'Sorge or Selbstbewusstsein? Heidegger and Korsgaard on the Sources of Normativity.' STEVEN CROWELL
Heidegger and Korsgaard can both be considered 'existential Kantians,' but where Korsgaard holds that our ontological distinctiveness lies in self-consciousness, Heidegger substitutes an ontology of "care" (Sorge). Does this distinction make any philosophical difference? The present essay addresses this question. Specifically, it argues that Korsgaard's reliance on the concept of self-consciousness to explain the origin and nature of the normative leads to three problems: (1) an equivocation in her attempt to trace the origin of reasons to the structure of reflection; (2) an aporia in her conception of humanity arising from this equivocation; and (3) a rationalistic distortion, necessitated by the...