F.H. Bradley’s Conception of the Moral Self: A New Reading

This paper reinterprets the concept of the moral self in F.H. Bradley’s Ethical Studies. Firstly, I dismiss the naturalistic reading of the moral self as a set of appropriate desires and beliefs or as a combination of character traits and habits. Then, I distinguish between the moral self as a principle of universalisability and the moral life of the self. I argue that the moral life of the self is essentially a project of attaining the moral ideal; that is to say, its comprehension and concretisation, on the one hand, and its realisation, on the other. I further suggest that the successful realisation of this project by an agent consists in acting in accordance with the coherent set of her reasonable commitments.