Witt on social role normativity and the paradox of self-creation

Charlotte Witt contends that her externalist model of social role normativity, which draws on Aristotle’s artisanal model, can explain the puzzling phenomenon of selfcreation, while no internalist model of social role normativity can do the same. She concludes from this that externalism on social role normativity is preferable to internalism, all else being equal. In this contribution, I argue that the paradox of self-creation does not break the tie between internalism and externalism, since both Kantian and Hegelian internalists can resolve this paradox by offering explanations similar to Witt’s, from an internalist perspective.