Rational Agency and Normative Achievement

As rational agents, we are constantly faced with questions about what to do, think, and feel. The answers to these questions are given by the normative standards that govern our actions, thoughts, and feelings. But it isn’t enough that our actions, thoughts, and feelings just happen to comply with these standards. It is also important that the success involved in complying with these standards is attributable to us as agents, instead of being merely accidental. For our success to be attributable to us, we must not just comply with these standards, but actually be guided by them in acting, thinking, and feeling. This distinction, between merely complying with a standard and being guided by that standard, has application throughout our normative lives. The aim of this dissertation is to introduce a category that I call normative achievement, and illustrate its connection to rational agency. A normative achievement is the positive status an action, thought, or feeling has when it is guided by a standard that governs it, as opposed to merely complying with that standard. On the account I develop, normative achievements consist in being guided by a standard through responsiveness to normative reasons that are connected in the right way to that standard. Besides sketching a general account of normative achievement, I illustrate the category by developing accounts of two achievements: moral worth and rationality. In doing so, I shed light on how achievements like moral worth and rationality are ultimately successful exercises of our rational agency – our capacity to discern good reasons for action, thought, and feeling, and respond to those reasons accordingly.Doctor of Philosoph