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The ethical subject: Accountability, authorship, and practical reason

Published/Copyright: August 26, 2010
SATS
From the journal Volume 11 Issue 1

Abstract

Can human subjects be constructed and yet ethical? If it is language that speaks, rather than the author, how can we claim authorship over our utterances and actions? In this article, I struggle with these questions and try to develop a view of the ethical subject between an essentialist position that pictures the subject as unitary, and a postmodern position depicting the subject as fragmented. On this middle ground, I argue that a viable view of the ethical subject presents it as fundamentally an accountable reason giver, but I also point to some important limitations concerning accountability. Drawing in particular on the recent works of Sabina Lovibond and Judith Butler, I explore the resources for thinking of the subject within what has been called the practical reason approach to ethics, arguing that a subject should be thought of as existing in a normative space – a ‘space of reasons’.

Keywords:: Subjectivity; accountability; reasons; ethical formation; practical reason
Published Online: 2010-08-26
Published in Print: 2010-May

© Walter de Gruyter 2010

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Embodiment and Expressivity in Husserl's Phenomenology: From Logical Investigations to Cartesian Meditations
  2. „Natur, Absurdität und Revolte. Die Stufen des Bewußtseins und die Dialektik von Individuum und Gesellschaft bei Albert Camus“
  3. Why ‘Water’ is Nearly an Indexical
  4. Did Plato Solve the Problem of How to Translate Theory into Practice in his “Republic”?
  5. The ethical subject: Accountability, authorship, and practical reason
  6. Diversity in Value Pluralism
  7. A Sense of Postphenomenology
https://doi.org/10.1515/sats.2010.007
Keywords for this article
Subjectivity; accountability; reasons; ethical formation; practical reason

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Embodiment and Expressivity in Husserl's Phenomenology: From Logical Investigations to Cartesian Meditations
  2. „Natur, Absurdität und Revolte. Die Stufen des Bewußtseins und die Dialektik von Individuum und Gesellschaft bei Albert Camus“
  3. Why ‘Water’ is Nearly an Indexical
  4. Did Plato Solve the Problem of How to Translate Theory into Practice in his “Republic”?
  5. The ethical subject: Accountability, authorship, and practical reason
  6. Diversity in Value Pluralism
  7. A Sense of Postphenomenology
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