Reason, Agency, and Ethics

The Introduction and chapters 4, and 7 of this work are available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International open access licence. These parts of the work are free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Whether and how rationality justifies morality is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy. This volume investigates Kant's distinctive and ambitious attempt to address this problem, by arguing that norms of rationality are not merely abstract requirements of thought, but also norms of self-constitution — the very principles by which rational beings govern themselves and shape their relations with one another. On this view, morality is not imposed from the outside but arises from what constitutes a moral subject. How exactly Kant argues for this bold claim, and whether he succeeds in securing the objectivity and authority of moral obligations, remain pressing questions. These questions lie at the centre of a vigorous and expanding debate that cuts across moral philosophy, the theory of practical reason, and action theory. Bringing Kant scholarship into conversation with cutting-edge work on constitutivism, autonomy, and practical knowledge, the essays collected in this volume probe unanswered questions, refine contested distinctions, and develop new methodological tools that open fresh paths of inquiry. By combining historical depth with philosophical innovation, this volume makes a compelling case for why Kant's account of rationality and morality remains an indispensable reference point for anyone concerned with the nature of normativity, the authority of obligation, and the self-constitution of rational agents.

Carla Bagnoli is a Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, appointed through the 'Reverse Brain Drain' program. She is currently seconded to the National Academy of Lincei in Rome, and Professorial Fellow of the Centre for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. In 2026, she received the Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Stefano Bacin is a Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Milan. He was previously an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Mainz and a Marie Curie Fellow in Frankfurt. Since 2023, he is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project 18Ethics.