Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least when we invoke them, we make claims on one another; but where does their authority over us - or ours over one another - come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy. She traces their history, showing how each developed in response to the prior one and comparing their early versions with those on the contemporary philosophical scene. Kant's theory that normativity springs from our own autonomy emerges as a synthesis of the other three, and Korsgaard concludes with her own version of the Kantian account. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by Korsgaard.

剋裏斯蒂娜·科爾斯戈德(Christine M．Korsgaard)，1952年生於芝加哥，哈佛大學哲學教授。她在哈佛大學取得哲學博士學位，師從當代最著名的政治哲學傢約翰．羅爾斯，先後執教於耶魯大學、芝加哥大學和哈佛大學；主要研究領域為道德哲學、心靈哲學、個體同一性理論及形而上學等；主要著作有：《規範性的來源》和《創造目的王國》等。