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The dialectically necessary progression of the argument requires us to accept its requirements for no other reason than its starting point of the bare agency of its subjects. The success of the enterprise thus rests on the validity of this starting point, and it is this that the final part of the present section will seek to justify. Gewirth’s starting point is a simple one: that to be an agent is to act purposefully and voluntarily to bring about a given end. This statement is in accordance with the standard view of what it means to be an agent and was chosen for this purpose. Our default justification for this starting point could therefore be that, though many alternate conceptions of what it means to be an agent have been offered since he first conceptualised the PGC, none have successfully replaced the standard view adopted by Gewirth to become a new, superior understanding of the concept of agency. As such, the view should be accepted as valid in the absence of a viable alternative.39 If it is a starting point we ought to accept, we can begin to turn to Gewirth’s reasons for adopting it: that its very inescapability means it is prima facie capable of grounding any universal principle that would apply to all agents.40 It seems doubly suitable given that, as moral claims are necessarily connected to the permissibility of a given action, the concept of agency is necessarily engaged in all moral deliberation.41 It follows from this that, if certain conditions are necessary for our agency, then the principle of instrumental necessity requires us to see that it is these conditions that are capable of being universalised. Put in Kantian terms, ‘Whoever wills the ends also wills (insofar as reason has decisive influence on his actions) the indispensably necessary means to it that are within his power.’42 If this point can be proven, then it would follow as a matter of logic that our moral identity is inseparable from our bare agency.43 It is for this reason that Gewirth identifies bare agency as a suitable and desirable starting point for any attempt to identify a supreme moral principle. The starting point is one that has pedigree. Like Gewirth, Kant also believed that the authority claimed by moral norms must depend on features that are inherent within rational agents.44 His Categorical Imperative from the Formula of Universal Law provides a test against which the permissibility of actions is to be assessed: ‘Act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.’45 For Kant, that practical reason is capable of providing a foundation for the existence of a supreme moral principle is axiomatic: ‘One must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal law: this is as such the canon of judging it morally.’46 Yet such a statement is far from controversial, and its critics hold that it reduces moral judgments to an abstract test that ignores the reality of human existence.47 Both Kant’s categorical imperative and Gewirth’s PGC appear to fall within the scope of these criticisms; yet a Kantian would reject both criticisms by noting that they do not properly engage with the central argument behind the argument: that substantive moral verdicts simply can be derived from practical reason and formal normative deliberation.48 To be valid, such moral verdicts must possess three features: (1)

Inescapability, in that their application does not depend on their being convergent with the agent’s own interests. (2) Authority, in that their being requirements of reason renders noncompliance prima facie irrational. (3) Supremacy, in that they operate to exclude all non-compliant conduct on the ground of irrational contradiction.49 This section is designed to show that Gewirth’s starting point can lead us to a principle that meets these requirements and should be accepted as valid. Firstly, let us turn to three central principles that are essential to any understanding of the operation of practical reason in order to demonstrate what kind of reason the PGC purports to provide to those against whom it applies. The first is the principle instrumental reason, which holds that an agent has a reason to perform an action that will allow her to attain her ends. This reasoning is sometimes explained through the medium of a hypothetical imperative; if I want to attain E, then I have a reason to do X. The second form of principle within practical reasoning is the principle of prudence, which holds that I always have a reason to do what is in my best interest. This principle can also be expressed through a hypothetical imperative: that if E is in my best interests, then I have a reason to do X. The final principles are moral principles; these take the form of a categorical imperative for the three reasons outlined above, and thus hold that whatever my own subjective E, I must always X.50 Thus the PGC operates in a way that is analogous to a categorical imperative; it is dialectically necessary that whatever an agent’s E, their ability to X means they are required to accept its requirements.51 And since all three principles of practical reason –

including the moral reasons provided by the PGC – operate at the deliberative stage, Gewirth’s starting point of bare agency can be seen to be an appropriate starting point for our enquiry. We can now ask in what sense any directive emerging from this starting point of practical reason and deliberative rationality can be normative. We will begin with a commonly accepted statement of what it means to act rationally: ‘[T]o be rational is to deliberately conform one’s will to certain rational truths, or truths about reasons, which exist independently of the will.’52 To follow the directives of practical reason, for this statement, is a rational thing to do. Yet Korsgaard points out that this claim is circular; it does not provide us with any real justification as to why we should act rationally and follow the guidance of our will.53 This statement might be true of the three main aspects of practical reason above, yet the dialectical necessity of the argument for the PGC, proceeding from the starting point of bare agency, allows it to provide the reason we need to accept its requirements. As noted earlier in the chapter, by rejecting the direction of the PGC, an agent either rejects agency as the foundation of her own rights claim, meaning she is happy to have her GCAs interfered with to the point where no action is possible, or she denies she is an agent at all. Both denials require the agent to use her agency to deny the importance of her agency; a paradox is thus created whereby the criterion whose importance she seeks to deny is essential for the denial to be successful. This paradox demonstrates that the PGC must be accepted by all agents, thus providing the normative reason Korsgaard says is required to act rationally and follow the requirements of instrumental reason.54 It may be countered that this remains circular; that one is simply restating the rationality of following reasons rather than providing why a normative reason exists to do so.55 Further, rationality cannot provide these reasons: all that can be created is an infinite regress which fails to address why an agent ought to internalise and comply with the claim that to act rationally and follow reasons is something they ought to do.56 This objection may succeed against a categorical imperative, but misunderstands the unique claim made by the PGC; the dialectical progression of the argument requires all agents to internalise the principle, as a failure to do so results in the paradox previously outlined. Even if an agent were to reject the PGC by denial of their agential status, this cannot succeed without the use of their agency – thus requiring them to internalise the principle they seek to reject. The unique form of reason thus provided by the PGC not only provides a reason as to why it should be internalised, but also provides an inescapable normative obligation to do so. It thus overcomes the objection and succeeds in demonstrating that the reflective nature of human consciousness is capable of serving as the source of, and solution to, normative dilemmas.57 A final and connected objection might be raised based on the ascription of universal scope to the moral principles thus identified. The objection would hold that universalisability can only demonstrate that what is rational for me is to be self-interested, and that subsequently I must agree that you must also view the pursuit of self-interest as rational. If this is at the heart of the moral claim, then it is empty of normative content and is incapable of generating the normativity that has been claimed here.58 Such a claim, however, appears to be grounded in the assumption that the claims being made regarding the respect of other agents are not necessary, but somehow optional. This is not the case. The PGC demonstrates that it is necessary for all agents to respect the Generic Conditions of Agency possessed by other agents, at risk of contradiction. Such a claim is consistent with the instrumental rationality principle previously defended, and thus is a principle that is capable of generating norms in the way this objection attempts to deny. We should therefore dismiss the objection as being grounded in a misunderstanding of the argument of the PGC, as it is perfectly acceptable to ground the moral permissibility of acts in a test of universalisation that itself relies on the general requirement of following instrumental hypothetical imperatives.59 Since this is the foundation of the PGC, we can accept it as a valid test by which to identify moral norms as the Kantian notion of agency upon which it is built holds that agents are able to

‘transform contingent values into necessary ones by valuing the humanity that is their source.’60 Since the PGC provides a dialectically necessary rather than an optional reason to do this, our conclusions as to its universal applicability as a moral standard are sound.