2. Korsgaard’s Theory of Autonomous Action

One of the ways that the wrong-making features of paternalism has been understood is as an intercession that disrupts one’s ability to rationally reason and will their reasons into action — i.e., to choose. As Sarah Conly puts it, paternalism “comes between me and my plans for myself” (Conly, Reference Conly2013, p. 77). This comports with the Kantian argument that the possibility of the moral law rests on the coeval possibility of our self-determining ends that are “given by reason alone” and “must be equally valid for all rational beings” (Kant, G, 4:427–428). Such self-determined ends, and in turn the basis for the moral law, are opposed to ends that are grounded in “matter,” i.e., in our sensible, empirical, contingent nature (Kant, KrV, A823/B851). Kant’s description of self-determined ends is in keeping with his pursuit in the Groundwork of searching for what is good in itself, or unconditionally good, as opposed to what is situationally good; if something is to ground our morality and exhibit a normative quality, it cannot be contingent but must be unconditionally valuable and intrinsically good. It must hold for all rational beings. For Kant, that which is good in itself is the good will, which is what motivates our ends-directed actions/decisions and grounds the intentions of such actions/decisions.

In Kant’s pursuit to identify an end that is valuable in itself with that which is “unconditioned” — meaning non-etiologically conceptualized — he arrives at a grounding in a law that we give to ourselves, which is the source of normativity: the “supreme principle of pure practical reason” (Kant, KrV, A308/B365).Footnote ⁶ This source of normativity’s existence “has in itself an absolute worth” and is autonomous, conferred from within (rather than from without, i.e., heteronomously) and licenses the good will; Kant argues that this alone is “the ground of a possible categorical imperative” (Kant, G, 4:428). For Kant, what we discover to be such an objectively valid end, with unconditioned worth in itself — i.e., with absolute worth — is in keeping with our rational nature and good will. Following Kant, such a conception of autonomy grounds claims about the fundamental status of systems that enable people to make choices based on their own ends. We possess a capacity for self-legislating maxims of action qua reasoning; this is, for Kant, part and parcel of our characteristic “humanity,” which he describes as the:

Kant highlights this “[r]ight of humanity in our own person” which underlies “any rights to things and any rights against persons” (Kant, MM, 6:276). This notion of humanity relates to autonomy in the same sense as dignity, i.e., as a grounding relation.Footnote ⁷

Following one reading of Kant, most prominently outlined by Korsgaard, autonomy speaks to identity qua rational agency, or rational willing. According to Korsgaard, “[p]ractical reasons that can only be found in the perspective of rational agents as such or human beings as such are ‘objective’ if we have no choice but to occupy those perspectives” (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1996b, p. 246). In Korsgaard’s formulation, our autonomy is the source of obligations, meaning that we are free agents who create moral laws for ourselves (viz., we are self-legislating). Furthermore, we have moral obligations, meaning we have obligations to humanity and have to respect humanity as ends in themselves.

For Korsgaard, our taking up intentional, autonomous actions implicitly endorses “the motives incorporated into our purposes as reasons for future actions in similar circumstances,” wherein this “Kantian Principle of Action” amounts to the edict that “voluntary action entails ‘commitment’ to a practical reason” (Davenport, Reference Davenport2007, p. 256). Although such motives are understood to be committed to values that exist and can be justified or evaluated independently from the act,Footnote ⁸ our personal autonomy (asserted via cares and ground projects) is expressed by our intentions, which are informed by a set of consistent reasons. Korsgaard, following Kant, takes our capacity for reasons-responsiveness to be subtended by a reflective a priori nature in keeping with our autonomous status. Our related capacity for consciousness allows us to distance ourselves from what we are occurently believing or thinking and reflect on them, scrutinizing our behaviour in view of reasons; according to Korsgaard, this is what it means to have a reflective mind. A free will or free mind is that which reflectively scrutinizes the criteria it sets itself. This self-legislating amounts to being autonomous, contradistinguished to heteronomous constraint, or the imposition of laws from outside of ourselves. In determining ourselves, we become our own authority, self-legislating standards of successes for what it means for a reason to count as a good reason for seeking out and executing an act.

