,both Korsgaard herself and her critics are aware of the fact that Korsgaard has not yetreached her argument goal here. Korsgaard just shows that the value of humanity is thesource of agency, but not of moral agency. She needs another argument to explain whymoral agents should not merely value the humanity of themselves individually, but alsoof others. Otherwise, Korsgaard’s theory will be exposed to the threat of ethical egoism.And Korsgaard indeed puts forward such an argument. Like Wittgenstein’s privatelanguage argument, she presents a “private reasons argument.” Private reasonsargument shows that ethical egoism is based on a questionable assumption that moralagents are able to act out of some private reasons. However, there could be no suchthings like “private reasons,” all practical reasons must be inherent public reasons. Thisis “the thesis of the publicity of reasons.” It is acknowledged that Korsgaard’s thiscertain thesis is unusual ambiguous and confused, and it incurs a lot of criticisms, ofcourse, as well as defences. In this thesis, I analyse three typical ones of them. At last,I will present my own comments on this issue.