“The Predicament of Temporality: Williams’ challenge to Kant’s conception of practical reason

This chapter argues that Williams’ criticisms of Kant’s account of morality should be viewed in light of their disagreement about the function of reason. This interpretation unearths a fundamental challenge, due to the tension between the temporal features of human agency and the allegedly categorical authority of some normative claims. This is a predicament central to any theory of practical reason. For Kant its root lies in human embodiment, finitude and fragility, and the remedy is the normative standard of reason, which plays a constitutive role in unifying the agent across time. By contrast, for Williams, mortality is the condition of possibility for valuing life, and agential unity is both unfeasible and undesirable, in the face of multiple sources of practical necessity whose significance is assessed from the present stance. The contrastive analysis of these views aims to identify their respective merits.