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Constructivism about practical knowledge
Abstract
It is largely agreed that if constructivism contributes anything to meta-ethics it is by proposing that we understand ethical objectivity “in terms of a suitably constructed point of view that all can accept” (Rawls 1980/1999b: 307). Constructivists defend this “practical” conception of objectivity in contrast to the realist or “ontological” conception of objectivity, understood as an accurate representation of an independent metaphysical order. Because of their objectivist but not realist commitments, Kantian constructivists place their theory “somewhere in the space between realist and relativist accounts of ethics” (O’Neill 1988: 1). Furthermore, they argue that their practical conception of objectivity succeeds in making sense of certain features of morality, such as its categorical authority and its relation to rational agency, which escape rival theories (Korsgaard 1996b, 2003). To this extent, constructivism claims a privileged place in meta-ethics. The legitimacy of this claim is widely challenged. Precisely because of its practical conception of objectivity, many – including some constructivists – regard constructivism as a first-order normative theory, rather than as a meta-ethical position, hence not on a par with realism. Some critics object that constructivism fails to offer a distinct meta-ethics because it is structurally incomplete and thus must be combined with a fully-fledged meta-ethics (Hussain and Shah 2006); others argue that it tacitly relies on realism (Shafer-Landau 2003; Timmons 2003; Larmore 2008).
... There is significant debate over whether constructivism is a realist or an anti-realist view about moral facts (Bagnoli 2002(Bagnoli , 2013Copp 2013;Enoch 2009a, b;Schafer 2014;Street 2010). My suggestion in this paper is that both forms of constructivism have equally pressing needs to explain moral progress. ...
... Ecumenically speaking, constructivism is the view that morality is underwritten by the practical attitudes of agents. Those constructivists who fall closer to the realist side of the debate argue that moral objectivity (and, for some, moral truth) is a product of what a practically rational agent would endorse (Bagnoli 2013;Korsgaard 1986Korsgaard , 1996Korsgaard , 19972008a, b, c;O'Neill 1989;Rawls 1999Rawls /1980. 1 By contrast, constructivists who align themselves with moral anti-realism take morality, to use Sharon Street's (2010: 371) description, to be underwritten by what creatures (rational or not) who are capable of valuing would actually or counterfactually value. 2 It follows, then, that the realist constructivist takes convergence on moral truth to be an actual or counterfactual possibility. By contrast, the anti-realist constructivist does not require convergence nor must she grant that it is even possible. ...
... Although we began with an ecumenical definition of constructivism, this definition does not cover the differences among three varieties of constructivism that we find in the literature. They are: (1) Humean constructivism, as represented by Street's (2008Street's ( , 2010Street's ( , 2012 and James Lenman's (2010) respective views; (2) Kantian constructivism, as represented by Christine Korsgaard's (1986Korsgaard's ( , 1996Korsgaard's ( , 1997Korsgaard's ( , 2008aKorsgaard's ( , b, c, 2009) Kantian constitutivist view; and (3) constructivism as a view about the structure and execution of the capacity for practical reason, as represented by Carla Bagnoli's (2002Bagnoli's ( , 2013 Careful consideration of each of these views' main claims reveals that most constructivists agree on the basic ecumenical definition with which we began. It also reveals, however, important conceptual differences regarding the realist or anti-realist orientation of constructivism, the attitudes (cognitive or non-cognitive) that underwrite constructivism's claim to moral truth or justification, the content of moral judgments and the nature of the process under which the construction of morality occurs. ...
