What Is Good Action

Moral normativity must has a moral defense and a moral drive,and a normative theory of "good action" must also has these two aspects.Based on Korsgaard's normative theory,this paper explores the normative features of a good action from the constitutive understanding of Plato's and Kant's philosophy.Korsgaard believes that a serious misunderstanding of Kant's theory is that Kant adopted a “combat model of soul”: our own internal rationality and preference are both incompetent,and we should choose to obey rationality.On the contrary,Korsgaard thinks Kant adhered to a personal “constitutional model”: one does not recognize his rationality,but his structure,which contains preferences and rationality.Using the constitutional model,we find that there is ambiguity in preferences between Kant and Plato.In the article Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant,Korsgaard starts with the relationship between the principle of justice and action in “the analogy between the soul and the city-state ”in The Republic,and argues that both Plato and Kant have adopted a constitutive model to demonstrate the possibility of actions: an action must be initiated by a person,and it must be not only from a certain force in the person,but also from the whole person.What makes an action yours in this way is that it springs from and is in accordance with your constitution.Korsgaard's analysis of the "self-constitution" in The Republic and Kant's ethics is only to use the constructivist model to prove that Plato's principle of justice or Kant's categorical imperative is the formal standard of deliberation action.This argument does not discuss how formal standards of action bring us directly inevitably to act in a moral way.Based on the specific analysis of Korsgaard,I will discuss the logic of Korsgaard's entire argument and the possible difficulties,and discover the purpose of her theory of action from the “difficulties”.Therefore,this article mainly divided into two parts.The first one is the specific analysis of Korsgaard.Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 focus on the explanation and definition of the concepts of “the combat model”,“the constitutional model” and “action”.Using the constitutional model,Korsgaard argues that both Plato and Kant give the concept of “action” the same two shifts.The second part is my review about Korsgaard's arguments.Chapter 3 analyzes the logic of her demonstration and the possible difficulties.By investigating Korsgaard's theory of action,we can see she adopts two ways to understand the question of normativity,in her early book The Source of Normativity and her later theory about constitutivism,but the two are not entirely different.In The Source of Normativity and the theory of constitutivism,she puts a principle of the will as the expression of the person herself.In the early book,she holds the idea that moral normativity originates from self-identity of an agent,but she can't explain the origination of self-identity;using the method of action philosophy,Korsgaard believes that the principle of action not only expresses identity,but we also construct our identity while choosing the principle of action.Action has a form of self-constitution.