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It is not the case that By conforming to the categorical and hypothetical imperatives, a rational agent makes itself into an agent.
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Reasons For
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Reason for 1 of 2
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1.
Agency is constituted by causal history and embodied dispositions, not conformity to formal imperatives (Aristotle, NE II.1; Anscombe, 'Modern Moral Philosophy').
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2.
A being can satisfy the categorical imperative on a single occasion without thereby becoming an agent, revealing that conformity is at most a symptom, not a constitutive condition.
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Reason for 2 of 2
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1.
Christine Korsgaard's self-constitution thesis presupposes a unified self that persists across actions, but Parfitian reductionism denies any such metaphysically robust self to be constituted.
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2.
If personal identity reduces to psychological continuity without a further fact (Parfit, 'Reasons and Persons' §15), then 'making oneself into an agent' names no determinate process over and above the occurrence of rational episodes.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Some objects make themselves into the kind of objects they are by conforming to their constitutive standards (the self-constitution requirement).
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2.
Rational agents are objects of this self-constituting kind.
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3.
The categorical and hypothetical imperatives are the constitutive standards of rational agency.
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