Korsgaard herself describes her approach as “procedural moral realism” — the view that “there are answers to moral questions [….] that there are right and wrong ways to answer them” — and contrasts this to “substantive moral realism”; she writes that, in keeping with Rawlsian constructivism:

The basic thesis of Korsgaard’s approach is that the binding nature of practical and thus moral principles can be explained by the structure of action. Specifically, she argues that moral principles are constitutive for the well-ordered unity of the actor and therefore enable accountable action. Korsgaard assumes that every action implies the unconditional ability to appreciate one’s own capacity to act (i.e., one’s own rational nature), and that all actors are obliged to appreciate the capacity to act in all other actors because they share or have in common this rational nature. Korsgaard draws on the ideal image of the rational actor where an action that is carried out is a result of a rationally determined capacity to act and taken to be fully accountable. It is a relational view of the value of autonomy insofar as,

Korsgaard’s theory seeks to avoid a number of problems that have historically freighted moral realism. One of these is that moral realism cannot explain the phenomenon of moral motivation since it does not follow from the mere assumption of the existence of moral facts that these facts have any binding force on actors (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1996b, p. 39). Her framework thus attempts to explain the binding nature of practical principles (i.e., the normative question) wherein any pursued action or purpose implies the unconditional ability to evaluate one’s own capacity to act.Footnote ¹⁰ Insofar as she is an internalist, for Korsgaard, the reasons for action have to “be capable of motivating rational persons” (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1986, p. 11). However, Korsgaard’s internalism is not a thorough-going constitutive internalism where the influence of reasons are endowed with objective content; as Matthew Silverstein notes, in Korsgaard’s framework, “rational” modifies “persons,” such that “it is not merely the influence reasons exert that must be rational in nature; it is also the agents themselves” (Silverstein, Reference Silverstein2008, p. 29).Footnote ¹¹ While reasons need not always motivate us, “rational considerations succeed in motivating us insofar as we are rational” (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1986, p. 15).

Of central importance in Korsgaard’s theory of practical obligation is the undergirding teleological structure of action. According to Korsgaard, the description of a rational action is teleological and “found in the basic form of a Kantian maxim,” i.e., “I will do act-A in order to promote end-E” (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard2009, p. 11).Footnote ¹² This conception of action as the pursuit of the realization of a valued purpose is widespread in everyday life, according to Korsgaard. We act by first setting out a purpose for ourselves and then striving to pursue it because we associate a value with this purpose and, insofar as we wish for it to transpire, we value its realization. As far as the teleological explanation of action is concerned, the objective value of our purposes is unimportant; what matters is that actors value the purposes that they pursue, for whatever reason. Although in her earlier work, Korsgaard agrees with Kant that human action is primarily characterized by the tendency to understand one’s own needs as a superior motivation for action or as reasons for action, the teleological model of action that she expounds in Self-Constitution and The Sources of Normativity does not require the definition of the concept of action. Instead, in these texts, Korsgaard homes in on how, when acting, our choices are grounded in purposive reasoning. Like Kant, Korsgaard attributes free rational action to the autonomy of actors.

Korsgaard’s framework makes a number of assumptions, each related to what actions are possible, characterizing them in predominantly structural terms. She assumes that we are autonomous actors and that rational actions exist, that actions consists in reflective choice and the pursuit of valued ends, and that our actions are primarily concerned with our own well-being (Bambauer, Reference Bambauer2018, pp. 214–215). According to Korsgaard, although, at first gloss, we might appear to act based on (and, in fact, prioritize) our prudential impulses — self-interestedly maximizing our desire-satisfaction and happinessFootnote ¹³ — our rational nature also implicates such impulses in reflective assessment. Every action is thus the result of a coeval practical act of affirmation. Actions cannot be explained without a “reflective endorsement” expressed by the person acting (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1996b, p. 65). Insofar as actors are autonomous, Korsgaard assumes that the laws that actors give themselves can only be self-binding if they recognize themselves as authoritative — i.e., as the foundation of the establishment of the maxims that they carry out. Otherwise, the concept of self-legislation would be practically ineffective as the legislative acts could have no actual binding force for the addressee of the respective laws.Footnote ¹⁴

