"Why should I be moral?" : a critical assessment of three contemporary attempts to give an extra-moral justification of moral conduct

Abstract

In this dissertation I consider three distinct attempts to answer the normative question “Why should I be moral?”, all of which assume that a successful answer must be capable of arguing someone who is currently not motivated by moral considerations at all into becoming moral. I outline an argument against the possibility of doing so which relies on the distinction between agent-relativity and agent-neutrality, and which states that since morality essentially involves agent-neutrality and since failure to recognize the reason-giving force of agent-neutral considerations is not necessarily irrational, one cannot be argued into being moral. I then show how the approaches of Christine Korsgaard, as encountered in her "The Sources of Normativity", Joseph Raz, as he puts it forth in “The Amoralist”, and lastly, David Brink as he puts it forth in “Self-Love and Altruism”, each in their different ways, fail in their attempts to argue someone into becoming moral.