Among the available metaethical views, it would seem that moral realism—in particular moral naturalism—must explain the possibility of moral progress. We see this in the oft-used argument from disagreement against various moral realist views. My suggestion in this paper is that, surprisingly, metaethical constructivism has at least as pressing a need to explain moral progress. I take moral progress to be, minimally, the opportunity to access and to act in light of moral facts of the matter, whether they are mind-independent or -dependent. For the metaethical constructivist, however, I add that moral progress ought also mean that agents come to be or could come to be motivated to act in light of the right kind of moral judgments. Together I take this to mean that, for all forms of constructivism, moral progress must be explained as a form of moral improvement, or agents aspiring to be better sorts of moral agents. In what moral improvement consists differs for various forms of constructivism. Here I distinguish between three different versions of metaethical constructivism: Humean constructivists as represented by Street (2008, 2010, 2012), Kantian constitutivist constructivists as represented by Korsgaard, and constructivists about practical reason as represented by Carla Bagnoli (2002, 2013). I conclude by showing that only constructivism as a view about practical reason can fully account for moral progress qua the opportunity for moral improvement.
... Humeans are right that it is logically possible for Caligula's judgment to survive reflective scrutiny. While conceivable without contradiction, this case is not practically possible (Engstrom 2009, p. 243, see also III. 7, andBagnoli 2013). The case is ruled out by practical reflection, and the issue is whether Kantian constructivism can support this conclusion without conceding to realism that moral values are prior to and independent of practical reflection. ...
... 110, 118, Korsgaard 2008. Insofar as it is cognitivist, my version of Kantian constructivism is similar to Engstrom's practical cognitivism, seeEngstrom 2002Engstrom , 2012Engstrom , 2013Bagnoli 2013. However, differently than Engstrom, I take respect to be a structural feature of practical reflection, and I do not think practical reflection requires detachment or that these are Btwo moments of the exercise of the same capacity^,Engstrom 2009, p. 146. ...
According to the standard objection, Kantian constructivism implicitly commits to value realism or fails to warrant objective validity of normative propositions. This paper argues that this objection gains some force from the special case of moral obligations. The case largely rests on the assumption that the moral domain is an eminent domain of special objects. But for constructivism there is no moral domain of objects prior to and independently of reasoning. The argument attempts to make some progress in the debate by defending a robust conception of construction, which names a distinctive view of practical reasoning as transformative.
... 44-47). I criticise Korsgaard's argument in Bagnoli (2013). For present purposes, only the second claim is relevant. ...
... 33 The activity of reasoning is principled, hence governed by the requirement of universality. 33 On the Kantian view of reason as the source of authority of moral principles, see Bagnoli (2013), O'Neill (2015). ...
This paper situates the problem of defeaters in a larger debate about the source of normative authority. It argues in favour of a constructivist account of defeasibility, which appeals to the justificatory role of normative principles. The argument builds upon the critique of two recent attempts to deal with defeasibility: first, a particularist account, which disposes of moral principles on the ground that reasons are holistic; and second, a proceduralist view, which addresses the problem of defeaters by distinguishing between provisional and strictly universal principles. The particularist view fails to establish that moral principles have no epistemological import, but it raises important questions about their role in practical reasoning. The proceduralist view fails to distinguish between reasoning by default and reasoning by principles, but it shows that normative principles have a structural justificatory role. The constructivist view recognizes that the moral valence of normative claims vary across contexts, but denies that this is because of holism about reasons. Rather, it defends defeasibility within a constructivist account of reasoning where universality serves as the matrix of judgment. The constructivist view vindicates the justificatory role of universal normative principles, and makes room for some ordinary sources of defeasibility, which are left unaccounted by competing views, and which depend on the agent’s own progress.
... 106-22), Kain (2004and 2010), Stern (2012), and Schönecker (2013. Constructivist (albeit not specifically constitutivist) readings of Kant's project in practical philosophy can instead be found in Rawls (1980), O'Neill (1989, Hill (1992), and Bagnoli (2013Bagnoli ( , 2014Bagnoli ( , and 2017. And while it falls well beyond the scope of this paper to explain that assumption, it should at least be noted here that the argument presented in this paper is best understood bearing such an assumption in mind. ...
