Self-consciousness: Hegel and Korsgaard on the Sources of Normativity

Abstract

This article seeks to highlight the structural similarities of the philosophical proposals of G.W.F. Hegel and C. Korsgaard around the topic of self-consciousness. Thus, in the first part of this article I compare the way both authors thematize what I will call self-consciousness at the animal level. The fundamental thesis to defend in this first part is that, for both authors, self-consciousness is given in a minimum level in the practical self-thematization that is given in the basic operations of self-preservation of the living beings. In the second part, I compare the form of thematization of both authors of what I will call the self-consciousness in the properly human level. The fundamental thesis to be defended in this second part is twofold: first, self-awareness at this second level does not occur in the operations relative to self-preservation but in recognition: in the confirmation, for me by another consciousness and for another consciousness by me, of a certain practical identity. Second, this last type of self-consciousness is a source of normativity for our agency. That is to say, that in our form of self-consciousness a problem opens up that cannot appear for the first type of self-consciousness: that of normativity.