The judges for the 2012 Wilfrid Sellars Essay Prize are pleased to announce that the winner for this year’s competition is Eric Entrican Wilson, author of “Kant on Autonomy and the Value of Persons.”

 Eric joined the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University as an Assistant Professor in 2010, and from 2008-10 was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland. He received his Ph.D from Emory University in 2007, writing a dissertation entitled “Kantian Autonomy and the Authority of Moral Judgment” (director: Rudolf Makkreel). Other articles published include: “Fichte’s Break with Representationalism,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 3 (2011), “On the Nature of Judgment in Kant’s Transcendental Logic,” Idealistic Studies 40.1-2 (2010), “Is Kant’s Concept of Autonomy Absurd?” History of Philosophy Quarterly 26.2 (April 2009), “Kantian Autonomy and the Moral Self,” The Review of Metaphysics  62.2 (December 2008) (winner of the Review of Metaphysics 2007 Dissertation Essay Competition), and “‘Absolute Identity’ and Hegel’s Treatment of Concepts and Intuitions in Glauben und Wissen,” Das Hegel Jahrbuch, Teil 2 (2004).

In the awarded essay (available in the members-only section of our website), Wilson seeks to contribute to current debates about value in Kant’s ethics. His main objective is to dislodge the widely shared intuition that his view of autonomy requires constructivism or some other alternative to moral realism. He argues, instead, that Kant seems to think that the value of persons is due to their very nature, not to what anyone decides is the case (however rational or pure those decisions may be). Furthermore, Kant also seems to think that when we treat persons as ends in themselves we are responding appropriately to the fact that their very nature elevates them above all other concerns. For Wilson, neither of these beliefs is incompatible with his view of autonomy. So, he concludes, it is a mistake to think that Kant’s ethics requires constructivism or any other form of anti-realism.

The Wilfrid Sellars Essay Prize began in 2010 (the previous winners are Matthew C. Altman and Ernesto V. Garcia), and is open to recent Ph.Ds and junior (notenured) faculty who are 40 years of age or younger and members of NAKS in good standing. This annual prize is meant to award the best essay on any topic that demonstrates the continuted relevance of Kant’s philosophy. The deadline for the next round of submissions is January 15, 2013. (Please find more information on our website and under Calls for Papers, below.)