Why Care about Being an Agent
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8101591 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Caroline T Arruda (The University of Texas at El Paso, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 95 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 488-504 |
| Publication date | 2016-12-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australasian Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-8402 • E-ISSN: 1470-6828 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00048402.2016.1253761 |
| OpenAlex | W2560594970 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 40 |
The question ‘Why care about being an agent?’ asks for reasons to be something that appears to be non-optional. But perhaps it is closer to the question ‘Why be moral?’; or so I shall argue. Here the constitutivist answer—that we cannot help but have this aim—seems to be the best answer available. I suggest that, regardless of whether constitutivism is true, it is an incomplete answer. I argue that we should instead answer the question by looking at our evaluative commitments to the exercise of our other capacities for which being a full-blown agent is a necessary condition. Thus, the only kind of reason available is hypothetical rather than categorical. The status of this reason may seem to undermine the importance of this answer. I show, however, that it both achieves much of what we want when we cite categorical reasons and highlights why agency is valuable
Agency (philosophy · Categorical imperative · Categorical variable · Economics · Epistemology · Morality · Positive economics · Sociology · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Psychology · Philosophy
Reflection, Planning, and Temporally Extended Agency
How We Get Along
Why Be Rational?
The Possibility of Practical Reason
Shmagency Revisited
Internal and external reasons
How not to be an ethical constructivist
The Sources of Normativity
Varieties of Practical Reasoning
Inescapability and Normativity
What We Owe to Each Other
Shmagents, Realism and Constitutivism About Rational Norms
Chimps as secret agents
Agency, Shmagency
Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives
Nietzsche and Kant on the Will
The Practical Turn in Ethical Theory
Starting Points
The hypothetical imperative
Can there be a global, interesting, coherent constructivism about practical reason
Agency and the Foundations of Ethics
Self-Constitution
What is Constructivism in Ethics and Metaethics
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,43 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |