En la ética y la filosofía política contemporáneas es común apelar a alguna for-ma de consenso hipotético para justificar contenidos normativos. En el presente artículo llamo a esta posición “contractualismo” y defiendo tres tesis al respecto. Primera, es correcta la objeción común al contractualismo de que la estipulación de un consenso hipotético en una situación ideal de deliberación no añade nada a la justificación del contenido normativo en cuestión. Segunda, esta objeción da pie a lo que llamo “el dilema contractualista”: (...) cuando hay una situación de des-acuerdo entre dos agentes sobre si un contenido normativo x es correcto, apelar a un acuerdo hipotético en condiciones ideales de deliberación como medio para justificar x, equivale a caer en petición de principio o a establecer una trivialidad. Tercera, a la luz del “dilema contractualista”, el contractualismo no debe ser en-tendido como un método de justificación normativa. (shrink)

John Rawls's account of Kantian constructivism is perhaps his most striking contribution to ethics. In this paper, I examine the relation between Rawls's constructivism and its foundation in Kantian intuitions. In particular, I focus on the progressive influence on Rawls's approach of the Kantian intuition that the substance of morality is best understood as constructed by free and equal people under fair conditions. Rawls's focus on this Kantian intuition, I argue, motivates the focus on social contract that grounds both his (...) accounts of the original position and of reflective equilibrium. Critics, including Onora O'Neill and Larry Krasnoff, object that Rawls's view distorts various aspects of Kantian moral reasoning. I argue that these objections (i) exaggerate the distinctions between Kant's and Rawls's decision procedures and (ii) reflect an unnecessarily constricted view of Kant's moral thought. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Survey of some recent literature on normativity, including nonreductionist, neo-Aristotelian, neo-Humean, expressivist, and constructivist views.

This essay explains for a general philosophical audience the central issues and strategies in the contemporary moral realism debate. It critically surveys the contribution of some recent scholarship, representing expressivist and pragmatist nondescriptivism, subjectivist and nonsubjectivist naturalism, nonnaturalism and error theory. Four different faces of ‘ moral realism ’ are distinguished: semantic, ontological, metaphysical, and normative. The debate is presented as taking shape under dialectical pressure from the demands of capturing the moral appearances and reconciling morality with our understanding of (...) the mind and world. (shrink)

More and more people seem to think that constructivism - in political philosophy, in moral philosophy, and perhaps in practical reasoning most generally - is the way to go. And yet it is surprisingly hard to even characterize the view. In this paper, I go to some lengths trying to capture the essence of a constructivist position - mostly in the realm of practical reason - and to pinpoint its theoretical attractions. I then give some reason to suspect that there (...) cannot be a coherent constructivist view about practical reason as a whole, at least not if it is to be interestingly constructivist, in a sense I make reasonably precise. (shrink)

There are at least two basic normative notions: rationality and reasons. The dominant normative account of reasons nowadays, which I call primitive pluralism about reasons, holds that some reasons are normatively basic and there is no underlying normative explanation of them in terms of other normative notions. Kantian constructivism about reasons, understood as a normative rather than a metaethical view, holds that rationality is the primitive normative notion that picks out which non-normative facts are reasons for what and explains why (...) those normative relations hold. By supposing that there is a plurality of primitive reasons, I argue that primitive pluralism about reasons lacks sufficient normative unity and structure. But Kantian constructivism about reasons faces a dilemma of its own: Either a conception of rationality is thick enough to capture the reasons of commonsense, in which case it cannot play the explanatory role assigned to it, or a conception of rationality is genuinely explanatory, in which case it is too thin to generate the reasons we recognize in commonsense. The aim of this paper is to suggest that if Kantian constructivism about reasons were built on a substantive, rather than merely formal, conception of rationality then it would stand a better chance at unifying the particular reasons we would endorse on due reflection. The groundwork I lay in this paper, I explain, is an essential first step in the larger project of developing a version of Kantian constructivism about reasons that might eventually explain all reasons in terms of rationality. (shrink)

Constructivism in ethics is the view that insofar as there are normative truths, for example, truths about what we ought to do, they are in some sense determined by an idealized process of rational deliberation, choice, or agreement. As a “first-order moral account”--an account of which moral principles are correct-- constructivism is the view that the moral principles we ought to accept or follow are the ones that agents would agree to or endorse were they to engage in a hypothetical (...) or idealized process of rational deliberation. As a “metaethical account” – an account of whether there are any normative truths and, if so, what they are like – constructivism holds that there are normative truths. These truths are not fixed by facts that are independent of the practical standpoint, however characterized; rather, they are constituted by what agents would agree to under some specified conditions of choice. In working to provide a more precise definition of constructivism in metaethics, the focus of this entry, one faces two main difficulties. The first difficulty is that constructivism comes in several varieties, each of which claims a different niche within metaethics, and some claim no space at all. The second difficulty concerns where to place constructivism on the metaethical map in relation to realism and anti-realism. These are terms of art, and it is highly contested which views count as realist and which as antirealist. These two difficulties will be addressed in what follows by focusing on the distinctive questions that constructivist theories are designed to answer. Section §1 defines the scope of constructivism in ethics, in contrast to constructivism in political theory. Sections §§2-5 illustrate the main varieties of metaethical constructivism, which are designed to account for the nature of normative truths and practical reasons. Section §6 presents the main varieties of constructivist accounts of the justification of moral judgments of right and wrong. Section §7 discusses the metaethical status of constructivism, and its distinctive import. (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)

Environmental philosophers have argued that Kant’s philosophy offers little for environmental issues. Furthermore, Kant scholars typically focus on humanity, ignoring the question of duties to the environment. In my dissertation, I turn to a number of underexploited texts in Kant’s work to show how both sides are misguided in neglecting the ecological potential of Kant, making the case for the green Kant at the intersection of Kant scholarship and environmental ethics. I build upon previous literature to argue that the green (...) Kant matters for both sides. Rather than a liability, Kant is indeed a conceptual resource. Though many conceive of Kant’s philosophy as environmentally problematic, I argue that underappreciated evolutionary, aesthetic, and holistic sides of Kant’s philosophy can provide conceptual resources for issues in climate change and environmental ethics. Some aspects, such as the pre-critical view of nature, are quite green and merely require an application, while others, such as Kant’s philosophy of history, require a green appropriation to be relevant. The theoretical foundations I develop in these texts will allow Kantians to articulate duties regarding nature and duties for sustainability. This re-thinking of Kant redresses the complaints environmental thinkers hold against Kant. By means of a philosophical interpretation, defense, and application of particular texts from Kant’s works such as Universal Natural History, Critique of Judgment, and Idea for a Universal History, I show how the greening of Kant is not only helpful for contemporary issues, but also defensible. This will make the green Kant agreeable to Kant scholars yet all the while relevant for today with regard to environmental ethics and, more importantly, climate change. (shrink)

The buck-passing account of value involves a positive and a negative claim. The positive claim is that to be good is to have reasons for a pro-attitude. The negative claim is that goodness itself is not a reason for a pro-attitude. Unlike Scanlon, Parfit rejects the negative claim. He maintains that goodness is reason-providing, but that the reason provided is not an additional reason, additional, that is, to the reason provided by the good-making property. I consider various ways in which (...) this may be understood and reject all of them. So I conclude that buck-passers cannot reject the negative claim. (shrink)

This Thesis reconsiders the prospects for an approach to global justice centring on the proposal that every human being should possess a certain bundle of goods, which would include certain members of a distinctive category: the category of capabilities. My overall aim is to present a clarified and well-developed framework, within which such claims can be made. To do this, I visit a number of regions of normative and metanormative theorising. I begin by introducing the motivations for the capability approach, (...) and clarifying some of its most distinctive features. Next, I focus on Martha Nussbaum's version of the approach, and identify several problems therein. The most important concerns epistemology, and especially the challenges that constructivist theories pose. The middle part of the Thesis presents an alternative, based on the work of John McDowell, which I argue has superior prospects. Then, I turn to two further problems: that of making sense of the universalistic aspirations of cosmopolitanism, and that of integrating the microscopic prescriptions of ethics with the macroscopic analyses of political philosophy. Using the Aristotelian interpretation of its core framework that I have developed, I conclude that the capability approach can provide compelling answers to important questions about global justice. (shrink)