Korsgaard draws out the implicit dependence of the teleology of action, prudential or otherwise, on the ability for an actor to appreciate their capacity to act. If the hypothetical imperative implies that I must take means-M in order to pursue end-E, then this imperative can only have direct practical relevance for me insofar as my purposes are normative for me. My purposes are only normative for me if I regard my decisions or the practical norms I have chosen as authoritative for me, because these norms underlie my choice of purpose. Korsgaard’s conception of the categorical imperative denotes precisely this self-referential authority and, she argues, the binding force of every hypothetical imperative depends on the authority of such purpose-setting; in turn, the hypothetical imperative can only function as an imperative if it can be reconstructed from the perspective of the categorical imperative, i.e., the self-determining and self-affirming actor (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1996b, p. 39, pp. 98–100).

Korsgaard appeals to the criteria of explanatory and normative adequacy as a measure for assessing a moral theory. For Korsgaard, normative adequacy ought to consist in an explanation of the function of moral principles that will not undermine the motivational force of morality. Rather, this explanation reinforces it. Korsgaard’s interpretation of the formula of humanity begins with a first-person perspective where an action that takes appropriate account of one’s own rational nature is not about something metaphysically or logically true, but about something being practically good, without which actions and thus ultimately the actor themselves would not be possible — at least not in the autonomous sense, where one chooses properly for themselves. Korsgaard’s interpretation of the “formula of humanity” is about something being practically good (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1996b, pp. 122–125). It serves as one of Korsgaard’s preconditions for answering the normative question where the actor not only wants to act rationally (consistently) but will affirm their own status as an actor and therefore also affirm and strive for that which makes their being an actor possible. For Korsgaard, Kant’s “formula of humanity” does not function as a truth about human beings but is as an expression of what characterizes us as human beings; as she writes:

Korsgaard’s conception of autonomous teleological action amounts to an action-theoretical reformulation of the hypothetical and categorical imperatives. From the perspective of the actor, it demonstrates how applying principles to ourselves amounts to a kind of instrumental rationality based on an ends-directed relationship. Korsgaard underscores the teleological-first-person starting point and its associated implications concerning the relationship between purpose-setting, purpose-pursuing, and appreciating one’s ability to act autonomously.

As this teleological conception should now make clear, Korsgaard takes autonomy to require certain psychological properties. However, these psychological implications do not entail that one must consciously and explicitly ascribe absolute value to oneself as an actor in order to be able to act autonomously. Rather, following Korsgaard, if actors do not conceive of their own agency as necessarily authoritative, their pursuit of purpose-realization via autonomous actions will remain inexplicable. Korsgaard refers to the logical form inherent in purposeful action and not to an individual’s particular mental conscious concerning specific purposes and values. Accordingly, agents are autonomous when they are, in addition to being rational, acting voluntarily and authentically. Acting authentically involves their reasoning in a way that is adequately informed and self-ascribes action-plans, meaning one’s purposes and choices are ascribed to themselves. In addition to not being unduly influenced by outside agents/forces (i.e., forced), one must have the capacity to endorse their choices and aims in a self-reflective mode. One makes the choices they want to make based on aims they self-ascribe. But the question of how these autonomous choices become value-laden is an altogether distinct matter.

