Steven J. Woodworth

Here are brief overviews of my active research projects:

In my dissertation “Ethics without Moralism: An Essay on Agency, Reason, and Responsibility” I appeal to a substantive moral ideal of autonomy to defend constitutivism, the view that there are constitutive standards of action which inform the range of legitimate answers to the question of how one should live. The first chapter, “Success in Action and Action Explanation” establishes that there are constitutive standards of action, namely the standards of practical rationality. The second chapter, “Constitutivism and the Guise of the Good”, clarifies what constitutivists hold over and above the claims established in the first chapter, namely the idea that rationality is the capacity not just through which an agent guides her action, but also through which action is justified. The final chapter, “The Moral Significance of Reason as Self-Determination”, argues for constitutivism on moral grounds: to respect the value of autonomy, one must relate the claims of reason to an agent’s capacity of self-determination, and so her rationality; that virtue is teachable, as Socrates often maintained, or that ought implies can, as Kant held, are notable variations on this theme.