This essay tackles head on the argument that sees an inherent paradox in the autonomy of the will as the ground for the authority of the fundamental practical norms. It points out that only on reductive understandings of the autonomy of the will can this idea be qualified as paradoxical, thereby yielding outcomes that either contradict their premises or present autonomy under a false guise. With that done, it will proceed to offer a conception of the autonomy of the will which is not vulnerable to the paradox, and which may therefore be equipped to rest the fundamental practical norms on solid ground. Throughout this discussion, I will rely on constitutivism about practical reasons to specifically defend the twofold conclusion that (a) the paradox of autonomy can be avoided and that, relatedly, (b) if autonomy is properly conceptualised, it is fully equipped and well positioned to ground the authority of the fundamental practical norms.
... 3 Some anti-realist constructivists argue that the label Bobjective^is not just the providence of realism and that constructed moral facts can be as objective as realistic moral facts. For an argument to this effect, see Bagnoli (2013). These claims depend crucially on what is meant by Bmoral objectivity.^One ...
Objective moral facts are supposed to be independent from us, but it has proven difficult to provide a clear account of this independence condition. Objective moral facts cannot be overly independent of us, as even an objective morality would depend, in important respects, on features of us. The challenge is to respect these moral mind-dependencies without inappropriately counting too many moral facts as objective. In this paper, I delineate and evaluate several different versions of the independence condition in moral objectivity. I raise problems for these ways of formulating moral objectivity and then develop a better account of moral objectivity, one that avoids the pitfalls of other proposals.
... In the final section, I would like to ascribe to Kant a moral idealism which can preserve the insights of both moral realism and constructivism without running into the same difficulties. I believe that the Euthyphro dilemma can be dissolved if we take seriously Kant's idea that practical reason (the will) is a capacity for knowledge (Bagnoli 2012(Bagnoli , 2013Engstrom 2009). ...
Are our actions morally good because we approve of them or are they good independently of our approval? Are we projecting moral values onto the world or do we detect values that are already there? For many these questions don’t state a real alternative but a secular variant of the Euthyphro dilemma: If our actions are good because we approve of them moral goodness appears to be arbitrary. If they are good independently of our approval, it is unclear how we come to know their moral quality and how moral knowledge can be motivating. None of these options seems attractive; the source of moral goodness unclear. Despite the growing literature on Kant’s moral epistemology and moral epistemology the question remains open what Kant’s answer to this apparent dilemma is. The Kantian view I attempt to lay out in this paper is supposed to dissolve the secular version of the Euthyphro dilemma. In responding to this dilemma we need to get clear about the source or the origin of our moral knowledge: Voluntary approval or mind-independent moral facts? Projectivism or detectivism? Construction or given? I believe that all these ways of articulating the problem turn out, on closer inspection, to be false alternatives.
... 9 To determine whether constitutivism's Self-Reflection Requirement plays a necessary role in this process, we must first identify the version of metaethical constructivism that is plausibly derived from constitutivism. There is significant debate about metaethical constructivism's main theses (Bagnoli 2013(Bagnoli , 2014Besch 2008;Enoch 2009b;Fitzpatrick 2013;O'Neill 1989O'Neill , 2003Rawls 1999Rawls /1951Street 2008Street , 2010 and its scope (Bagnoli 2014;Gibbard 1999;Street 2008). For the sake of determining whether constitutivist views of self-reflection bear any important relationship to the form of moral normativity that many constitutivists favor, I will rely on Sharon Street's (2010: 371) description of constructivism's main metaethical claims: 6 Such as Katsafanas' (2011; mix of Nietzschean and Kantian accounts of the will. ...
Constitutivists explicitly emphasize the importance of self-reflection for rational agency. Interestingly enough, there is no clear account of how and why self-reflection plays such an important role for these views. My aim in this paper is to adress this underappreciated problem for constitutivist views and to determine whether constitutivist self-reflection is normatively oriented. Understanding its normative features will allow us to evaluate a potential way that constitutivism may meet its purported metaethical promise. I begin by showing why constitutivism, as exemplified by Korsgaard’s and Velleman’s respective views, takes self-reflection to be a constitutive feature of rational agency. Closer examination of this claim suggests three underappreciated problems for the constitutivist’s apparent reliance on self-reflection. First, we have no picture of the specific role that self-reflection plays. Second, it is unclear in what sense it is a requirement for full-fledged agency and, thereby, for self-constitution. Third, it is not clear whether it has any necessary normative features, even given the often cited moral normativity associated with constitutivism. In §1, I will address the first and second questions. §2 will be dedicated to considering the third question.
About fifty years ago, I began to fear that the kind of jurisprudence associated with the then-Supreme Court majority, although I welcomed its substantive results, would create a protective precedent for a kind of jurisprudence I feared -- very much the kind that the current Supreme Court majority instantiates. I could not get my work published, at least in part for want of adequate philosophical training. The present thesis, issued too late, sets forth a more neutral, healthier approach to jurisprudence. I hope that some day, no doubt after I'm gone, a future Supreme Court majority will reflect its influence.
We often feel like doing something and yet are not determined to do it. This is ‘the moment of drama’, the point at which it is up to the agent to decide whether to go along with the inclination (Schapiro 2021: 15). This is the theme of a much anticipated book by a leading scholar in ethics. Tamar Schapiro argues that to account for this drama, we must recognize that the agent enjoys a certain freedom to act as the inclinations prompt, and the aim of this book is to develop a philosophical conception of how agents exercise their freedom. In a nutshell, the puzzle is this: ‘Inclinations are forms of motivation with respect to which we are distinctively passive. But to be motivated is not to be moved; it is to be self-moved. How is it possible to be passive in relation to your own self-movement?’ (38).
A successful theory of the will explains how we are simultaneously passive and active in regard to the inclinations. What is at stake is not whether agents do the right thing, but how agents ‘handle the pressure of the moment’, and, ultimately, whether agents will become who they can (12, 18). Schapiro’s answer to this question points to procedural ideals of detachment, which have the function of disempowering the inclinations, that is, of robbing them of the motivational function they normally have (13). Thus, the fundamental question is whether and why we need such ideals.
In order to make headway on the debate about whether Kant was a constructivist, nonconstructivist, or instead defends a hybrid view that somehow entirely sidesteps these categories, I attempt to clarify the terms of the debate more carefully than is usually done. First, I discuss the overall relationship between realism and constructivism. Second, I identify four main features of Kantian constructivism in general. Third, I examine three rival versions of metanormative Kantian constructivism, what I’ll call axiological, constitutivist, and rationalist constructivist. I argue that Kant is best seen as a rationalist constructivist. I conclude by arguing that although it’s a constructivist view, this reading avoids the main pitfalls of traditional Kantian constructivism. In doing so, it helps us to achieve a satisfying rapprochement between constructivist and non-constructivist (that is, so-called ‘realist’) readings of Kant.
While it is uncontroversial that Kantian constructivism has implications for normative ethics, its status as a metaethical view has been contested. In this article, I provide a characterisation of metaethical Kantian constructivism that withstands these criticisms. I start by offering a partial defence of Sharon Street’s practical standpoint characterisation. However, I argue that this characterisation, as presented by Street, is ultimately incomplete because it fails to demonstrate that the claims of Kantian constructivism constitute a distinctive contribution to metaethics. I then try to complete the practical standpoint characterisation by elaborating on Christine Korsgaard’s suggestion that metaethical Kantian constructivism takes up a position on the source of morality’s normativity.
A central claim in the Kantian account of practical knowledge is that the logical form of practical reasoning is universal. This chapter argues for a constructivist interpretation of this claim, which has a decisive comparative advantage over its competitors in contemporary meta-ethics in that it explains the validity and authority of practical reasoning by exploiting the interdependence of mutually vulnerable and mutually accountable rational agents. The authority of practical reasoning does not depend on subjective endorsement or assent but it is anchored on features that are constitutive of human agency. While deductive, inductive, and transductive models of practical reasoning focus on validity, they leave the issue of the authority untreated. By contrast, constructivism approaches the problem upfront by distinguishing between ideal and non-ideal conditions of rationality. Human agents do not operate under ideal conditions, and hence the question arises for them whether valid norms of rationality are subjectively authoritative.
Ethical constructivism holds that truths about the relation between rationality, morality, and agency are best understood as constructed by correct reasoning, rather than discovered or invented. Unlike other metaphors used in metaethics, construction brings to light the generative and dynamic dimension of practical reason. On the resultant picture, practical reasoning is not only productive but also self-transforming, and socially empowering. The main task of this volume is to illustrate how constructivism has substantially modified and expanded the agenda of metaethics by refocusing on rational agency and its constitutive principles. In particular, this volume identifies, compares and discusses the prospects and failures of the main strands of constructivism regarding the powers of reason in responding to the challenges of contingency. While Kantian, Humean, Aristotelian, and Hegelian theories sharply differ in their constructivist strategies, they provide compelling accounts of the rational articulation required for an inclusive and unified ethical community.
This last chapter takes up the challenges to value cognitivism deployed across the book, drawing in part on Scheler, Husserl, Hartmann, and other classic phenomenologists to set up the main tenets of phenomenological axiology, and confronting contemporary metaethics. Five principles for a phenomenological theory of values and value experience establish the foundations for a cognitive view of practical reason. The relations among value cognition, will, and action are discussed, drawing on Pfänder’s phenomenology of the will. Compatibility between value pluralism and universalism is argued for. An assessment of the significance of “material” axiology for an “examined life” closes the book.
Jürgen Habermas’ discourse theory of morality should be understood, in metaethical terms, as a constructivist theory. All constructivist theories face a Euthyphro-like dilemma arising from how they classify the constraints on their metaethical construction procedures: are they moral or non-moral? Many varieties of Kantian constructivism, such as Christine Korsgaard’s, classify the constraints as moral, albeit constitutive of human reason and agency in general. However, this constitutivist strategy is vulnerable to David Enoch’s ‘shmagency’ objection. The discourse theory of morality, by classifying the constraints on the metaethical construction procedure (principles (D) and (U)) as non-moral, can avoid this problem.
Over the last two decades, Kant’s name has become closely associated with the “constitutivist” program within metaethics.¹1 The association of Kant and constitutivism is due above all to the work of Korsgaard – see for example Korsgaard (1996 Korsgaard, Christine. 1996. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2008 Korsgaard, Christine. 2008. The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2009 Korsgaard, Christine. 2009. Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). A close second in significance in this regard is Velleman (2000 Velleman, David. 2000. The Possibility of Practical Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar], 2009 Velleman, David. 2009. How We Get Along. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). For some of the other (Kantian and anti-Kantian) variants on the constitutivist idea, see Foot (2003 Foot, Philippa. 2003. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]), O'Neill (1989 O’Neill, Onora. 1989. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]), Thomson (2008 Thomson, J. J. 2008. Normativity. New York: Open Court. [Google Scholar]), Thompson (2008 Thompson, Michael. 2008. Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Smith (2012 Smith, Michael. 2012. “Agents and Patients, or: What We Learn About Reasons for Action by Reflecting on Our Choices in Process-of-Thought Cases.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 112 (3): 309–331. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9264.2012.00337.x[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2013 Smith, Michael. 2013. “A Constitutivist Theory of Reasons: Its Promise and Parts.” LEAP: Law, Ethics, and Philosophy 1: 9–30. [Google Scholar]), James (2012 James, Aaron. 2012. “Constructing Protagorean Objectivity.” In Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, edited by J. Lenman, and Y. Shemmer, 60–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Walden (2012 Walden, Kenny. 2012. “Laws of Nature, Laws of Freedom, and the Social Construction of Normativity.” Oxford Studies in Metaethics 7: 37–79. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199653492.003.0002[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Katsafanas (2013 Katsafanas, Paul. 2013. Agency and the Foundations of Ethics: Nietzschean Constitutivism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Setiya (2013 Setiya, Kieran. 2013. Knowing Right from Wrong. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]), and Lavin (forthcoming Lavin, Doug. forthcoming. “Pluralism about Agency”. [Google Scholar]). But is Kant best read as pursuing a constitutivist approach to meta-normative questions? And if so, in what sense?²2 I’ve discussed this question previously (with a contemporary focus) in Schafer (2015a Schafer, Karl. 2015a. “Realism and Constructivism in Kantian Metaethics 1.” Philosophy Compass 10: 690–701. doi: 10.1111/phc3.12253[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2015b Schafer, Karl. 2015b. “Realism and Constructivism in Kantian Metaethics 2.” Philosophy Compass 10: 702–713. doi: 10.1111/phc3.12252[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2018a Schafer, Karl. 2018a. “Constitutivism About Reasons: Autonomy and Understanding.” In The Many Moral Rationalisms, edited by K. Jones, and F. Schroeter, 70–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). See also the discussion of Sensen (2013 Sensen, Oliver. 2013. “Kant’s Constructisivm.” In Constructivism in Ethics, edited by Carla Bagnoli, 63–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), which arrives at a somewhat similar conclusion, albeit in a different systematic context. In this essay, I argue that we can best answer these questions by considering them in the context of how Kant understands the proper methodology for philosophy in general. The result of this investigation will be that, while Kant can indeed be read as a sort of constitutivist, his constitutivism is ultimately one instance of a more general approach to philosophy, which treats as fundamental our basic, self-conscious rational capacities. Thus, to truly understand why and how Kant is a constitutivist, we need to consider this question within the context of his more fundamental commitment to “capacities-first philosophy”.
Humean constructivists object to Kantian constructivism that by endorsing the constitutivist strategy, which grounds moral obligations in rational agency, this position discounts the impact of contingency in moral life. In response to these charges, I argue that Humeans misrepresent the challenge of contingency and fail to provide adequate resources to cope with it. In its formalist variety, Humean constructivism fails to make sense of an important category of ethical judgments, which claim universal authority. The substantive varieties of Humean constructivism recognize that some ethical judgments aspire to universality, but fail to fully justify such an aspiration. These versions of constructivism represent a setback in regard to the achievements of Kantian constructivism. In conclusion, I briefly resume the advantages of advocating a Kantian conception of rational authority as a response to contingency.
Constitutivists about moral norms are often suspected of providing an overly “self-centered” account of morality which does not take seriously enough morality’s interpersonal nature. This worry seems particularly pressing in the light of recent debates about the relational character of many moral norms. In this paper, I discuss one aspect of this worry, which concerns the special standing to complain which the victims of wrongdoing have. I argue that, contrary to appearances, Kantian constitutivism can explain this latter feature, since there is a special need for remedying the denial of equal moral standing of the victim and the impairment of the victim’s agency which any wrongdoing involves.
According to many, evolutionary accounts of ethics undermine the prospects of its objective foundation. By contrast, this paper argues that such evolutionary accounts discredit only the absolutist construal of moral truths as timeless but supports other conceptions of objectivity as tested by time. Insofar as Kantian constructivism addresses the problem of ethical objectivity from the standpoint of temporal rational agents, it is not vulnerable to debunking arguments based on evolutionary explanations. In fact, recent work on evolutionary accounts of reasoning and inferences not only coheres with but it also reinforces the constructivist conception of practical reason as a problem‐solving cooperative device apt to temporal and interdependent rational agents.
