The Kantian strain of practical constructivism (through Rawls, Korsgaard, and others) has been so influential that it is tempting to identify the constructivist approach in practical domains with the Kantian development of the outlook. In this essay, I explore a different variety of practical constructivism, what I call “Aristotelian constructivism”. My aim is to establish conceptual space for this form of constructivism by indicating in what ways Aristotelian constructivism agrees with its Kantian counterparts and in what ways it differs. I (...) claim that it is, in one sense, more faithful to the constructivist enterprise than the Kantian varieties, in that its understanding of both the establishment of practical truth and the vindication of the theory itself is constructivist. (shrink)

In this article I draw on resources from the African philosophical tradition to construct a theory of human rights grounded on dignity that presents a challenge to the globally dominant, autonomy-based approach. Whereas the latter conceives of human rights violations as degradations of our rational nature, the former does so in terms of degradations of our relational nature, specifically, our capacity to be party to harmonious or friendly relationships. Although I have in the past presented the basics of the Afro-relational (...) approach, in this article I defend it from objections and also go on the offensive by arguing that understanding the human rights violations of torture and rape to be (roughly) behavior that treats innocent parties in an extremely discordant or unfriendly way is, if not more plausible than standard Kantian understandings, then at least a promising alternative to them. (shrink)

Metaethical constructivism is the view that insofar as there are normative truths, they are not fixed by normative facts that are independent of what rational agents would agree to under some specified conditions of choice. The appeal of this view lies in the promise to explain how normative truths are objective and independent of our actual judgments, while also binding and authoritative for us. -/- Constructivism comes in several varieties, some of which claim a place within metaethics while others claim (...) no place within it at all. In fact, constructivism is sometimes defended as a normative theory about the justification of moral principles. Normative constructivism is the view that the moral principles we ought to accept are the ones that agents would agree to or endorse were they to engage in a hypothetical or idealized process of rational deliberation. -/- Metaethical constructivist theories aim to account for the nature of normative truths and practical reasons. They bear a problematic relation to traditional classifications of metaethical theories. In particular, there are disagreements about how to situate constructivism in the realism/antirealism debate. These disagreements are rooted in further differences about the definition of metaethics, the relation between normative and metaethical claims, and the purported methods pertinent and specific to metaethical inquiry. The question of how to classify metaethical constructivism will be addressed in what follows by focusing on the distinctive questions that constructivist theories have been designed to answer. Section 1 explains the origin and motivation of constructivism. Sections 2–4 examine the main varieties of metaethical constructivism. Section 5 illustrates related constructivist views, some of which are not proposed as metaethical accounts of all normative truths, but only of moral truths. Sections 6 and 7 review several debates about the problems, promise and prospects of metaethical constructivism. (shrink)

Onora O’Neill has contributed enormously to moral philosophy (broadly speaking, including both ethics and political philosophy) by identifying Kant’s unique and powerful form of normative constructivism. Frederick Neuhouser has contributed similarly by showing that all of Hegel’s standards of moral rationality aim to insure the complete development of three distinct, complementary forms of personal, moral and social freedom. However, Neuhouser’s study does not examine Hegel’s justificatory methods and principles. The present article aims to reinforce and extend Neuhouser’s findings by explicating (...) Hegel’s basic principles for justifying practical norms. Surprisingly, Hegel’s basic principles of normative justification are rooted in Kant’s constructivism, as explicated by O’Neill. Hegel’s adaptation and development of Kant’s constructivism results in a powerful form of constructivism about moral principles which merits contemporary interest because it is more powerful and more objectivist than familiar contemporary forms of constructivism. (Slightly revised English translation by the author of „Objektive Gültigkeit zwischen Gegebenem und Gemachtem. Hegels kantischer Konstruktivismus in der praktischen Philosophie“). (shrink)

In the second half of this essay, I discuss the robust conception of rationality that lies at the heart of the Kantian version of Rationalist Constructivism – offering some reasons to prefer this conception to the more minimal accounts of rationality associated with Humean views. I then go on to discuss some of the potential metaethical advantages of the resulting form of constructivism.