3. Sangiovanni’s and Guyer’s Objections

Sangiovanni objects to Korsgaard’s model, highlighting this very issue of how autonomous choices become value-laden. Sangiovanni formulates an argument poised against the strategy pursued by what he calls “Regress” (i.e., unrestricted) Kantians like Korsgaard and Alan Gewirth (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 36).Footnote ¹⁵ First, however, Sangiovanni outlines two strands of neo-Kantian thought:

For Sangiovanni, the “Address” Kantians highlight the normative warrant of giving and asking for (practical) reasons in communicative interpersonal scenarios, i.e., “mutual address or mutual justification” (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 15). The “Regress” Kantian, however, erroneously presupposes the value of humanity insofar as we value anything at all (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 36). In his argument against Korsgaard, Sangiovanni homes in on Korsgaard’s conferral of value on acts, proposals, or plans that we reflectively endorse. According to Sangiovanni, Korsgaard argues that these intentional acts grant value as a “nonrelational, intrinsic property” where “all valuing expresses an attitude of reflective endorsement from a particular perspective” such that its “value must be a product of our reflective endorsement” (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 40). Here, Sangiovanni argues that Korsgaard’s argument does not succeed, for “[f]rom ‘valuing consists in an expression of reflective endorsement,’ we cannot get: ‘therefore, we must presuppose that reflective endorsement (let alone the capacity for such reflective endorsement) is valuable’” (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 41).

Sangiovanni raises two specific concerns regarding Korsgaard’s project. The first is that Korsgaard runs together a higher-order, “metaethical” conception about the ontological commitment supplied by value judgements with “first-order ethical statement[s] about what makes something good” (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 40). Sangiovanni argues that Korsgaard’s conception of our capacity for rational choice, which in Korsgaard’s formulation serves as the source of value when formulating ends-directed intentional actions, inherits the aforementioned equivocation; that is, Korsgaard runs together valuing as an activity that “consists in rational choice (i.e., rationally governed reflective endorsement)” with the justification of rational activity (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 41). Second, Sangiovanni argues that our taking valuing to consist in rationally choosing something good by way of reflectively endorsing that activity does not establish “that we must take rational choice to make any particular end good” (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 41). The crux of Sangiovanni’s argument is that Korsgaard’s formulation foregoes “what makes things valuable” (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 41).Footnote ¹⁶

Sangiovanni argues that the reasons we have for affirming that which is good are distinct from our metaethical commitments to what our valuing consists in. Accordingly, we ought not run together the grounds for valuation with the complicit endorsement expressed by acts of value-based judging and acting. According to Sangiovanni, as it concerns the value of autonomous agents, we ought not look towards that which is inherent and reflexively endorsed when we take up specific “cares and concerns” (Sangiovanni, Reference Sangiovanni2017, p. 45). Although the full breadth of Sangiovanni’s alternative is beyond the scope of this article, his response indicates why we might want to consider the objective value of what conditions an autonomous action independently of the action if we wish to argue that the autonomous action is value-laden (and hence ought not to be paternalistically interceded).

Others, like Guyer, have also espied this equivocation in Korsgaard. While Korsgaard conceives of our practical identity, which is affirmed in our taking something to be normative for us, as intrinsically good/valuable (thereby bridging moral identity with value), Guyer adverts to the idea that freedom in itself has a universal, primitive value. This is distinct from Korsgaard, for whom it is not freedom in itself that we all value but the practical identity of being a potential citizen (in a kingdom of ends) that generates obligations, which can be identified with via authoritative self-ascription. It might be argued that Korsgaard, herself, is aware of this issue and locates “the source of all conditional values in the rational agent’s capacity to create values” (Guyer, Reference Guyer2000, p. 150). This then halts the possible infinite regress that consists in objects and cares that are merely of conditional value by supposing that rational choosing itself is what confers value on the objects/cares chosen. However, for Guyer there is an error here insofar as:

This issue, concerning the restriction of values, is again related to the conflation of metaethical commitments with first-order judgements about the importance about a particular act or kind of action. Guyer’s solution is to read Kant as conceiving of our capacity to set and pursue autonomous ends as a “fundamental manifestation of our freedom,” where this manifestation itself “sees freedom itself as possessing absolute value” (Guyer Reference Guyer2000, p. 151).Footnote ¹⁷ Adhering to the categorical imperative is, for Guyer, but a preservation of freedom’s exercise and existence. Insofar as nothing that is value-neutral can evince or produce value ex nihilo, one must locate intrinsic value, or the unconditional, primitive good, as a necessary end in itself.

However, much like the artist painting a canvas blue need not, themselves, be blue, it is not the case that what objectively conditions value-conferring activity need, itself, be valuable. Accordingly, in navigating the problem of equivocation, we should take note of the following: something might be valuable in itself or something about the kind of activity at hand might be valuable. In the latter case, this kind of activity would be condition-conferring (as in the example of the painter, with painting being the kind of activity that confers a condition; this is opposed to, for instance, stretching, tanning, fixing a car, or myriad other activities that might very well be valuable in themselves but are not condition-conferring).Footnote ¹⁸

It appears that pursuing an alternate model — one that does not fall into the equivocation that Sangiovanni has set up but also does not result in an infinite regress — will require discerning the relation of fit between an intentional, autonomous, value-laden action and the structures that countenance fully embraced autonomous motives and expresses them. Let us call this the dual hunt for: i) the source-conditions of autonomy; and ii) the structural aspect of autonomy. Contra Sangiovanni, one can reconstruct Korsgaard’s framework and delineate an interacting set of autonomous abilities by attending to the socialization of autonomous cares projects and long-term commitments. We are, after all, not a simple, static bundle of cares and commitments. This interacting set of abilities and powers, it can be argued, is distinctive in kind, presupposing the process of setting ends, forming long-term projects, and altering cares in response to the valuable features of the world, certain activities, or other agents. But before doing so, one must understand how value enters the picture at the level of the individual and their source-conditions, which prefigures the socialization of value.

4. A Korsgaardian Reconstruction in Light of Langton on Valuing

Langton, in her “Objective and Unconditioned Value” (Langton, Reference Langton2007), amends Korsgaard’s conception of valuing in a way that helpfully brings out the source-conditions of autonomy. In this section, I will follow Langton’s amendment and then utilize it to reconstruct Korsgaard’s theory of autonomy by delineating the structural aspects of autonomy.

There is an important distinction between intrinsic value, the value that something has in itself, and extrinsic value, or the value something has from another source. As Langton notes:

When we value something for the effects it has, we are beholden to instrumental value. One can also value something due to its associations, such as when a fiancée values their engagement ring. This is not due to an end (as one might value the ring well after they are married), nor does it amount to valuing the ring intrinsically (for what one values about the ring is, presumably, not simply due to its material worth). Langton also highlights that although Korsgaard “says that the notion of instrumental goodness does not concern the way things have value, but only the way we value things,” there are

Langton carves a “two-way distinction” between:

1. 1) The way that “things have value,” which includes:

   1. a. “intrinsic value” (“[the] value a thing has in itself”),

   2. b. “extrinsic value” (“[the] value a thing has from another source”), and

   3. c. “instrumental value” (“[the] value a thing has from its effects”).

2. 2) The “ways that we value things,” which includes

   1. a. “intrinsically [valuing]” (valuing for something’s “own sake”);

   2. b. “extrinsically [valuing]” (valuing “for the sake of something else”);

   3. c. “[valuing] instrumentally” (valuing “for the sake of […] [something’s] effects”). (Langton, Reference Langton2007, p. 164 emphases added)

In the Groundwork, for instance, Kant takes the “good will” to have unconditioned, or intrinsic, value; and, relatedly, Kant writes that autonomy has “an unconditional, incomparable worth” (Kant, G, 4:436). This comports with the rational being, understood as an end in itself. The conditioned, extrinsic value of, for example, “happiness,” Langton remarks, “bears on the unconditioned, intrinsic value of the good will” as “[t]he ability of choosers to confer value on their choices — the ability of agents to be value-conferrers — is, according to Korsgaard’s Kant, the very source of the intrinsic value of the good will, and accordingly of persons” (Langton, Reference Langton2007, p. 168). Our intrinsic value, according to this picture, is due to our valuing things as ends, which means bestowing them with extrinsic value. Korsgaard makes this facet of her Kantian framework apparent in passages like the following:

Accordingly, we are intrinsic valuers because we choose ends for ourselves. This is how we confer value, making autonomous choices that bequeath extrinsic value on those objects of choice. The autonomous chooser’s value is in their ability/power to confer extrinsic value.

However, from the unconditioned and intrinsic value of the good will, how does one get to its objectivity? What is the direction of fit, so to speak? According to Guyer, as recounted, the correct relation is one where what is extrinsically valuable is ultimately objectively valuable and intrinsic, unconditioned goodness therein independent of our valuing activity. Ultimately, for Guyer, we do not confer objective values but discover them.Footnote ¹⁹

For Korsgaard, however, that which is extrinsically valuable is conferred values: it is through the exercise of our powers of conferring that such goods become objectively valuable. Goods that have value are such because they are valued as ends (i.e., chosen by a good will). Unlike Guyer, it is not the case that the good will chooses such values as ends because they are good in themselves. Guyer’s position, at pains to avoid an infinite regress, hews closer to the position that Korsgaard ascribes to W. D. Ross and G. E. Moore, where some goods have value “independent of the interest that people take in them or the desires that people have for them” (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1983, p. 173). For Korsgaard, however, “the idea of extrinsically valuable ends whose value comes from the interest that people take in them” (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1983, p. 173) means that goods are conferred with extrinsic value due to our cares projects taking them up as (teleological) ends.

The consequence of Korsgaard’s framework is that it permits cases such as the following: a despondent woman, suffering from persistent depression disorder, values nothing. She regards her life as having no value nor does she regard anything in life as valuable. Because her good will does not confer value on anything, including herself, there is nothing that strikes her as subjectively valuable. In turn, there is nothing objectively valuable for her. If it were the case that all of society were made up of such beings who did not exercise their value-conferring abilities, there would be truly no objective values in the world. Although an unlikely scenario, this speaks to how, following Korsgaard’s framework, objective value grows out of subjective value-conferring of a socialized, relational sort.Footnote ²⁰ Were it the case that all members of a society were made up of such despondent beings, there would genuinely be neither norms nor value in the world as, without valuing things, there are no values/norms. Korsgaard admits as much when she confronts the aforementioned requisite of a “direction of fit,” remarking that: “there is a continuity between the value of humanity and the value of other things: they are all the result of our own acts of conferring value” (Korsgaard, Reference Korsgaard1998, p. 63).

Langton points out a difficulty here, as Korsgaard’s view also implies that:

In drawing our attention to a relational reframing (although she does not use the verbiage of relational autonomy), Langton suggests that the value conferred on autonomous selves will demonstrate itself to be an intrinsic value that depends on the relation of conferring/choosing something as an end. The relation is not extrinsic to the self since it develops out of the self and towards the self; its result is hence intrinsic and conditioned, not, as Korsgaard’s formula implies, extrinsic. Value is taken to be simultaneously intrinsic and relational due to its “involving relations interior to the thing,” meaning that it is “conferred and intrinsic” (Langton, Reference Langton2007, p. 179, p. 180). This amended framework evinces a hybrid sense of autonomy that is at once relational but internal; the despondent person does not violate a value in which they still believe, and thus does not violate their autonomy, if they feel themselves to be worthless and thus take their life.

Having, vide Langton, identified the source-conditions of autonomy, we can now construct the structural aspect of autonomy in this Korsgaard-inspired but Langton-amended relational framework. Turning now to the socialization of values, consider how, in Self-Constitution, Korsgaard identifies the necessity for act-ascriptions when she describes our unified constitution of ourselves as autonomous agents via deliberative action:

Insofar as we are reflective creatures, we require reasons for acting. These reasons are not entirely determined by inclinations to act, this disparity reflecting the distinction between motivational strength and justification. Korsgaard, again on autonomous deliberation, makes this point when she writes:

