Frankfurt

Abstract

In this book, I engage twice with Frankfurt’s thought — the two different stages of my argument corresponding to what we can see as two different stages in Frankfurt’s work. The first time was when I pointed to a principal problem in his ‘early’ work, that of the infinite series of higher-order desires, the ‘endless regress’ problem. I will show now that in Frankfurt’s ‘later’ work (1988 and 1999) we can find a view which, construed as an ideal of autonomy, may provide an attractive alternative to the extended ideal. First I will explain Frankfurt’s ideal of autonomy (constructed on the basis of his recent work) and identify its virtues; then, second, I will discuss possible objections to it.