Obligation and Normativity in Modern Moral Philosophy
What is distinctive about modern moral philosophy, i.e., that written in the 17th and 18th centuries, is often considered to be its conception of obligation. G.E.M. Anscombe, for instance, famously argued that modern moral philosophers, and her contemporaries under their influence, were wrong to try and ground the normativity of morality without reference to a divine lawgiver. Whether they are critical or merely interpretive in nature, the views of many other influential philosophers such as H.A. Prichard, Bernard Williams, and Stephen Darwall have all agreed in this respect. Indeed, Christine Korsgaard describes what she calls ‘the normative question,’ that is, what justifies the demands that morality makes on us, as one that was especially pressing for modern moral philosophers from roughly Grotius to Kant. How did modern moral philosophers explain the normativity of morality? How do modern figures use the concept of obligation to account for the normativity of morality? This conference and the planned edited volume will address these and related questions. Collectively, the participants will engage with the works of a variety of major and minor figures from the modern period to enrich our historical and systematic understanding of the nature of morality’s normativity.
Date and Location
Oct. 30 and 31, 2026 – University of Milan, Italy
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Program
Friday Oct. 30
9–10 – Johan Olsthoorn (Amsterdam) – Duties and Obligations in Grotius’s Natural Law Ethics
10–10:30 – Coffee Break
10:30–11:30 – Enrico Galvagni (Edinburgh) – ‘Double Goodness’: William King on Divine Will and Human Happiness as Sources of Moral Obligation
11:30–12:30 – Michael Walschots (Milan) – Pufendorf, Barbeyrac, and Leibniz on the Efficient Cause of Natural Law
12:30–2:30 – Lunch Break
2:30–3:30 – Xiao Qi (Nankai) – Hume on the Peculiar Idea of Moral Obligation: Its Object and Origin
3:30–4:30 – Stefano Bacin (Milan) – Degrees of Obligation in Pre-Kantian German Moral Philosophy
4:30–5 – Coffee Break
5–6 – Fiorella Tomassini (CONICET Argentina) – Achenwall on Coercion and Legal Obligation
8 – Dinner
Saturday Oct. 31
10–11 – Ruth Boeker, Suchana Datta, and James Mackey (University College Dublin) – Women Philosophers and Neglected Conceptions of Obligation
11–11:30 – Coffee Break
11:30–12:30 – Pauline Kleingeld (Groningen) – Kant on Freedom and Obligation
12:30–2:30 – Lunch Break
2:30–3:30 – Konstantin Pollok (Mainz) – Moral Law, Categorical Imperative, and the Concept of an Absolutely Good Will in Kant’s GMS III
3:30–4:30 – Deborah Boyle (College of Charleston) – Elizabeth Hamilton’s Theological Utilitarianism
4:30–5 – Coffee Break
5–6 – Stephen Darwall (Yale) – Obligations as Reasons and as Accountability in Modern Moral Philosophy