This psychological premise speaks to our superintending our choices, bringing them into the domain of autonomous action. A human action is fully autonomously an intention under a description of its purpose only if the agent accepts the motives and beliefs that explain the ends and means of the action. This, as a psychological corollary, involves regarding the autonomous motives and autonomous beliefs as reasons for an action. Where Korsgaard dovetails i) personal autonomy via cares and grounds projects with ii) intentions informed by a consistent set of reasons — arguing that we at least tacitly endorse our motives when we act on themFootnote ²¹ — we can parse them apart. In a given circumstance, a practical reason can serve as an autonomous choice if it refers to the intelligible values at stake in all similar circumstances; in turn, this strategy involves treating such reasons in light of previous autonomous reasons, coalescing them into universals/types even when reasons are specific in their content.Footnote ²² Accordingly, we can view our autonomous actions as thoroughly intentional only if we recognize the same reasons for them, in terms of values, in light of resembling circumstances. This facet of the process will resemble a hypothetical syllogism met with a generalization.Footnote ²³ Those autonomous abilities that are taken to be authoritative — i.e., based on reasons — understand the same practical reasons/ethical goods/values to carry across circumstances that are similar to one another.Footnote ²⁴ Acting autonomously and authoritatively is here taken to be a regulative, second-order good, that supervenes over a primary status-value — a right to self-rule that is non-derivative, original, or enjoys primitive authority. Thus, an autonomous action is entirely authoritatively governed only if the abilities through which we ultimately control (or rule) actions have original authority. This concedes that such abilities have inherent status-value.

Insofar as a life with first-personal meaning for an agent involves autonomously forming, acting, maintaining, and changing cares projects and commitments, it includes personal investments in social relationships and roles. Korsgaard delineates this substantive, relational conception of practical identity when she describes the notion of practical identity as universal and embedded in a community.Footnote ²⁵ What makes her view substantive is that there is particular content to beliefs, a relationship to the world (i.e., a knowing that vs. knowing how). The relational facet grows out of the fact that all human beings enjoy the need to develop a coherent conception of their practical identity, one that is relatively stable over time. It is worth quoting Korsgaard at length when she writes that:

In turn, all identify-defining autonomous cares projects and commitments are but (shared) reasons for acting. These reasons apply across different context across time. Endorsing reasons for acting across contexts and time reaffirms or evinces facets of my practical identity as authoritative.Footnote ²⁶ Korsgaard treats “humanity itself,” out of which one’s identity as a human being “springs,” as of a piece with agentive abilities to autonomously evaluate, reflect, and form intentions and plans, alongside more innate capacities for dispositions that shape one’s practical identity over time. Endorsing reasons for autonomously choosing/acting are, in turn, based at least partially on one’s practical identity. Valuing one’s self as an original authoritative source of their practical identity thus becomes that which conditions endorsing practical reasons. In endorsing practical reasons that refer back to aspects of one’s practical identity, one implicitly recognizes one’s humanity as yielding some inherent status-value. Given Korsgaard’s relational conception of humanity as a set of abilities that are shared in persons who require and have the potential to form distinctive practical identities, endorsing reasons for actions is consistent with recognition that the inherent status-value/authority of one’s acts is in keeping with the humanity of all others, too.

What makes for objective values that are sustained across time and geography is the likeness in value experiences that agents autonomously undergo, which, per this amended Korsgaardian reconstruction, become shared at the level of intent-guided actions. Such intent-guided actions are mutually recognized by social, communal agents. That value experiences, alongside empirical beliefs, value judgements, natural desires, and emotions carry over to deliberation provides for intention-formation via decisions that, themselves, allow voluntary, intention-guided acts to count as properly autonomous. Such valuing experiences, which are but one of the basic capacities for agency and part of self-development over time — where the self/agent develops, engages, and uses their capacities by forming intentions, long-term commitments, and cares projects that result in specific acts in interaction with others — endow us with a psychological-teleological conception of relational autonomy. This is an autonomy that invokes the socialized recognition of objective value shared by agents in the world and can make descriptive sense out of instances of exclusionary value or actors who espouse no values at all, such as the despondent agent who takes their life without trespassing their values. That such a framework heralds all means-end rational, adult agents as autonomous — where values can be countenanced as objective in a society that shares values but similarly treat values as objective in light of exclusionary instances — is not at odds with the existence of forms of domination, disparity, and bigotry in the world; the latter would be understood as autonomy-compromising if they prevent the exercise of socially shared values.