I show that an overlooked feature of our moral life—moral status—provides a route to vindicating naturalist moral realism in much the same way that the Humean theory of motivation and judgment internalism are used to undermine it. Moral status presents two explanatory burdens for metaethical views. First, a given view must provide an ecumenical explanation of moral status, which does not depend on the truth of its metaethical claims (say, that there are mind-independent facts about moral status). Second, its explanation must be consistent with persistent normative ethical disagreement about what constitutes moral status. I conclude that naturalist moral realism succeeds, while quasi-realism fails because it cannot meet the latter requirement. This argument has three results: we have a new route for metaethical vindication more generally and for naturalist moral realism in particular; quasi-realism's plausibility is undermined by an inability to explain disagreement, but not for the familiar reasons.
According to an anti-realist argument, realist accounts of supervenience face the following dilemma: either they accept naturalistic reduction, an ontological claim about the nature of normative properties that is incoherent with their defining agenda, or they recognize that their agenda is based on a queer ontology, which is at risk of being unintelligible. In a recent defense of robust moral realism, David Enoch recognizes that this is a serious challenge but argues that it is not a conclusive argument against to moral realism because queerness is after all tolerable. His strategy is to minimize the costs of admitting queerness by focusing on the explanatory role of moral principles, in analogy with law. This is a promising approach to the problem of supervenience, but it is doubtful as strategy. I will show that in favor of moral realism. In fact, if all the explanatory work is done by normative principles, there is nothing for the realist account of supervenience to do.
p>John Rawls’s 1980 Dewey Lectures are widely acknowledged to represent the locus classicus for contemporary discussions of moral constructivism. Nevertheless, few published works have engaged with the significant interpretive challenges one finds in these lectures, and those that have fail to offer a satisfactory reading of the view that Rawls presents there or the place the lectures occupy in the development of Rawls's thinking. Indeed, there is a surprising lack of consensus about how best to interpret the constructivism of these lectures. In this paper, I argue that the constructivism presented in the Dewey Lectures is best understood as involving the view that moral truth is correspondence with procedurally-determined, stance-dependent facts. Employing Rawls’s discussion of rational intuitionism as a foil, I defend this reading against textual discrepancies from within the lectures, as well as those one finds across Rawls’s other works. In addition to settling interpretive disputes, I draw out the ways in which this understanding of Kantian constructivism fits within the broader comparative project in ‘moral theory’ that Rawls inherits from Sidgwick.</p
Metaethical constructivism is one of the main movements within contemporary metaethics – especially among those with Kantian inclinations. But both the philosophical coherence and the Kantian pedigree of constructivism are hotly contested. In the first half of this article, I first explore the sense in which Kant's own views might be described as constructivist and then use the resulting understanding as a guide to how we might think about Kantian constructivism today. Along the way, I hope to suggest that a fairly diverse range of views within contemporary metaethics – including some without any explicit allegiance to Kant – may be thought of as pursuing a version of the resulting strategy.
Some moral claims strike us as objective. It is often argued that this shows morality to be objective. Moral experience – broadly construed – is invoked as the strongest argument for moral realism, the thesis that there are moral facts or properties.See e.g. Jonathan Dancy, “Two conceptions of Moral Realism,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 60 (1986): 167–187. Realists, however, cannot appropriate the argument from moral experience. In fact, constructivists argue that to validate the ways we experience the objectivity of moral claims, realism must be rejected.Christine M. Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). There is a general agreement that ethical theory bears the burden of proof of explaining the objective-seeming features of our moral experience.While disputing objectivity, antirealists commit themselves to account for the objectivist pretensions of moral claims. Anti-realists agree with the traditional view that moral experie ...
G. A. Cohen and J. Raz object that Constructivism is incoherent because it crucially deploys unconstructed elements in the structure of justification. This paper offers a response on behalf of constructivism, by reassessing the role of such unconstructed elements. First, it argues that a shared conception of rational agency works as a starting point for the justification, but it does not play a foundational role. Second, it accounts for the unconstructed norms that constrains the activity of construction as constitutive norms. Finally, on this basis, it draws a contrast between constructivist and foundational methods of ethics, such as deontology and teleology.
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