Resolution Theory — Ethical Objectivity: A Constitutive Account from Agency

This paper develops a constitutive account of ethical objectivity grounded in an account of agency as evaluative resolution. Building on the view that choice consists not in the production of behaviour but in the resolution of competing considerations through the endorsement of reasons, it argues that normativity is unavoidable wherever agency exists. Ethical objectivity does not require stance-independent moral facts, divine command, or cultural preference, but arises from the internal constraints of agency itself: agents cannot resolve without already standing under standards of better and worse reasoning. On this basis, the paper explains responsibility, mitigation, and excuse in terms of the integrity of evaluative resolution rather than the mere occurrence of action. Coercion, impairment, and immaturity compromise agency by distorting reasons or limiting evaluative capacity without eliminating free will altogether. The account preserves ethical objectivity without moral realism, avoids relativism, and clarifies the role of law as institutionalised resolution rather than moral metaphysics.