Practical identity, obligation, and sociality

Abstract

By characterizing obligation as a reflective rejection of what threatens one’s identity, Christine Korsgaard introduces a suggestive approach to this normative concept. This approach is mediated by the notion of “practical identity,” which she first characterized in Sources of Normativity as “a description under which you value yourself, a description under which you find your life to be worth living and your actions to be worth undertaking” (Korsgaard 1996a, 101). She has basically maintained this approach in her more recent work focused on agency and self-constitution (Korsgaard 2009, 20). However, since obligations are usually toward others, her account could seem too self-centered; that is, by explaining obligation through identity, the other person enters the picture too late. In this article, I explore the way in which Korsgaard’s approach to obligation in terms of “reflective rejection of what threatens one’s identity” can be brought into harmony with the fact of human sociability, which accounts for our obligations toward others.